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 Panteleimon in Karyes, an especially moving, grace-filled, and historic event took place for our Bigorski monastic family.
At the heartfelt invitation of the Dikaios, the Superior of the Holy Skete, our dear brother and friend, Hierodeacon Chrysostomos, our beloved Elder and Abbot, His Grace Bishop Parthenius of Antania, prayerfully presided over the all-night, twelve-hour festal Vigil in honor of the Holy Great-Martyr and Unmercenary Healer Panteleimon, and subsequently served as the principal celebrant of the Divine Eucharist.
From the very moment of their arrival at the Skete, the Elder and his synodia were welcomed and received with great honor, according to the formal Athonite order, with sincere brotherly love and that simple yet profound Athonite warmth which is not exhausted in outward signs of hospitality, but springs from the awareness that we are all members of the one Body of Christ and fellow pilgrims journeying toward the same eternal Homeland.
Present at the solemn reception and at the Vigil were His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina; the Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou, the Very Reverend Archimandrite Bartholomew; the Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou, the Very Reverend Archimandrite Nicholas; numerous elders and monks from the neighboring sketes and kellia; representatives of several Athonite monasteries; clergy; as well as many faithful and pilgrims who had come from various places to take part in the festal celebration and to seek the prayerful intercession of the great Martyr and Healer of Christ.
Solemn Reception and Address of Welcome by the Dikaios
On behalf of the brotherhood and all those present, during the solemn reception, the Elder was addressed by the Dikaios of the Skete, Hierodeacon Chrysostomos, who welcomed him with sincere brotherly reverence and spiritual joy:
“Your Grace, Bishop Parthenius of Antania, venerable Abbot of the Holy Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner,
With sentiments of the deepest spiritual joy and filial reverence, we welcome you today to the Holy Koutloumousian Skete of the Holy and Glorious Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon. It is for us an exceptional honor and a particular blessing that you have come for the first time to this sacred dwelling, responding to our invitation to preside over our holy patronal feast.
Here, in the Garden of the Theotokos, time and place acquire another dimension, and we experience in its fullness the mystery of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Before the common Holy Chalice there are no human divisions. We are bound together indissolubly by the common Orthodox Faith; we are held together and inspired by the spirit of holy Romiosyne. This Romiosyne is not a worldly or geographical designation, but an ecumenical way of life, spiritual nobility, a Cross-and-Resurrection ethos, and a common liturgical tradition. It is our common spiritual homeland, spacious enough to receive and embrace every heart that thirsts for Christ.
Saint Panteleimon, the protector and guardian of our Skete, who watered the tree of the Church with his martyric blood, is the sacred bond that gathers us today around the Holy Table. His holiness reminds us that in Christ we are all brothers, members of the same Body.
In this spirit of ecclesial communion, we feel the sacred duty to express our most profound filial gratitude to His All-Holiness our Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the venerable Chief Shepherd and Bishop of this Holy Mountain, who with paternal love granted his canonical permission and blessing for your desired entrance into this sacred place.
Likewise, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to His Eminence Metropolitan Georgij of Debar and Kičevo, who granted you canonical permission to be absent from his diocese so that you might be with us today.
From the depths of our hearts, we thank you for coming to adorn this year’s feast with your hierarchical and monastic presence, bringing with you the grace of the Honorable Forerunner and Baptist John from the historic Bigorski Monastery, over which you preside in a God-loving and worthy manner.
We beseech you, Your Grace, during the Holy Vigil and the Divine Liturgy, to pray that Saint Panteleimon may intercede for the salvation of us all and grant us healing of soul and body.
Welcome, Your Grace! May we have your holy blessing!”
The Response of Bishop Parthenius
Visibly moved by the warm welcome, His Grace Bishop Parthenius of Antania, in his response, expressed his profound gratitude for the honor shown to him, for the love, and for the heartfelt Athonite hospitality:
“Your Grace,
Very Reverend Fathers,
Reverend Dikaios of this Holy Skete, beloved Father Chrysostomos,
venerable Fathers and beloved brothers in Christ,
With profound emotion and sincere gratitude, I listened to the warm and brother-loving words of your address. The love you expressed deeply moves my heart and makes the joy of today’s sacred encounter even greater.
From the depths of my heart, I thank you, beloved Father Chrysostomos, for the honorable invitation, the brotherly love, and the Abrahamic hospitality with which you have received me and my entourage at the Holy Koutloumousian Skete of the Holy and Glorious Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon.
