Grace-filled Days at New Stjenik Monastery
Over these past few days, our monastic community partook of an overflowing shower of grace, which the Lord, not without a reason, compassionately shed upon our monastery and all those present. The source of this much grace was the tonsure of our sister, Novice Sara, now Nun Ekaterina, and the long-awaited elevation of our Mother Efrosinia to the rank of Abbess. The presence of Vladika Tikhon, Archbishop of the RTOC, Mother Efrosinia, the deputy of the Lesna Abbess Macrina, the Allen family (the family of newly-tonsured Mati Ekaterina), along with our own STOC clergy, monastics, and many faithful, doubled the majesty of these events.
We would especially like to mention that this was the first visit of the first hierarch of the RTOC, His Reverence Archbishop Tikhon, to the Serbian True Orthodox Church. Vladika Tikhon showed great love and self-sacrifice, as after a long and exhausting journey to Australia, then to France, and to the Lesna Monastery, though he is ill, he scraped up the strength to grant us the honor and joy of being present at one of the greatest events of our monastery, the raising to the rank of Abbess Mati Efrosinia, the first abbess of New Stjenik Monastery.
From our sisterhood, Bishop Tikhon was given as a gift an icon of St. Sava, the work of our icon studio. We were not able to offer anything else as a thanks for his great love and support of our Church. We will never be able to forget the understanding and help which the RTOC offered us when it was most needed at the last hour. By ordaining a Serbian Bishop (2011, Lesna Monastery), the Russians unconditionally made possible the historical independence of the Serbian Church, proving that they completely worthy of and justify having the name of brothers to the Serbs, and true Christians, not just in word but in deed.
During the Vespers service on the eve of the feast of St. Simon the Monk (brother of St. Sava), Novice Sara was tonsured into the angelic image, with the name Ekaterina, in honor of St. Ekaterina of Lesna. Our sister from America, after a three years’ fight and conquering herself, taking on the not-so-easy podvig of exile, so far from home, showed her readiness to engage in war with the World, devil and flesh, and took up her Cross on her shoulders to follow the Lord.
The tonsure always makes a deep and unforgettable impression on everyone. For there, before our eyes, mystically occurs the death and resurrection of a man’s soul. The death is clear to everyone, but to many the resurrection is not as understandable and clear. The old man with all of his sins dies, and before the eyes of all is born a new man, pure and cleansed for Christ. This purity must be preserved, however, and a hard, painful, and bloody war, with many renunciations, awaits you. This is the essence of monastic life, however: unceasing labor to keep the vows which you made on the tonsure, not only in words, but in deeds. For we all know our Lord’s words from the Gospel: Faith without Works is dead. The monastic fight is hard, for monastics make vows which completely oppose fallen human nature and the established norms of human life. That is how it was when monasticism first came into being, and how much more so is this true now when human morals and belief in God have vanished almost entirely… But the Lord helps those who struggle to serve Him and follow the straight and narrow way of salvation, fulfilling the commandments of the Gospel.
The most exciting moment for us sisters is the moment when the one presented for tonsured is given a new monastic name.
According to our monastery’s tradition, three folded papers with different names are placed in the altar. On one is written our Vladika’s choice for a name, then on one Mati’s, and the last, the sisters’. At the specific moment, Vladika takes these papers and offers them to our mother abbess to pick one. Mati chooses one of the papers and gives it to Vladika, who then out loud reads the name, always a perfect fit for the new nun who through repentance and the forgiveness of their sins is born again in Christ. As the service itself says, one receives a NEW BAPTISM, and from then on lives only for Christ. This time the newly-tonsured one was given the name of Ekaterina, after the Venerable Mother Catherine of Lesna. At the choice of this name, blessed by God Himself, we all felt that St. Ekaterina “entered” our community and that she would from that moment on keep watch over us. Our connection with the holy Lesna Monastery has now only been confirmed and deepened. St. Ekaterina, the renewer of Serbian women’s monasticism, showed that she is still protecting Serbia and our women’s monasticism, and is caring for its development.
