Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church took part in celebrations in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery

Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church took part in celebrations in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church took part in celebrations in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery print version August 29, 2019 18:02 On August 22, 2019, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, a group of hierarchs and clergy of the Serbian Patriarchate arrived on pilgrimage to the shrines of the Russian North: Bishop Irenaeus of Bach, the rector of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Moscow, Bishop Anthony of Moravia, Archbishop Bishop of Bavaria Bach diocese archpriest Vladan Simich. The guests were accompanied by A. Yu., a member of the Secretariat of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate for Inter-Orthodox Relations Khoshev. On August 23-26, pilgrims from the Serbian Orthodox Church visited the Transfiguration of Valaam Stauropegial Monastery , where they worshiped the shrines of the monastery and visited the monastery’s monasteries, and on August 25, when the Council of Valaam Saints was celebrated, Bishop Irenei of Bacs led the Divine Liturgy in Transfiguration the cloister. On August 26-27, guests from Serbia visited Pskov, bowing to the shrines of the Trinity Cathedral and visiting a number of historical churches of the city: they also visited the Transfiguration of the Savior Mirozhsky Monastery and got acquainted with the temples and sights of Izborsk. On August 27, Bishop Irenaeus of Bach and his entourage arrived at the Assumption Pskov-Pechersky Monastery , where they were warmly received by Metropolitan Pskov and Porkhov Tikhon and the brotherhood of the monastery. On August 28, on the feast day of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery, a large gathering of believers was performed on the square in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael of God, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk , Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhovskiy, hierarch of the Serbian Church Irenaeus, Moravian Anthony and Mochac Hesychius. At the end of the service of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, guests from the Serbian Orthodox Church and all participants in the celebration were warmly welcomed by the head of the Pskov Metropolitanate and the Archimandrite of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery Metropolitan Tikhon. In a speech to the DECR chairman, he noted, in particular: “Your young years passed here, too, in the Pskov-Pechersk monastery ... We are very glad that you returned here many decades later and pray to the Most Holy Theotokos to be in this special Her day has given you special powers, joy, peace - all that the Queen of Heaven so abundantly bestows upon any sincere heart that comes to Her, especially on the days of Her great holidays. We ask your holy prayers and we will always be glad to see you in the Pskov-Pechersk monastery. ” Addressing the hierarchs of the Serbian Church, Metropolitan Tikhon also said: “We ask your holy prayers, thank you that you are with us on this day.” In response, the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, said: “Your Eminence, Dear Vladyka Metropolitan Tikhon! Your Eminences, dear fathers, dear brothers and sisters! I would like to heartily congratulate you all on the great feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to convey to you the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Now we are celebrating a very special holiday. It is no coincidence that all the ancient cathedrals in Russia were Assumption - this is due to a special reverent veneration, which the Blessed Virgin Mary has used in our holy land since the Baptism of Russia. The Mother of God has given us many great and indescribable gifts. And the greatest gift that She has endowed us with is Her Divine Son. We know that the Son of God came into the world, because such was the favor of God the Father: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3.16). By His love, God the Father granted us His Only Begotten Son. But the Blessed Virgin Mary was the One through whom the Divine Son was born into the world - She gave life to the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. From Her and from the Holy Spirit He was born, as we confess in the Creed. Therefore, we can call the Lord Jesus Christ Her gift to us all. She also gave us herself, because she has become a heavenly mother for all of us. And throughout the liturgical year, starting from the September feast of the Nativity of the Virgin and right up to the August feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, prayers dedicated to Her are heard at every service, and in our homely, secret cell prayer, we also constantly speak to the Queen of Heaven, because we know that She hears our prayers, answers them and comes to us when it is difficult for us and when it is easy, when we are sad and when we have fun, when we are healthy and when we are ill. She comes to the aid of our loved ones when we Her pray for them. The Blessed Virgin Mary is always with us. And whenever we gather in the temple of God in order to honor the Mother of God on the days of Her holidays, we especially feel Her closeness. And, of course, here, in this ancient