This invitation is a great honor and an inestimable blessing not only for me personally, but also for the entire brotherhood of the Holy Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner. Truly, this is a moment of particular spiritual and historical significance.
Thirty-six years ago, while I was still young and a novice in the monastic life, I lived for a time at the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou, near the blessed Elder George, from whom I learned much about the monastic life, obedience, and love for God. And today, after so many years, Divine Providence has deemed me worthy to return once again to the Holy Mountain and, for the first time here, to serve as a clergyman and bishop.
My emotion becomes even deeper because today’s feast is directly connected with my own priestly journey. On this day, when we honor Saint Panteleimon and the Holy Seven-numbered Enlighteners, thirty-one years ago I was ordained a hieromonk in the Church of Saint Clement in Ohrid. And today, on this same sacred commemoration, God deems me worthy to offer the Bloodless Sacrifice in this venerable dwelling of Saint Panteleimon.
I glorify God for His inscrutable Providence and express my profound filial gratitude to His All-Holiness our Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for his paternal blessing and permission to come and serve on the Holy Mountain.
I also warmly thank His Eminence Metropolitan Georgij of Debar and Kičevo for his canonical consent and blessing, as well as the Very Reverend Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou for his blessing that I might participate in this feast.
My beloved Father Chrysostomos, today’s reception is not for us merely an act of hospitality. It is a living testimony to the unity of the Church, to our common Orthodox Faith, and to the spiritual kinship that transcends borders, languages, and human distinctions.
I pray that Saint Panteleimon may heal our souls and bodies, strengthen the brotherhood of the Skete, and preserve all of you in health, patience, spiritual fruitfulness, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Once again, I thank you for the invitation, for the honor, and for your love. May our Lady the Theotokos, the Protectress of the Holy Mountain, always shelter your Skete and your sacred ministry.
We are blessed to be among you, and we thank you from our hearts!”
An All-Night Vigil in the Silence of the Holy Mountain
Following the solemn reception, the Little Vespers was served, and shortly thereafter the festal Vigil began, continuing throughout the entire night for exactly twelve hours. In the mystical glow of the vigil lamps, amid the fragrance of incense and the ancient Athonite chanting, the monks and pilgrims present prayerfully entered into that sacred journey in which the earthly night imperceptibly becomes a foretaste of the never-setting light of the Kingdom of God.
Our Elder, His Grace Bishop Parthenius, prayerfully presided over the Vigil, leading the assembly through the sacred services with hierarchical dignity, monastic simplicity, and profound compunction, accompanied by His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina.
The ancient psalmody, prayers, and hymns in honor of the great Martyr of Christ resounded throughout the holy church, uniting in a single prayer the monks from the surrounding sketes and kellia, representatives of the Athonite monasteries, clergy, and the many pilgrims. The two choirs were led by chanters from the brotherhood of Elder Damaskinos and the brotherhood of Elder Gregory, while a particular honor was also shown to the chanters of our own brotherhood, who were invited to render certain hymns during the course of the Vigil.
A special poignancy was given to this prayerful gathering by the remembrance that Saint Paisios the Athonite himself had once come to this Skete for prayer and for such all-night vigils, offering his quiet prayer before God and before the Holy Great-Martyr Panteleimon.
Thus, during the hours when the world outside was immersed in sleep, those gathered in the Skete kept vigil before God, offering their prayers for the Church, for humanity, for those who suffer, for the sick and burdened, invoking the intercession of Saint Panteleimon – the physician who sought no earthly reward and the Martyr who sealed his love for Christ with his own blood.
The Divine Eucharist and the Historic Hierarchical Celebration
Toward the end of the night, as the first rays of dawn began gently to caress the Garden of the Theotokos, the Divine Eucharist commenced, with our Elder, His Grace Bishop Parthenius of Antania, serving as the principal celebrant.
Concelebrating with him was His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina, Auxiliary Bishop of the Holy Metropolis of Mexico of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, together with the Abbots of the Holy Monasteries of Esphigmenou and Koutloumousiou, Archimandrites Bartholomew and Nicholas; several clergymen from the Holy Mountain and from the hierarchs’ entourages, including our brothers Fr. Kiril, Fr. Anatolij, and Fr. Grigorij.
In the common hierarchical concelebration of the two bishops, surrounded by monks and the faithful people, the catholic and supranational nature of the Orthodox Church was manifested in the most profound Eucharistic manner. Different countries, languages, and paths of life disappeared before the one Holy Altar, before the one Chalice of the Lord, and before the one most sweet Christ, Who gathers the scattered children of God into an indivisible Eucharistic unity.
