Sunday, November 14, 2021
Your Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, I welcome you to the monastery of my repentance, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery, and also to the seminary that has the same heavenly patron.
This sacred monastery stands as the oldest Orthodox monastery in the Western world. In June 1905, Saint Patriarch Tikhon, then laboring as Archbishop in America, together with Hieromonk, later Archbishop, Arseny (Chagovtsev) bought the land where they then established this monastery. A little over a month later, St. Raphael of Brooklyn served the Divine Liturgy in the open air in the area where this Church was later constructed. Concelebrating the Divine Liturgy that day with St. Raphael were the holy Hieromartyrs Alexander (Hotovitsky) and John (Kochurov). Since that day, a chorus of monastics whom God has raised up in North America have continued to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, serve the services, and devote themselves to prayer and repentance without interruption.
We are, of course, also blessed here since 1937 by a school of theology whose faculty and seminarians have equally devoted themselves to the same tasks: prayer, repentance, and attendance at the Liturgy, all the while maintaining their studies and formation as pastors for our Church.
Your Eminence, God is glorified in the chorus of the countless saints that He has raised up in the Russian Orthodox Church. In these sacred precincts, the monastery and the seminary, the holy men and women who have graced this land, the venerable monastics who labored here, the honorable faculty, and our wonderful seminarians and alumni have all sung and continue to sing the same song of true theology that the holy men and women sing in the vast expanse of the Russian Church.
I am grateful today for your presence, Your Eminence. I give glory to God that He has allowed us to concelebrate His saving mysteries together, and with the Very Reverend Abbot of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery, Abbot Sergius, and the Dean of the Seminary, Archpriest John Parker. I welcome also Abbot Nikodim (Balyasnikov), Dean of Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Secretary of the Administrator of the Moscow Patriarchal Parishes in the United States of America, and also Priest Mark Rashkov, Vice-Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchal Parishes in the USA.
I ask that you convey my greetings—and the greetings of the entire monastic brotherhood, the seminary community, and all those gathered here today—to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. Assure him of our prayers, and ask him for his prayers for us and our monastery and seminary.
As a small expression of our gratitude, please accept this small gift. As you receive it, I would invite Your Eminence to offer a few words to those who are gathered here today.