As yesterday’s solemn monastery celebration, dedicated to the feast day of the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner, was flowing in the evening hours in the golden rays of the sun which was setting behind Krchin, the traditional founder’s filled the holy monastery with great gratefulness towards all who throughout centuries have laid down the stones and their lives in this glorious monastery. Under the prayerful vigilance of our beloved elder, His Eminence Bishop of Antania Parthenius, the thoughts and prayers of the monks and those present have ascended towards the throne of our Merciful God, mentioning in thanksgiving our long-passed fathers and brothers.
In that thankful and awe-inspiring atmosphere, after the end of the Vespers, the elder with the brother-priests, served a memorial service for all the founders, builders, decorators, monks and ascetics of the thousand-year-old Bigorski monastery. The prayers which flew from the heart, again opened our spiritual eyes so we can discern that we all together – those from the past, present and future – are one unbreakable community, one family, one body in Christ. Even if the names of many have been long forgotten by those of today, they are still written in the timelessness of God.
Today, though, the memory of the first and glorious founder of the Bigorski monastery, St. John of Debar, Archbishop of Ohrid, was crowned with a monastic co-service, headed by the Bishop of Antania. In that quiet and mysterious Eucharist, the spirit and the blessings of the great saint and our forever mentioned founder fell onto us as a blessed cloud, reminding us of the testament that every single one of these rocks from these holy walls was put in place with prayer, every icon painted with thanksgiving, every fresco with awe, every troparion is chanted with love towards the Beloved.
Our holy father John of Debar is not only a founder in the material sense. Rather, he is also a spiritual architect who laid the foundations of Heavenly Jerusalem on this holy place. His vision even surpassed time: he founded Bigorski not only as a monastery of wood and of rock, but as the living body of the Church of God, as a heavenly monastery where countless souls will rest peacefully and many hearts will burn from the Divine love.
Bigorski today lives exactly from his blessed hand and the sacrificial love of all the founders and ascetics throughout the centuries, who as living rocks have built themselves into this spiritual body. Every fresco, every rock, every prayerful tremble testifies for their faith and their sacrifice. Henceforth our gratitude is not merely a remembrance of the past, rather it constitutes a living testament, that we today, in times of many hardships and temptations, are called forth to continue to be builders and creators: of prayer, of love, of goodness, of oneness in Christ. Every day that we live on this blessed ground is a continuation of their prayer; every Liturgy that we serve is an answer to their hope; every guest that we accept is a fulfilling of their love towards thy neighbor.
May the blessings of the holy John of Debar and all the founders and ascetics of Bigorski keep on streaming through this glorious and holy monastery until the establishment of the new Heaven and Earth!
Amin.
