Kiev, June 18, 2018
The Orthodox Church in former USSR and communist lands is continuing to revive, with parishes and monasteries being built and rebuilt and more people joining the Church and more going deeper into the faith of the Church. This leaves much for the Church to celebrate.
The most recent of these celebrations took place on Sunday, when His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Protection-Goloseevsky Monastery in Kiev on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the revival of monastic life there, reports the site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Ukrainian primate was also joined by 18 other hierarchs, including Metropolitan Vladimir of Chișinău and All Moldova, the clergy of the monastery, and a number of visiting clergy. The consecration of Archimandrite Spyridon (Golovastov) as the bishop of Dobropole also took place during the festive service.
During the Little Entrance, His Beatitude awarded the clergy of the monastery with various liturgical decorations. A prayer for peace in Ukraine was also read during the Liturgy.
At the end of the service, Met. Onuphry addressed the newly-consecrated Bp. Spyridon with a word of inspiration and handed him his bishop’s staff. Bp. Spyridon then gave his first archpastoral blessing.
The Goloseevsky Monastery was also recently blessed with the glorification among the saints of one of its holy elders. The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved at its November-December session to add Venerable Alexei Goloseevsky of Kiev (March 11/24) to its liturgical calendar.
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In the 1930s, the monastery, which was then a skete of the Kiev Caves Lavra, was closed, all the buildings were looted, and the monks were expelled, some being shot. When the territory was returned to the Lavra in 1993, one monk—the current abbot of the monastery, Vladyka Isaac—and four novices were sent to the ruined monastery. In the same year, the relics of St. Alexei of Goloseevsky were discovered, and a house church was opened in honor of St. John the Long-Suffering of the Kiev Caves. In 1996, according to the decision of the Holy Synod, the Goloseevsky Hermitage became an independent monastery. The Church of the Life-giving Spring and the monastic cemetery were restored and new churches and residential and administrative buildings were built. There is now also a spiritual-professional school where more than 200 students learn iconography, wood carving, carpentry, sewing, and cooking.
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