Valaam Monastery Celebrates Twenty-seventh Anniversary of Revival of Monastic Life

Source: Monasterium.ru

Valaam, December 13, 2016

    

On December 13, 2016, the feast-day of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, the Stavropegic Valaam Monastery of the Transfiguration celebrated the twenty-seventh anniversary of the rebirth of monastic life on Valaam.

In 1989, the first six monks arrived to restore Valaam Monastery. These were Hieromonks Barsanuphius (Kapralov), Gerontius (Fedorenko), Photius (Begal), Hierodeacon Seraphim (Gordeyev), and novices Leonid Makarov and Vadim Erlikh. With the coming of the first monks, spiritual life began anew on the island, and services were resumed at the Church of Venerable Sergius and Herman of Valaam, the Wonder-workers.

    

“More than a quarter-century—that is a whole generation,” noted Bishop Pankraty of Troitsk, Abbot of Valaam Monastery. “Now I am happy to see the same pilgrims who visited the monastery nearly thirty years ago and were baptized and entered into the Orthodox Church. I see their children too: now they are adults and many of them have their own families. And now we are baptizing their children. This really gladdens us! Today the second generation of Christian families who found the true faith owing to Valaam Monastery is growing up.

    

“For centuries, the brethren of Valaam Monastery has preserved a tradition according to which the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called stopped here, on Valaam, during his travels through the vast expanse of the future Holy Rus’. In memory of this monastery’s tradition, the great builder of Valaam Monastery, Abbot Damascene, in the mid-nineteenth century built a chapel in honor of Apostle Andrew the First-Called and a memorial cross here. Later, when this site was visited by the prominent Russian merchant and benefactor Innocent (later Schema-Monk Innocent) Mikhailovich Sibiryakov (1860-1901) shortly before his move to the St. Andrew’s Skete on Holy Mount Athos, his heart was filled with the desire to build a Church in honor of Apostle Andrew the First-Called. Thanks to his contribution a fine church was constructed here.

    

“Valaam was predestined by God to be a place of solitary monastic prayer, a place of ascetic labors—and we should always keep this in mind. We mustn’t grow slack but endure all the temporary hardships and temptations, all the sorrows which are inevitable on the monastic path for the sake of the promise of Christ, Who said, He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved (Mt. 24:13) and Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven (Mt. 5:12).”

  

Translation by Dimitry Lapa

Monasterium.ru

12/16/2016

See also
Valaam monks gather first grain harvest in seventy-seven years Valaam monks gather first grain harvest in seventy-seven years Valaam monks gather first grain harvest in seventy-seven years Valaam monks gather first grain harvest in seventy-seven years
From 1939 on Valaam’s arable land was overgrown with tall weeds and underbrush. Fifteen years ago the restoration of monastic farming and the methodical reclamation of land on Valaam began. Specialists were found in neighboring Finland where the conditions are similar and lighter technical equipment is produced which is suitable for the waterlogged fields of the island. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill consecrated on Valaam chapel in honor of All Saints of Valaam His Holiness Patriarch Kirill consecrated on Valaam chapel in honor of All Saints of Valaam His Holiness Patriarch Kirill consecrated on Valaam chapel in honor of All Saints of Valaam His Holiness Patriarch Kirill consecrated on Valaam chapel in honor of All Saints of Valaam
“May God help you, continuing the tradition of our ancestors, to strengthen the Orthodox faith and piety in our people and to pray to God that the Lord would hear our prayers and grant His grace,” His Holiness said in conclusion, addressing himself to the brothers of the monastery. "A Theologian by Virtue of Thy Life in God"—St Nazarius of Valaam
Deacon Aaron Taylor "A Theologian by Virtue of Thy Life in God"—St. Nazarius of Valaam
Deacon Aaron Taylor
St. Nazarius was first and foremost a solitary ascetic and afterwards a father of monks. When he re-established Valaam, he took care to reintroduce all three modes of monastic life: coenobitism, the skete life, and anchoretism. According to his Life, “He began the building of the Great Skete in the woods beyond the Monastery enclosure as well as other sketes, and encouraged anchorites—making himself the first example of eremitic life.” As a “monk’s monk,” St. Nazarius was different from many of the famous elders of subsequent decades.
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