Rating: 10|Votes: 1
The history of Sretensky Monastery—its apogee, its desolation in the twentieth century, and its rebirth at the end of an era, in the early 1990’s—is rich and diverse. But we can always find the Lord’s instruction in whatever might happen. Here are just a few incidents from the monastery’s recent history.
My mama couldn’t accept it at first. But when she saw where I live and work, and had the chance to talk to people here, she told me, “You know, son, you can stay here as long as you need to.” When I asked how she came to that decision, she answered, “All the young men here actually radiate love, and between you are the kind of relationships which I have always wanted to create in our family. We’ve achieved it in our family to a certain extent, but the ideal I’ve seen only here with you all.”
On 28 April 2009, His Beatitude, Archbishop of Washington and New York, Metropolitan of All America and Canada JONAH visited Moscow’s Sretensky Stavropegial Monastery. The First-Hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was greeted with the singing of “Christ is Risen” by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, superior of Sretensky Monastery, along with the brotherhood, seminarians of Sretensky Theological Seminary, and well-wishing parishioners.
We see already the beginning of a new epoch in the life of the Orthodox Church of America. And we perceive this with tremendous enthusiasm. Metropolitan Jonah has been able to unite under his omophorion very different kinds of people, and that takes tremendous wisdom and strength of prayer. I feel sure that this has come about because of his monastic leavening. He is a sincere and genuine monk. We thank God that now in the American Church there is such a First-Hierarch, who prayerfully unites us all.
Interview with Reader Mikhail Ivanovich, spokesman for the online native Alaskan linguistic project of All Saints of North America Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.