Русская Версия

December 16, 2010
Wings of Christian Inspiration: An Article by Tamara Nazarova on parish life in the Church of Our Lady "the Inexhaustible Chalice"

"Angels are the light of monks; monks are the light of the world."
- St. John Climacus

On Friday, December 3, the Church of Our Lady "the Inexhaustible Chalice" of the Russian Church Abroad traveled to John F. Kennedy Airport to greet the relics the holy venerable Elders of Optina and St. Antipas, last of the Valaam saints, that had just arrived from Russia. The relics were brought from Moscow by Hieromonk Fr. David (Legeida), the dean and choir conductor of Valaam’s Holy Transfiguration Monastery, and Reader Ilya Rybakov, cell attendant at the Moscow metochion of the Valaam Monastery.

The relics were greeted by a cross procession, led by the rector, Priest Vadim Arefiev; his fellow in prayer and friend of the "Inexhaustible Chalice" community, Archpriest Petre Kruashvili of the Georgian Orthodox Church; the brethren of the Church’s Mercy House of St. John of Kronstadt; and pious parishioners, bearing icons.

 

The guests brought one more marvelous gift – a gold-embroidered meter-long icon of the Mercy House’s heavenly patron – the Righteous St. John of Kronstadt, given as a gift by its author, the wonderful iconographic master Elena Alexandrova. Right there, in the Delta terminal of Kennedy International Airport, they unfurled the holy icon of the priest of Kronstadt, venerated the relics and publicly served a short moleben.

 

O serene, quiet Optina... inexhaustible wellspring of Christian inspiration… can it be that you yourself, having crossed the ocean, will now for all time spread your prayerful wings over each of us, we who find ourselves an impossible distance away from the Spring of St. Paphnutius, the centuries-old oaks, the Zhizdra River, the ringing serenity of St. John the Baptist Skete… How dearly you must love us sinners, that you would so stand in the fullness of your holiness before them who loved you and longed for you, and before them who never saw you themselves.

 

We seated our dear guests in the car. Fr. Peter asked for a blessing to hold the relics to his chest, against his pectoral cross. In the car we keenly felt "heaven opened," as though we all were not on this world, but somewhere over there, in the Invisible World, joyfully uniting with the flame-like prayer of the Holy Fathers. Here is what the Elders told their novices about the soul: "Its state before receiving that internal prayer is chaotic, a terrible weight… We must labor, and the Lord, according to His promise, "We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him," will come to us, and our musical instrument (our soul) will play aloud: ‘The Lord is my strength and song…;’ ‘I will chant unto my God for as long as I have my being…’ This song is unspoken. In order to receive it, people go to the monastery, and receive it there." (Elder Barsanuphius mentored an apprentice, Nicholas, the future elder and spiritual father Nikon, who would die of consumption in prison-exile in 1931.

 

Immediately upon our arrival we began a moleben with a blessing of the water before the holy relics, which continued until the All-Night Vigil of the great feast of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos. "Note the events of your life," taught the holy fathers. "In everything there is great meaning." The Optina Monastery of the Entry into the Temple drew and led countless Russian souls to God by its light, and it is doubtless that Providence allowed these events, to which we were fortunate enough to be witnesses, to take place on the eve of this universally significant event in Christian history…

 

The following day, on Saturday evening, our dear vicar bishop, Bishop Jerome of Manhattan, arrived at our church and led the All-Night Vigil.

 

After the Gospel during the Polyeleos, His Grace delivered a sermon on the role of the feast of the Entry into the Temple in the spiritual lives of every Christian, and about the Theotokos, who not only leads us into her Temple, but cares for our souls, directing them toward the Heavenly Kingdom...

 

We keenly felt how the Most Holy Theotokos led a whole prayerful army of helpers to her little church.  They surrounded her, as children would their mother, and gathered all of us careless ones. They teach us the Path to Salvation! They labor in prayer to reach the Heavens. Our saints are a bottomless well of bountiful aid, and an inexhaustible wellspring of prayerful Christian inspiration!

 

The parish clergy, and Tamara Nazarova

Donations toward the icon of the Holy Optina Elders, in which the gifted relics will be placed, can be made here: http://donate.svdom.org.

Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese