Statement by Father Peter Scorer after his ordination to the priesthood at St Anne’s Church, Exeter, on 1st February 2020

I stand here before you with fear and trepidation. I also stand here with hope and love. We have just now celebrated the divine Eucharist, which is above all the prayer of Thanksgiving, and I now want to give thanks. But there are so many people I need to thank that we may stay here all afternoon and you will never get to your food.

First of all and in all seriousness, I thank our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother. Also my patron saint the holy apostle Peter. Christ asked Peter after his resurrection saying 'Peter do you love me'? and Peter said 'Yes Lord I do'. And the Lord said 'feed my sheep'.

I must also thank those in the heavens above, those who have departed this life: my father, my mother and my grandparents. Especially Paul my father, who laid down his life in the war and another Paul, my father-in-law, who was an Orthodox priest and laid down his life as a martyr in the Soviet gulag. . I want to thank my spiritual fathers and above all the ever-memorable Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, who brought me up from my youngest days in the Sunday school and whom I was privileged to lead to his grave into the next world. Also my teacher, Father Alexander Schmemann who is to my mind one of the greatest of all theologians. All of these I thank and ask for their prayers and intercessions from the world that is to come.

I thank my dearest friend and co-worker, the Priest John Marks, with whom I have served for almost half a century. He is now ill, and in great need of our prayers as is his wife Dawn. Also our dear Father Nikanor, a faithful servant of this parish, and who in the last year has celebrated the Divine Liturgy when we had no other priest. I want to thank in particular my family, my wife and my children without whose help and support I would not have survived even as a server let alone a deacon. Last, but not least, I thank you, Archbishop Nikitas, for coming here and making me a servant of God.

In all these 47 years that I have been a deacon, I have stood on this side of the holy screen, and I have led you in prayer. I have always loved that task because I felt that I was above all a part of the community, working with this community, leading you towards the holy altar. Now I ask you all for your prayers because I will be standing in front of that holy altar and will be bringing, mercifully, I hope, the grace of God to you.

Thank you.

Father Peter Scorer