This Divine Liturgy held a particularly historic significance for the Elder and for our brotherhood. Thirty-six years after his stay on the Holy Mountain as a young novice at the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou, for the first time he offered the Bloodless Sacrifice on Athos as a clergyman and bishop. At the same time, this sacred moment coincided with the thirty-first anniversary of his ordination as a hieromonk, which had taken place precisely on the feast of Saint Panteleimon and the Holy Seven-numbered Saints, in the Church of Saint Clement of Ohrid – Perivlepta.
What had once been a youthful longing, born in the stillness of Athonite divine services and obediences, was now fulfilled as an offering of thanksgiving before the same Altar of Christ. The young novice who thirty-six years ago had received his first monastic instruction on Athos now stood there as the spiritual father of a large monastic family and as a bishop of the Church of God – not with a sense of human achievement, but with trembling before the wondrous and ineffable ways of Divine Providence.
The Agape Meal and Words of Thanksgiving
After the completion of the Divine Liturgy and the common participation in the Chalice of Life, the festal gathering continued at the agape meal, where three inspired addresses of thanksgiving were delivered.
Address of the Abbot of Koutloumousiou
First, on behalf of the sacred Athonite community, the Gerontia, and the brotherhood of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou, the Elder of the Monastery, the Very Reverend Archimandrite Nicholas, offered his address. With spiritual inspiration, he spoke about the martyric struggle of the Holy Great-Martyr Panteleimon and the need for it to be reflected in the lives of contemporary monks and Christians, who, through the daily martyrdom of conscience, are called to serve at the altar of their neighbor. Finally, Elder Nicholas addressed especially warm words of gratitude to our Elder, His Grace Bishop Parthenius:
“Your Grace, holy Bishop of Antania, venerable Abbot of the Holy Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner, beloved brother and concelebrant in Christ, Bishop Parthenius,
After the spiritual exultation of the holy all-night Vigil and the celebration of the awesome and bloodless Divine Mystagogy in honor of the Holy and Glorious Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, we now sit at this blessed table to seal our festal joy, partaking of material gifts as an extension of the Eucharist.
It is a particular blessing and honor for the Holy, Royal, Patriarchal, and Stavropegial Monastery of Koutloumousiou, as well as for its dependent Holy Skete of Saint Panteleimon, that you are among us today. With paternal love and readiness, you accepted the invitation of the Fathers of the Skete, in order to adorn this feast with your presence and to preside over this sacred celebration.
Your coming, however, and your hieratically fitting episcopal presence were made possible through the canonical permission and paternal blessing of the Bishop of this sacred place, His All-Holiness our Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Toward his venerable person we turn our thoughts, expressing our filial devotion, reverence, and boundless gratitude for the struggles he undertakes throughout the inhabited world, north and south, east and west.
Likewise, we feel the need to offer our heartfelt gratitude to your own Chief Shepherd, His Eminence Metropolitan Georgij of Debar and Kičevo, for his fraternal consent and permission, enabling you for a short while to leave your many weighty responsibilities and to be with us today.
Your Grace, your presence in the Garden of the Theotokos and in this Koutloumousian sacred dwelling brings to us all the grace, blessing, and spiritual fragrance of the historic Holy Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner, together with the fervor of your own monk-loving heart. The bond between our monasteries is rooted ever more deeply in our common Faith, in our love for the Orthodox monastic tradition, and in the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, Who unites us in Christ Jesus.
On behalf of the Gerontia and the entire brotherhood of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou, as well as the Dikaios and the Fathers of the celebrating Skete, we thank you most warmly for the labor of your journey. We thank you for the spiritual gladness and peace you have bestowed upon us through your hierarchical presidency.
With all our hearts, we pray that the Holy Healer Panteleimon may shelter you, strengthen you in your pastoral and abbatial responsibilities, and grant you many years, filled with health, abundant fruitfulness, and good fruit, to the glory of God and the honor of His Church.
We humbly ask for your hierarchical blessings and prayers for our brotherhood, for the Fathers dwelling in the Skete, and also for all the pious pilgrims, laymen and monks, who have come today to honor the Saint.
Many years, Master!
We also thank His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina, who came among us in honor of the Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon. We would ask him to convey to His Eminence Metropolitan Iakovos of Mexico the love of the Athonite Fathers for his person, and still more for the much-suffering people of Central America, and especially for the Indigenous peoples, the native inhabitants of America, who by the thousands, in simplicity of heart, are coming to Orthodoxy. We pray for you all.