monastery, which is dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on this holy holiday we feel Her closeness especially strongly. We offer prayers to Her, asking that She cover all of us from all evil with Her honest omophorion, that She will bow to us and to our land the grace of God, that She will pray for all of us at the Throne of Her Divine Son and at the Throne of God the Father. We pray that the Blessed Virgin Mary will cover our loved ones, our parents, our friends, and our entire earth with Her omophorion. With a special feeling today, I have performed the Divine Liturgy here. About forty years ago, as a young man, I first crossed the threshold of this monastery and I remember well the ever-memorable father John (Krestyankin), at whose grave we prayed yesterday, other elders of the monastery. I remember how the spiritual life in this monastery flourished in those years when the authorities did everything possible to eradicate faith from the hearts of people and prevent it from becoming stronger. And here, within the walls of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery, people seemed to be torn from that reality, they fell into another kingdom. And every time I crossed the threshold of this monastery, I felt it - both in those years and now, forty years later. I am very glad that it is for you, dear Vladyka Tikhon, that the Hierarchy of our Church has been entrusted with being the ruling bishop of the Pskov diocese and at the same time as the holy archimandrite of this holy monastery. In the same years when I came here as a young man, you, also a young man, lived here, you were a novice in the monastery. You knew all the elders of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery and many years later created a wonderful film about them. It is no coincidence that the choice of His Holiness the Patriarch fell on you when the question arose of replacing the Pskov diocesan department and, almost simultaneously, the question of appointing the head priest of the Pskov-Pechersky monastery. You deservedly received this obedience, but it is not only responsible, but also difficult. I had the opportunity to visit several churches in Pskov yesterday and saw what a deplorable state they are: architectural monuments that crumble walls that slide to water, which require urgent and costly labor so that they do not collapse, but saved. I sincerely and sincerely wish you, Master, God's help in this very difficult obedience. May the Lord help you both in your efforts to revive this diocese and in your efforts to manage this sacred and dear monastery for our hearts. Today I am very pleased to welcome guests from the Serbian Orthodox Church - Bishop Bishop Irenaeus, Bishop Bishop Anthony, Bishop Bishop Ishihii with companions who arrived on our land in order to worship the shrines of the Russian North. They have already visited Valaam, now they are here in the Pskov-Pechersk monastery, and then they will go to St. Petersburg - our northern capital. The Serbian Orthodox Church has always been close to the Russian Orthodox Church. Our peoples are faithful and consanguineous. We feel this closeness especially now, when the Russian Church was aggressed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which invaded the sacred borders of our Church - Ukraine - in spite of all church canons and all canonical and historical Tradition. Not a single Local Orthodox Church recognized this lawless act of the Patriarch of Constantinople. And the Serbian Church immediately raised her voice against this act, and today we are opposed to the ongoing lawlessness, praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would stop this turmoil in the Orthodox Church. For each Divine Liturgy, we now offer special prayers for the unity of the Orthodox Church. We believe that the events will not shake our Russian Orthodox Church, nor the world Orthodox Church. There were Constantinople heretic patriarchs in the history of the Church, there were Constantinople patriarchs who became apostates from Orthodoxy, there were Constantinople Uniate patriarchs, and the Church both stood and will stand. And no one can shake our holy Orthodox faith - we testify of it with our whole lives. And the fact that you, dear brothers and sisters, today gathered in such a multitude in the Pskov-Pechersk monastery to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an eloquent and visible evidence of the strength of our faith. Having completed the Divine Liturgy, we will go on a journey around the walls of the holy monastery and will go through it with prayers and chants, with the reading of the Gospel. We will go this way after the Most Holy Theotokos, Which by Her miraculous icon will precede us. I would like to wish all of us to, as we go today in a circle around this holy monastery following the Most Holy Theotokos, so that in our life path we will follow God, the Virgin and the saints. I believe that the Mother of God will always cover from all evil with her honest omophorion both our holy Church, and our beloved Fatherland, and all of us. Happy holiday! God bless you!" Further, the hierarchs, clergy, monks and lay people who arrived at the celebrations took part in the traditional procession around the Pskov-Pechersky monastery. At the festive meal on the occasion of the festival, welcoming speeches were made. In a word to those present, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk