On Bright Saturday, May 7, 2016, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon visited Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, PA, where he celebrated the Divine Liturgy marking the feast of Saint Alexis Toth, whose relics are enshrined in the monastery church.
A Molieben was celebrated before the relics of Saint Alexis at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, during which Seminarian Matthew Fuhrman was tonsured to the order of Reader and ordained to the Subdiaconate and Diaconate. Also ordained to the Subdiaconate was Rassophoremonk Maximus, while Hesychios Webb was tonsured to the order of Reader.
Concelebrants included Archimandrite Sergius, Abbot of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery; Igumen Gabriel; Archpriest Steven Kopestonsky; Seminarian Priest Theodore Gregory; Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak; Deacon Alexander Cadman; and Seminarian Deacons Matthew Joyner, John Kennerk and Basil Ferguson.
Saint Alexis, who fell asleep in the Lord in on May 7, 1909, is especially remembered for leading tens of thousands of former Eastern Rite Catholics to the Orthodox Christian faith, beginning with the faithful of what is today Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, MN in 1891.
