Services and Sacraments

A Grace-Filled Athonite Night at the Skete of Saint Panteleimon – the Elder’s Historic Hierarchical Divine Service

A Historic Event in the Garden of the Theotokos Amid the sacred hesychia of the Garden of the Theotokos, where time seems to lose its customary course and is transformed into an unceasing expectation of, yet also an encounter with, eternity, last night, at the Koutloumousian Skete of the Holy and Glorious Great-Martyr and Healer…

Conciliar Joy at Bigorski’s Feast of Saint John’s Day

After the many-hour vigil, when the night flowed into morning and the rays of the sun were already embracing the summit of Bistra, with great honor and respect, before the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, we also welcomed our esteemed Metropolitan of Debar and Kičevo, George, who arrived together with the Abbot of the Monastery…

The Voice That Awakened Joy: A Vigil with Athonite Blessing in Honor of Saint John the Baptist

There is a night in which the wilderness speaks. There is a birth after which aged lips, silenced for months, are opened once again — not merely to speak, but to sing praise. Such is this night: the night on which our holy Bigorski Monastery celebrates its solemn feast — the Nativity of the honorable…

Soul Saturday before Pentecost

In the quiet and compunctionate eve of Pentecost, when all creation seems to stand in reverent trembling before the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church lovingly calls us to remember those who before us have crossed the threshold of time and entered into the mystery of eternity. The Soul Saturday before Pentecost is…

The Fall of the City of the Theotokos and the Unquenchable Light of New Rome

Today, the Queen of all cities lays down the crown of the earthly kingdom, offered to torment, the gift of Constantine is purified by fire, the City of the Mother of God, and from the hands of the Creator of ages, receives a radiant crown of eternal glory, the house of the saints and the…

The Ascension of Christ – the Feast of Deified Human Nature

The Ascension of Christ is a feast of ineffable joy and hope, a day on which the Church contemplates the glorified Lord, Who, by His Ascension, did not withdraw Himself from the world, but raised our human nature into heavenly glory. In the Person of the God-man Christ, man for the first time sat at…