We thank the venerable Abbot of the Monastery of Esphigmenou, Archimandrite Bartholomew, for his active love and reverence toward the Saint of our Skete, and also for his care for the Fathers of our Holy Skete.
We also thank the venerable Dikaios and the other obedientiaries and ministers, the chanters, cooks, refectory servers, as well as all those who offered out of their want and greatly contributed to the celebration of this beautiful feast.
To all, monks and laypeople alike, we wish many blessed years. May Saint Panteleimon bless and sanctify them.
Amen.”
The Elder’s Address of Thanksgiving
To these warm and brother-loving words, our Elder, His Grace Bishop Parthenius of Antania, responded with great love and gratitude, poured forth in the following inspired address:
“Your Grace,
Very Reverend and venerable Fathers, and beloved brothers in Christ,
On this sacred night, after the grace-filled Vigil and our common participation in the Chalice of Life, my heart is filled with sentiments that can scarcely be expressed in human words. For there are moments in life when a person feels that time withdraws before eternity, that the past and the present embrace one another, and that the Providence of God, silently and wondrously, joins all events into one single hymn of thanksgiving.
First of all, I feel it a sacred duty to express my deepest and filial gratitude to His All-Holiness, the Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, who, through his patriarchal love and benevolence, granted me the blessing to come to this heaven-on-earth Garden of the Most Holy Theotokos and, after so many years, to stand before the Holy Altar as a celebrant and hierarch.
For me, his blessing represents not merely canonical permission, but a true spiritual embrace of the Mother Church and a testimony that within the Church no sincere longing is ever lost, but is preserved in the heart of God until the moment of its fulfillment.
From the depths of my heart, I also thank the Very Reverend Abbot of the Holy and Royal Monastery of Koutloumousiou, Archimandrite Nicholas, who had the kindness to give his blessing for me to preside over this sacred synaxis in this venerable Skete.
I also express my heartfelt gratitude to His Eminence Metropolitan Georgij of Debar and Kičevo for the blessing he gave me, and at the same time I convey to you his fraternal greetings.
Particular gratitude I address to the Dikaios of the Holy Skete, our beloved brother and precious friend, the Reverend Hierodeacon Chrysostomos, who kindly invited us to preside over the Vigil and the Divine Liturgy. His brotherly love, his sincerity, and his hospitable soul made this night even more radiant and engraved it still more deeply within our hearts.
I also thank the entire brotherhood here, who received us not as strangers and guests, but as their own, as brothers in the one monastic calling and in the one hope of the Kingdom of God.
For me, this day contains a particular and deeply personal mystery. On this feast, when together with the Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon we also honor the Holy Seven-numbered Saints – our teachers, enlighteners, and spiritual fathers – thirty-one years ago, in the Church of Saint Clement of Ohrid, I was ordained a hieromonk. Then, with fear and trembling, I received the grace of the priesthood, not knowing along which paths the Lord would lead me.
And behold, today, thirty-one years later, on the same feast, the Providence of God has deemed me worthy to offer the Bloodless Sacrifice in the Holy Skete of Saint Panteleimon, in the midst of the Holy Mountain of Athos.
Thirty-six years ago, as a young novice, I lived at the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou, near the blessed Elder George, from whom I received much spiritual instruction, love, and the Athonite tradition. Then I stood in the church as a beginner and disciple, listening to the whisper of prayer and learning obedience. Today, after so many years, I stood on the same Holy Mountain before the Altar as a celebrant and bishop.
This awareness does not awaken in me a feeling of honor, but rather profound emotion, humility, and awe before the ineffable judgments of God.
The Holy Mountain has played an immense role in the spiritual enlightenment of our people. From these rocks, caves, churches, and monastic cells, throughout the centuries there have poured forth prayer, spiritual literature, faith, consolation, and light.
Even today, Athos continues to strengthen us through the good and fruitful cooperation that we cultivate with the Holy Mountain, a cooperation founded upon brotherly love, mutual respect, and the common witness of the Orthodox Faith. For all this, our brotherhood and our people remain profoundly grateful.
Indeed, the Holy Mountain is a great blessing not only for Orthodoxy, but for the entire world. While the world exhausts itself in noise, haste, and ceaseless self-promotion, Athos bears witness that true life is born in silence; that man becomes free when he cuts off his own will; and that the greatest strength is hidden in the humble invocation of the Name of Jesus.
The Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon bore witness to Christ with his blood. The monk, on the other hand, is called every day to bear witness to Him through the martyrdom of conscience. It is a silent martyrdom: to die to self-love, to one’s own will, and to one’s passions; to remain faithful when no one sees; to love when love is not returned; to pray for a world that may never know who prayed for it.
The blood of the martyr is shed once, while the blood of the monastic heart is shed drop by drop, in obedience, prayer, vigil, repentance, and love.
May the Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon heal our souls and bodies, and may the Holy Seven-numbered Saints enlighten all peoples with the light of the Gospel.
May the Most Holy Theotokos, the Abbess of this sacred place, preserve the Athonite monastic commonwealth, His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou, this Holy Skete, and all of you, beloved Fathers and brothers.
I thank you for the invitation, for the love, for the prayer, and for this sacred joy, which I shall preserve in my heart as a precious treasure until the end of my life.
May God bless you, and may Saint Panteleimon always protect you.
Amen.”
Final Words of Gratitude from the Dikaios of the Skete
Finally, the venerable Dikaios of the Skete, Hierodeacon Chrysostomos, spoke with heartfelt gratitude, thanking individually all those who had made it possible for this sacred celebration to be so solemn and grace-filled. At the conclusion, he addressed a special word of gratitude to our Elder, His Grace Bishop Parthenius:
“I have left you until the end, together with your sacred brotherhood, so dearly beloved by us, and all your fellow pilgrims on this holy pilgrimage, Your Grace, holy Bishop Parthenius of Antania, Elder of the renowned Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner.
Everyone who has visited your Monastery becomes a witness to the wondrous works of God that have taken place and continue to take place there. One strongly senses the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Honorable Forerunner, and the abundant love of the Elder and the brotherhood.
We thank the Triune God and His servant Saint Panteleimon for your blessed presence here – your first as a hierarch, but certainly not your last.
During today’s Vigil, a spiritual bond has been forged between the Holy Mountain and Bigorski.
Therefore, we offer you this icon of the protector and guardian of our Skete, the victorious athlete and healer Saint Panteleimon, that you may place it in the Katholikon of your Holy Monastery as a source of grace and sanctification, and that it may serve as a visible sign of the unity between our Holy Athonite Skete of Saint Panteleimon and the Holy Bigorski Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner, its brotherhood and its devout pilgrims, and the blessed and much-suffering Orthodox people of your homeland.
Whenever you look upon this icon, remember us and pray for us, the humble Fathers of this Skete.
Thank you.”
Commemorative Gifts and an Enduring Spiritual Communion
As an expression of gratitude and as a lasting remembrance of this sacred celebration, our Elder presented the Dikaios of the Skete, Fr. Chrysostomos, with his episcopal mitre, so that it might serve the needs of the Skete during future hierarchical Divine Services.
To His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina, he presented an episcopal enkolpion depicting the Most Holy Theotokos Enthroned, before Whom stand in prayer Saint John the Baptist and Saint John of Debar, Archbishop of Ohrid and the first ktetor of the Holy Bigorski Monastery.
Thus ended this truly grace-abounding Athonite night – with prayer, with the Holy Eucharist, with brotherly love, with mutual gift-giving, and with thanksgiving to God, Who orders the paths of our lives better than the human heart could ever imagine.
For our Elder and for the entire Bigorski monastic family, this was not merely participation in yet another Athonite festal celebration, but an ineffable experience of soul and spirit – a moment in which the veil of the visible seemed to fall away and all things could be contemplated from “the other side,” in the light of Divine Providence and eternity.
It was a return to the spiritual sources, a meeting of the beginning with the depths of the monastic journey, of the former novice with the hierarch of today, of a long-cherished longing with its grace-filled fulfillment.
Truly, the grace was exceedingly abundant!
Glory be to God, and thanksgiving to Saint Panteleimon and to the Holy Seven-numbered Saints for their prayerful intercession!
In the Holy Skete of the Unmercenary Healer and Martyr Panteleimon, beneath the maternal protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, one spiritual circle was brought to completion, while at the same time a new page was opened in brotherly and Eucharistic communion.
The memory of this night will remain deeply engraved in the hearts of all who were present and will be inscribed in the chronicle of our Holy Monastery as a testimony that Divine Providence forgets no sincere longing, and that whatever is laid before God with humility, in His appointed hour returns as blessing, joy, and a hymn of thanksgiving.
Glory be to Him!