stated that the Pskov-Pechersky monastery always had a special meaning for the Russian Orthodox Church, emphasizing: “In the second half of the 20th century, this monastery had a very special mission: just like Optina Pustyn in the 19th century was a place where old people lived, to whom people from all over Russia and from abroad flocked to get advice, comfort, instruction in spiritual life, in the same way, the Pskov-Pechersk monastery in the 20th century became the place where the elders lived, to whom people gathered from all over the country. I remember this time well, because I first visited the Pskov-Pechersky monastery about forty years ago, when nothing had yet foreshadowed the revival of church life in which we are all participating. Then the Church lived very separately, it was isolated from society. Nowhere - neither in newspapers, nor on television - the Church was never mentioned, as if it did not exist. And people came to this city, taking a train from Moscow to Tallinn (now there is no such train, but I remember this route well: it left at about three in the afternoon and arrived in Pechory at five in the morning), then everyone ran to the bus to get there to the monastery, and already somewhere at the beginning of the sixth, the gates opened, everyone entered this monastery and fell into a different kingdom - completely special, even the air seemed different. People who in those difficult years were fortunate enough to visit the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, to communicate with the elders, this, of course, erased in memory forever. I am very pleased today to see portraits of the elders on the wall of this refectory. I personally knew many of them, including, of course, our dear, ever-memorable father John (Krestyankin), who once blessed me on the monastic path, as I blessed many young people who serve the Church today: someone in a hierarchical dignity, someone in pastoral service, someone in a monastic and monastic form. This sacred monastery is dear to me and for many, precisely because here we came into contact with people who were carriers of a special spirit, who seemed to come to us from heaven, and now have returned to heaven. And everyone who remembers Father John keeps in mind that he was a man of a very special spiritual dispensation. It was as if he did not go, but flew. When he prayed, his prayer was always fiery, and he knew how to involve other people in his prayer. The minutes of communication with him were, of course, completely unforgettable, because it was a communication of a very special kind. Through such people we came into contact with the mountain world. “We saw with our own eyes what holiness is and the ideal to which we all - each to the best of our ability - should strive.” The DECR chairman thanked Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov for their hospitality, noting his efforts to decorate the monastery. “You, as archpastor, care about the beautification of the entire diocese, and I saw yesterday what a huge front line of work is ahead. The Lord also entrusted you with this spiritual garden, where for many decades old age and spiritual life flourished, ”said Metropolitan Hilarion. - I would like to express the hope that in the 21st century the Pskov-Pechersk monastery will have the same meaning for Orthodox believers as it had in the 20th century, that new elders will appear, that thousands of people, as we saw today, will flock to the miraculous icon of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and come to those living bearers of the Christian spirit, whom you so wonderfully described in your book "Unholy Saints." "I think that some of these unholy saints will be canonized and then the word" unholy "can be justly taken away from their description." Vladyka Hilarion cordially greeted guests from the Serbian Orthodox Church who arrived in the Pskov-Pechersk monastery during a pilgrimage to the shrines of the Russian North, and thanked Bishop Irenaeus of Bach, Anthony of Moravich and Bishop Ishih of Mohavich for participating in the celebration. “I would especially like to thank you, dear Vladyka Irenaeus,” he said further. - You are one of the leading hierarchs of the Serbian Church. You are a major theologian. You are the person who today stands guard over the canonical church Tradition. In the spiritual struggle against the worldlords of the darkness of this world, we rely on people like you, and we are grateful for your firm, consistent, calm and theologically verified position, which you voiced both in the Serbian Orthodox Church, and among the Greek episcopate, and on inter-Orthodox platforms . We really need such evidence now. “I would like to express my gratitude for this firm canonical position on my own behalf, and on behalf of His Holiness the Patriarch and on the whole Russian Orthodox Church.” The archpastor also wished the help of God's brethren of the monastery. “I would like to wish that the spirit that has developed in this monastery always be preserved here, so that the young monks who come to the Pskov-Pechersk monastery are imbued with this spirit, emanating from the monks of the older generation. I wish that the blessed gifts that the elders of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery so generously shared with the pilgrims be passed on from generation to generation, ”said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.