Your Holiness Stefan, Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia,
Honorable President of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Mr. Kambovski
Distinguished Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the very beginning, let me extend to you, to the participants and institutions bearing the name of St. Clement and to all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, my congratulations on tomorrow’s great religious and national holiday.

Distinguished guests,
This year in St. Sophia we celebrated 45 years of the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid – the Macedonian Orthodox Church. We also celebrated 45 years since the establishment of this temple of science and art – the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The link binding these two pillars of Macedonian authenticity is the work of St. Clement of Ohrid, the first Slavic Archbishop, founder of the first Slavic university, saint and teacher who fed, through education, the hungry and thirsty for knowledge, truth and wisdom.

As many new buildings are built on the foundations of old houses, each generation surpasses the previous one, since it stands on the shoulders of the previous generation. Part of the foundation of our generation is set upon the works of the Slavic educators.

At a time when many had eyes but failed to see, and had ears but failed to hear, when illiteracy reigned in Europe, the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius emerged as “light of the darkened, teachers of youth” and with their mission they “made the darkness disappear, enlightened people with literacy”, as it is written in their hagiographies.

Their work was continued and upgraded by St. Clement and his spiritual brother St. Naum. They, in our spiritual and cultural capital, founded the Ohrid Literary School, the oldest Slavic University. University which became a literary hub of the Slavic language. University which is shining like a lamp throughout history, conveying the work of the Thessaloniki brothers from one to another generation in all Slavic countries. University which today, 11 centuries after the death of St. Clement, is restored.

We, as human beings, are subject to natural laws. Every one of us is born, grows, develops and dies. However, we will only be remembered for what we leave behind. We, like many generations before us, remember St. Clement because of what he left us as a lasting legacy.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Every generation has its own struggle. St. Clement’s struggle was with illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual and intellectual blindness. Today, we dispose of knowledge, literacy and information. In the academic 2011/2012, there are approximately 200,000 students in primary and secondary schools, and at the 14 public and private universities in the Republic of Macedonia, about 58,000 students enrolled in the undergraduate studies. In the higher education institutions in the Republic of Macedonia, there are about 3,600 teachers and associates. With the Bologna Process, Macedonian students are part of the single European educational space. About 55% of the households in the Republic of Macedonia have access to Internet. Around 940,000 Macedonian citizens are using Facebook. But also, we live in a time when science gathers and generates knowledge faster than the society can wisely make use of it. However, knowledge without wisdom is unproductive.

Therefore, the struggle of our generation is to invest the accumulated intellectual capital in the youth. To apply and to put the accumulated knowledge in function of creating advanced, European Macedonia, and of meeting the real needs of the citizens. The wisdom left to us by St. Clement can help us in this regard. Wisdom we can understand only if we dive into the depth of his epistles, lessons and hagiographies, but also out of his life.

The following is what was written for St. Clement by his disciples: "We have never seen him idle, he was either teaching children, in different ways - showing the forms of the letters to some of them, explaining the meaning of what is written to others, and telling third how to write, not only during the day, but also at night, or he was praying, or reading, or writing books, and sometimes he simultaneously worked on two things: writing and conveying certain knowledge to children because he knew that idleness is teacher of all evil, as told by one of its servants - the wisdom, the teacher of all good".

I would like to emphasize two key messages. Idleness is teacher of all evil, while wisdom is teacher of all good. This great truth echoes through the ages and is equally important today in our globalized world. This is a moral lesson for all pupils, for all students, for all teachers, for everyone willing to learn and to develop. Therefore, let's go for the wisdom, let us not be idle. Through new technologies and the Internet, all world libraries and all human knowledge is at our disposal today.

Distinguished guests,
We live in turbulent times in which the pace of life leaves almost no room to think of our behavior towards other people and their behavior towards us. St. Clement teaches us to compete in kindness. In his teaching about Jesus' Birth, St. Clement writes: "Let us be sober and with clear conscience enter into God's body and blood, free of enmity against anyone; relieved of hypocritical love, but rather, to respect each other from the heart, and thus, be the sons of the Almighty and participants in the Heavenly Kingdom..."

The overall work of St. Clement leads us to the highest ethical values and principles. To have personal and professional integrity. To be responsible, because every entitlement implies responsibility. Our responsibility is to protect and promote the right that many centuries ago was obtained by the All-Slavic saints and teachers and which was strengthened by St. Clement of Ohrid - the right of the people to speak, write and read its own language. To abide by the laws and rules, and to respect others if we want others to respect us. In our diligence, commitment to the execution of tasks and the will to take actions, we need to resemble St. Clement of Ohrid. These are features of virtuous people; such is the wish of the great educator to shape the students from his university accordingly.

As "a good tiller of good roots", he invested his entire earthly life to provide enlightenment to those who had eyes but failed to see, and had ears but failed to hear, and had a language, but failed to speak. Even today, St. Clement is the helmsman of our language, corrector of our words. We must never forget that all generations from then till now result of that investment. Every spoken thought, every written and read word, every published book in our Macedonian language is fruit of the seed sown by the educators. Maybe that is the reason why St. Clement in the frescos and icons is always depicted with a big head, because among the people, he is a synonym of brain, science and knowledge. People had great respect for the great teacher.

That brings us to another great message we have inherited from St. Clement: respect for the ancestors, for the teachers, for those who helped understand the world and our position in it.

To understand the student, one should understand his teacher first. Constantine the Philosopher said: "For me, there is nothing more important than learning. Through learning I will gain wisdom and will seek for ancestral honor and wealth". For St. Methodius, indeed, he wrote that "he shines like the sun with his enlightenment words and teachings".

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The harvest is plentiful, but the harvesters are few. The seed sown by Cyril and Methodius has given rich fruit. The first Harvester was Clement of Ohrid. Even today we nourish ourselves with the spiritual and intellectual food left by our great teacher. It is up to us to preserve his legacy and to enrich it further with knowledge and wisdom and than transfer it to the coming generations.

Thank you.