Optina Pustyn, August 4, 2020
Indonesian and Filipino students studying in the theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church are visiting Optina Pustyn, Pravoslavie.ru reports.
With the blessing of the Moscow Patriarchal Exarch of South-Eastern Asia, Metropolitan Sergius of Singapore and South-East Asia, the students will be undertaking a pilgrimage from July 24 to August 7, to the famous monastery frequented by great writers such as Gogol and Dostoyevsky.
The group was accompanied by Hieromonk Pitirim (Dondenko), secretary of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Southeast Asia.
On July 28, the students together with Father Pitirim visited the St. John the Baptist Skete. In the skete church, the pilgrims sang the troparion of the Synaxis of the Venerable Optina Elders, and then they visited the cell of the Venerable Ambrose of Optina. The brothers told them about the peculiarities of the skete life and the liturgical system introduced by the Optina elders.
On August 2, the 8th week after Pentecost, the feast day of the Prophet Elijah, the abbot of Optina Pustyn, Bishop Leonid of Mozhaisk celebrated the Divine Liturgy together with the guests.
Liturgical hymns in Indonesian and Filipino were sung by the Asian seminarians. At the end of the service, Vladyka Leonid spoke with the students.
During their stay at the monastery, seminarians perform monastic obediences, and get acquainted with the way of life of the famous Russian monastery and the Optina monastic tradition.
