Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feastday of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the completion of the fourth week of Great Lent. Two weeks remain until Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week!

Today, in our parish in Ottawa, we prayerfully marked the 100-year anniversary of the repose of the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the Confessor Tikhon (Belavin). God-willing, today after lunch, we will continue our commemoration of this anniversary by listening to several talks about the life, work, and struggles of this wonderful saint. Right now, let’s focus our attention only on the very first part of his life, on his upbringing, education, and on the way his acquaintances reacted to him.

The future hierarch was born in 1865 into the family of a country priest and naturally was raised in the spirit of the Orthodox faith. To his benefit, when the time came for Basil (that was the name Tikhon received at baptism) to go to school, his father was transferred to the town of Toropets, in which the elementary school for the sons of the clergy was located. Because of this, the young boy was not forced to leave his family home and live apart from his parents, which was the case for the majority of the sons of clergymen at that time. In such a way, he was able to receive his elementary education while at the same time was not deprived of his parents’ love and their protection from all that could ruin a young country boy in the city. Here in the Toropets school, the acquaintances of the future saint, seeing in him something special, extraordinary, perhaps some kind of spiritual talents or capabilities that would allow him to serve the Church, gave him the nickname of ‘hierarch.’ In his teenage years, Basil studied at the Pskov Spiritual Seminary, where the same things were noticed, but here he was called not the ‘hierarch’, but the ‘patriarch,’ which was somewhat unusual, considering that the Russian Church had been without a patriarch for two hundred years and there was no talk of reviving such a position.

After completing his studies in the seminary, Basil was accepted into the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. At the time of his studies in the capital, the Academy was at its height. Amongst the other students were people who would become key figures in the history of the Russian Church, including: Hieromartyr Cyril Smirnov (Metropolitan of Kazan and, after Patriarch Tikhon, the most authoritative and respected hierarch of the 20’s and 30’s), Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky (the main proponent for the re-establishment of the patriarchate in Russia and the abba of the Church Abroad), and Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky (a talented church administrator and the first Soviet patriarch). At the Academy the future Patriarch Tikhon studied well, but did not stand out in any particular way. After completing his studies, the future saint did not marry or become a monk as was the usual custom, but instead returned to the Pskov Seminary as a teacher. Sometime later he accepted monastic tonsure and was ordained a priest. His spiritual and pastoral talents were quickly recognized by the church hierarchy and the young hieromonk, not yet having reached the canonical age of thirty-five, was ordained a bishop in 1897.

To some, all of these details from the life of Patriarch Tikhon may seem boring and of no particular importance, but this is not so, for his upbringing and education determined his future. At the moment, we have a young parish with many children and teenagers. It would be wonderful for all of them to grow up as kind and loving Christians, as did our Patriarch Tikhon. For this to happen, certain measures must be taken. Among them are love and attention from parents, especially in the spheres of religious upbringing and piety. Along the same lines, education cannot but have an impact on a child; therefore, here the parents’ watchfulness is needed as well. Finally, let’s take note that it is important for children, teenagers, and students to be among useful, talented, believing, pious people. Through the prayers of the Holy Hierarch Tikhon, may the Lord God grant that our young parishioners receive in their upbringing and education all that is most good, become useful members of the Church, and inherit crowns in the Kingdom of Heaven.

priest Alexis