Milton, Ontario, September 2, 2026
L to R: Met. Mitrofan, Met. Teodosije, Bp. Irinej. Photo: istocnik.ca
A Serbian Orthodox hierarch from Kosovo recently visited monasteries in both Canada and the United States.
His Eminence Metropolitan Teodosije of Raška and Prizren’s North American visit began at Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Milton, Ontario, where he presided over the Divine Liturgy for the patronal feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on August 19, reports the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Canada.
The Metropolitan was invited by the local hierarch His Eminence Mitrofan of Toronto and Metropolitan of Canada. His Grace Bishop Irinej of Washington and New York and Eastern America concelebrated alongside them, along with a large number of priests. Metropolitan Teodosije was accompanied throughout his trip by Archimandrite Andrej, abbot of the Crna Reka Monastery.
The memorial room dedicated to St. Nikolai at St. Tikhon’s Seminary. Photo: easterndiocese.org
From Milton, Metropolitan Teodosije and Fr. Andrej traveled to St. Tikhon’s Monastery and Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, where His Eminence Archbishop Michael of New York and New Jersey, rector of the seminary, and Protopresbyter John Parker, dean of the institution, received them. Metropolitan Teodosije became the first visitor to sign the seminary’s new guestbook, a practice the hosts adopted after a recent pilgrimage to Serbia introduced them to the tradition.
The visitors toured a memorial room the seminary calls the Shrine of Holy Hierarch Nikolai, located in the room where St. Nikolai of Ohrid and Žiča spent his final years and reposed in 1956. St. Nikolai had served at the seminary first as a professor and later as its rector.
At the monastery cemetery, Metropolitan Teodosije and Fr. Andrej also visited and prayed at the grave of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, the longtime dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary.
easterndiocese.org
St. Tikhon’s Monastery, founded in 1905 with the blessing of St. Tikhon (then the Orthodox hierarch in North America and later Patriarch of Moscow), is the oldest Orthodox monastery in North America. Metropolitan Teodosije and Fr. Andrej met with the monastery’s abbot, Archimandrite Sergius, and its brotherhood of twenty monks, all but two of whom came to Orthodoxy later in life.
The visit also included a meeting with Archimandrite Nektarios (Serfes), who’s now cared for by the monks of St. Tikhon’s. In 1998, Fr. Nektarios founded a fund to assist the Visoki Dečani Monastery in Kosovo, and for nearly three decades the fund has channeled aid to families, children, the elderly, the sick, schools, and monastic communities throughout Kosovo and Metohija, distributed through the Visoki Dečani brotherhood. Metropolitan Teodosije conveyed the gratitude of the Diocese of Raška and Prizren and the Visoki Dečani brotherhood to Fr. Nektarios for his decades of support.
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