Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:20, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal.”
One of those “treasures in heaven” are precious memories with our Christian friends.
Last week, the Friedens’ Women created a precious memory when we visited the Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Paraskevi. The forty-acre monastery is on Little York Road about 15 minutes from our church.
The monastery requires a dress code so the twelve of us dressed in long skirts or dresses with long sleeves to cover our arms and scarves to cover our hair and closed toe shoes. The nuns themselves follow a similar dress code except that their clothes are black, and their head coverings wrap their head more tightly than our scarves. Their belief is that all glory belongs to God so that our bodies and clothes should not be a distraction when we are worshipping Him.
Our guide was Sister Iosiphia. She met us in the parking lot and gave us a tour of the sanctuary, the feast hall, and visitor building. She spoke softly and took her time to answer our questions.
There are fourteen nuns at the monastery. Sister Iosiphia is American, but some are women from Georgia (the country), Ukraine, Greece, and Romania. Two of the other American nuns were from Utah. All their church services are spoken in church Greek which differs from modern Greek. All the nuns learn to speak this fluently.
Sister Iosiphia explained that once the nuns have taken their vows that their personal lives from their pre-monastery days are inconsequential. All that matters is their prayer life, their worship life, and their love of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and, of course, obedience to their spiritual mother, the Abbess of the monastery. So, if you ask them questions about their personal life before they became a nun, you are not likely to receive an answer.
Sister Iosiphia talked about the importance of the saints as role models for the nuns. She says, “We are here because we want to live a more Christ-like life, and we study the saints so we can become more like them.” St. Paraskevi is the patron saint of the monastery. Her story is remarkable.
She was a Roman who lived during the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (second century AD). She was from a wealthy family and when her parents died, she gave away all her inherited wealth to the church and entered the monastery.
After a time, she requested permission to preach to the pagan community. The Abbess granted her request so that was what she did. Because of her evangelizing, she was arrested multiple times and tortured. In one instance, the emperor himself supervised her torture and ordered his men to place her in a vat of hot oil. She remained so calm that the emperor couldn’t believe his guards had heated the oil, so he asked her to throw oil on him.
She obeyed and the hot oil landed on the emperor’s eye and blinded him at once. Then, shocked and stunned, he asked her to pray to her “all powerful God” that his vision might be restored. She did so. His vision was instantly restored. Antoninus Pius is said to have converted at that time, but St. Paraskevi was still later killed as a martyr.
While on our tour, Sister Iosiphia emphasized the role that confession plays in their spiritual life. They believe that one cannot become closer to God until one has removed “all the junk in here,” Sister Iosiphia said, pointing to her heart. “We need to meet with our spiritual father and confess so we can be prepared to worship God and take communion.”
The nuns take care of the buildings and the land. They have greenhouses and vineyards. They keep chickens, peacocks, and goats. They produced two tons of lettuce last year. They also have occasional help from volunteers who help with mowing and other chores.
On Easter Sunday, they had over one thousand people in attendance. Their church could not hold them all, so they worshipped outdoors in the beautiful grounds. Most visitors are not Greeks because there are few Greeks in this part of the country. Sister Iosiphia says with a smile, “Our visitors are Protestants, searching for the Apostolic church. Maybe..,” she adds, “Martin Luther did not go back far enough when he started the Reformation.”
The Sanctuary does not use electric lighting for their services. It is lit by beautiful candles in a brass chandelier that spins from the heat of the candles. They have services more than once a day. The Vespers Service starts at 5:00 p.m. and visitors are welcome.
One of the striking differences in their sanctuary is that there are no pews. People stand during the service. If someone becomes tired or is unable to stand there are hand-carved chairs against the wall where people can sit. The chair seat also folds out so people can also kneel. There is also beautiful art on the walls. Sister Iosiphia explains that in the countries where Orthodox faith was practiced, people were often not literate. So, pictures, called icons, were used to tell the stories of Jesus, his parables, the various saints and apostles and have become tradition in Orthodox churches.
Their services use the liturgy from St. Chrysostom, a fourth century early church bishop. “Orthodoxy has not changed,” Sister Iosiphia explains. “We have had the same liturgy for almost two thousand years. On special feast days, we use the liturgy from St. Basil.”
Before 1054 AD, there was only one church. Sister Iosiphia talked about the Great Schism that happened in the 11th century. She said that the Bishop of Rome said he was infallible, a belief that the other patriarchs (Greece, Jerusalem, Antioch, etc.), could not accept. So that was when the Roman church became the Catholic Church, and the other churches were called Orthodox. In the Orthodox church, the service is held in the language of the people, hence Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox. Until the 20th century, the Catholic Church held its services in Latin.
The Orthodox faith is the principal religion practiced by eastern European countries, including Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, and Macedonia. Russia also has Orthodox Christians but having been ruled by the Communists for 75 years, most people are atheists. I will write about this more in a future column. There are also countries where Orthodox Christianity is observed in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East including Armenia, Cyprus, Israel, and Syria. In the United States, less than 1% of the population are Orthodox Christians.
They do not have a supreme head of the church. Each country has a Patriarch who is the spiritual father in that country. The Patriarchs hold church council meetings from time to time, but not one Patriarch is considered supreme.
After our tour, Sister Iosiphia and the nuns fed us a delicious Greek meal. We browsed their books and gift shop, talked, and laughed enjoying great fellowship.
We had a marvelous and unforgettable time. I think all of us were inspired by the deep faith of Sister Iosiphia and realized that we would all benefit from more time for reflection and prayer in our daily lives.
In John 17:14ff, Jesus said, “…I do not belong to the world… but God sent me into the world.” One could say that these nuns came from this world but are not part of this world. Yet they are pleading for us who are in the world to be in relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus’s prayer in the same chapter exhorts God to, “Make them holy by your Truth, teach them Your word, which is Truth.”