Newly-tonsured Mati Ekaterina, after the touching and moving order of the tonsure, remained in the church with her seven angels (who came to her when she became a bride of Christ) to pray for us and the entire world. For having been cleansed of her sins by this new baptism, she has great daring before God, and her prayers fly unhindered directly before the throne of our Creator. The rest of us returned from “heaven” to “reality” and reassumed our daily obligations, still keeping Christ in our hearts. Hurried preparations began for Mati’s namesday, which we celebrate festively every year, as just on that day we were thrown out of our old mother-monastery Stjenik, on Jelica Mountain, by the Serbian Patriarch for an Orthodox confession of faith, opposed to today’s ecumenist principles, to which the Patriarch stubbornly holds.
It has aready been mentioned that just on this day Mati was to be raised to the rank of abbess. It had been so long that we yearned for this moment. The custom is that she who is to be enthroned as an abbess must be presented by another abbess. Nothing happens by chance. Just as on the previous day our newly-tonsured sister was named after the Venerable Ekaterina, the first abbess of Lesna, so on Monday, Mati Efrosinia, the representative of Lesna Abbess Macrina and future abbess, led our Mati Efrosinia before Bishop Akakije to receive the abbess’ pectoral cross and staff.
This is for us, as well for the history of True Orthodoxy in Serbia, a very important fact that the first True Orthodox abbess was enthroned by a Serbian Bishop (the first True Orthodox Serbian bishop after more than half a century). That is something which we always warmly wished for, though only two years ago we would never have dreamed that our wish could come true. Now that things have come to their proper place, we don’t know how to thank God for His overwhelming mercy and care.
The STOC was given fullness and power through its Serbian Bishop. It is visible and obvious to all that the Church has to begun to grow physically, but especially, spiritually, going from strength to strength, carried on the wings of grace which flow through our bishop, who represents Christ on earth. In the same way, when Mati received the rank of abbes and “officially” took up that Cross before Christ, which as we all know she has already carried for so long, she received, we believe, grace and power from Christ, in order to carry that heavy cross with ease and fulfill the many obligations and duties of an abbess.
We sisters are convinced that through our Mother Abbess an even greater grace and protection will come down upon us and our monastery, and that it, like the Serbian Church with its bishop, from now on will grow and flourish spiritually until it becomes an indestructible spiritual fortress. The Holy Fathers say that with the rank of abbess a gift of clairvoyance is received, that is, the abbot (or abbess) can clearly and fully see the spiritual state of his children and to determine perfectly what kind of medicine is needed for each one. Thus we believe that from now on, the demons will flee from Mati even more and from the power which surges from her, and fleeing from her they will flee from us who are beneath her abbess’ pastoral protection.
At last, a hierarchy is being born for our much-suffering holy mother Church, and for us, her children, we have only to accept and respect it whole-heartedly as ordained by God. Glory to the Lord who deemed us unworthy ones to be the witnesses and participants of these historically vital events, which, we hope and believe, indicate the spiritual rebirth of Serbia.
We offer our immeasurable thanks to Archbishop Tikhon who made such an effort to come to Serbia. A deep prostration to Him, a good pastor, and to Matushka Efrosinia of Lesna, as well as all the clergy, monastics, and faithful brothers and sisters who shared this joy with us, and made no small effort to reach the inaccessible crags of these Kuchai mountains. Over these days we all truly felt like one big spiritual family, and even if there were people from Russia, America, France, Romania and different parts of Serbia, we were all like one body whose head is Christ. In such moments as these, man in the true sense can say that he feels and understands the true meaning of COMMUNITY, and it seems to him that these kinds of feelings are a foretaste of Paradise, which God granted to us through the prayers of His Most Holy Mother, the Holy Forerunner John, the Venerable Mother Efrosinia of Alexandria, the Venerable Mother Ekaterina of Lesna, and all the saints, Amen. May our joy always be in the Lord.
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