With the blessing of Archbishop Andronik of New York and North America (ROCOR) and Bishop Akakije of Uteshiteljevo (STOC), our Mother Abbess Efrosinija (Nikolic) of Novi Stjenik has a new obedience in serving the spiritual needs of the church through the formation of a new monastic community in the US under the omophorion of the Russian Church Abroad. Bishop Akakije will assume the spiritual guidance of our monastery Novi Stjenik until a new superior is ready to be assigned.
Abbess Efrosinija (Nikolic) and Abbess Evfrosinia (Molchanova) with sisters of Lesna Monastery (France) and Portatissa (Bulgaria) in the church of the Holy New Martyrs in the Mountainview Spiritual Center with the Catacomb icon of Our Lady “Search of the Lost.”
The
new monastic community is being founded at the Mountainview
Spiritual-Educational Center (near Schoharie, a small town in upstate New York)
within the jurisdiction of the Russian Church Abroad under the presidency of
Archbishop Andronik (Kotlarov).
Mountainview is about 250 km/ 150 mi from New York City, and 70 km/45 mi from Jordanville, possessing about 24 hectares (60 acres) of land with beautiful fields, forests, and two lakes rich with fish. Deer and bears are frequent guests of this lovely place. The two-storey main building boasts 25 cells, each with its own bathroom. It has a large, beautiful chapel attached to the main building with a golden Russian cupola and cross. The facilities are also equipped with a large trapeza, professional quality kitchen, cellars, auxiliary buildings, garages for machines and automobiles, workshops, etc.
The founder of Mountainview Spiritual Educational Center, Mr. George Lukin, is very grateful that Serbian Abbess Mati Efrosinia (Nikolic) has been sent to the US with the blessing of Bp. Akakije (STOC) to take on the role of Superior at a women's community at Mountainview, which had been Mr. Lukin's sincere wish for a long time.
Abbess Efrosinija (Nikolic) with the founders of Mountainview Spiritual Educational Center, George and Ekaterina Lukin
Left: St. Philaret of New York with the Hegumen of the Mount of Olives Convent (ROCOR) Fr. Andronik Kotlarov. Right: Archbishop Andronik Kotlarov with Abbess Evfrosinia Nikolic in Mountaview, New York, USA
As the community’s first Superior, Abbess Efrosinia (Nikolic), in cooperation with the Abbess of Lesna, Mother Evfrosinia (Molchanov) will be taking upon herself the care of founding and cultivating a women’s monastic community at the Mountainview Spiritual Educational center, which will be active under the sponsorship of the historical monastery of ROCOR, Lesna (France).
The Lesna Monastery, which has been a fortress of True Orthodoxy in Europe for decades now, was founded by Venerable Mother Catherine (in the world, Countess Evgenia Efimovska) with the blessing of St. Ambrose of Optina, St. John of Kronstadt, and under the protection of the Holy Royal Martyr Nicholai II Romanov. Elder Ambrose blessed St. Catherine to found a new monastic community in harmony with her calling, to be not only a place of asceticism and prayer, but also a missionary and charitable institution. St. John of Kronstadt prophesied that St. Catherine’s monastery would be like a beehive from which would spring many other monasteries. This prophecy was fulfilled when the Lesna sisterhood was forced to flee the Russian Revolution to Serbia, where, thanks to the almost superhuman efforts of St. Catherine, women’s monasticism, which had disappeared under the Turkish yoke, was entirely renewed in Serbia. The Lesna sisterhood was given the Hopovo Monastery, where St. Catherine reposed and was buried. Today her relics, discovered incorrupt during excavations of the monastery, still lie there buried. Through the labor of the Lesna sisterhood, thirty other women’s monasteries were planted in Serbia. When the Communists occupied Serbia, the Lesna sisters were again forced to flee, going to France, where they live to this day.
Lesna Convent of the Russian Church Abroad, with Sts. John of Shanghai and St. Philaret of New York
In a way, Serbian women’s monasticism is paying back a bit of
its debt to its Russian monasticism now that a Serbian abbess is taking on the
blessing of founding a Russian monastery in the US.
While the main feastday of the Mountainview Spiritual Educational Center is the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the new sisterhood will be dedicated to the Icon of Our Lady “Search of the Lost,” which had been greatly treasured at the Lesna Convent but now has been taken to Mountainview. The icon is in fact a treasure of the Russian Catacomb Church, brought from the USSR to Lesna by a catacomb nun, Magdalena (Nozdrina), who inherited the icon from her spiritual father, the new-martyr St. Seraphim Zagorovsky, who was glorified with the other new martyrs and confessors of Russia by ROCOR in 1981.
Here we will quote from the life of St. Seraphim Zagorovsky and his icon of Our Lady “Search of the Lost.”:
“Fr. Seraphim, Protopresbyter Nicholas in the world, was a well-known and beloved pastor of the people in the spirit of St. John of Kronstadt in Kharkiv at the turn of the XX century, when the ruling bishop there was Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), the future first hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad. A young law student, Michael Maximovich, the future St. John of Shanghai, loved to attend Fr. Nicholas’ services. Initially, Fr. Nicholas was not drawn to the priesthood; he wanted to be an actor. Nevertheless, submitting to the fervent wish of his widowed mother, he agreed to be ordained. He ended up as a parish priest in a tiny, distant village, and succumbed to depression and despair. Fervent, nightlong prayer before his icon “Search of the Lost” worked a miracle. The despairing young priest turned into a zealous shepherd and preacher. Mother Magdalina met Fr. Nicholas when she was 16 years old; she came to one of his liturgies with a group of friends. She was so moved by his sermon that she decided then and there to join the women’s community that Fr. Nicholas had founded…”
When the Bolsheviks came into power, they arrested Fr. Nicholas, a firm monarchist and anti-Sergianist, and sent him to the former monastery Solovki, which had been turned into a notoriously harsh prison, where he, believing that he would die, took the monastic tonsure with the name of Seraphim in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov whom he greatly loved. Mother Magdalina followed him into exile, doing her best to alleviate his sufferings and help him in the witness of Orthodoxy. After his death, she fled to France, taking his beloved icon “Search of the Lost” to the now also exiled Lesna Convent, where she ended her life in peace, leaving as a precious inheritance St. Seraphim’s icon.
In these ever-darkening times, it is a special consolation that such an icon will be the protectress of the new women’s community budding in the United States.
More information about this monastic community can be found here: Religious and Cultural Center (mvroc.org).
Astoria, NY: Abbess Efrosinia (Nikolic) with brother and
sister Serbs who belong to the Holy Trinity Parish, one of the oldest ROCOR
churches in the United States.
We ask for everyone’s prayers for the success of this new spiritual endeavor, and for those who are able, we strongly encourage you to consider visiting this beautiful place and joining in prayer with the sisters there. Contact information can be found at the Mountainview website above.
Novi Stjenik Monastery
On the feastday of the Holy
Royal Martyrs, 4/18 July 2024
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