Zvečani, Kosovo, July 28, 2026
Photo: spc.rs
The Devina Voda Monastery in Kosovo and Metohija held its first monastic tonsure since its founding, on the feast of the Icon of the Theotokos Of Three Hands, the monastery’s patronal feast, on July 25.
His Eminence Metropolitan Teodosije of Raška and Prizren presided over the Divine Liturgy at the monastery. Before the Liturgy began, he tonsured novice Ivan Adamović into the lesser schema, giving him the name Simeon, after St. Simeon the God-Receiver, reports the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Archimandrite Andrej, abbot of the Crna Reka Monastery, presented the novice for tonsure, attesting to his mature and firm intention to take up the monastic struggle.
Met. Teodosije thanked Archimandrite Andrej and the brotherhood of Crna Reka Monastery, noting that Crna Reka has served as a nursery of monasticism, having helped revive numerous monasteries and monastic communities in the eparchy, with Devina Voda now among them.
In his remarks, the Metropolitan recalled that St. John of Damascus once received healing through the Theotokos, and said that many in the Church of God likewise receive healing through the Mother of God and her icons, of which there are many throughout Orthodoxy.
He said the faithful should consider how many of their spiritual hands have been severed by sin and passion, and should turn to the Theotokos for healing through repentance, prayer, humility, love, forgiveness and mercy, since the spiritual is far more important than the temporal and passing.
He said the monastery’s dedication to the Theotokos and her icon Of Three Hands further binds the community to Hilandar Monastery and to that icon, adding that such continuity reflects the practice of the holy forefathers, since all spiritual beauty came from Mount Athos.
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