Source: Interfax-Religion
Moscow, September 23, 2016
"I initiated that each father superior and each mother superior have a staff (a symbol of spiritual authority -IF), but I never imagined that hegumens and abbesses would turn them into patriarchal staffs, would richly decorate them, would put a cross on them. I did not bless such staffs. You should have an ordinary hegumen staff, without decorations, without jewelry," the patriarch said on Thursday at his meeting with the heads of the monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.
"When you go home, the first thing you should do is order ordinary staffs similar to the one that was in Holy Metropolitan Peter's hands," he said.
According to the primate, father superiors and mother superiors should think more about the ascetic life, not about comfortable conditions.
"I do not think that the way of life of hegumens and abbesses of the olden times who organized monasteries radically differed from the lifestyle of ordinary monks and nuns. Everyone should clearly understand this. If there is no such understanding, you'd do better not to become a mother superior or father superior," he said.
I certainly hope he has practiced what he preaches.