Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the beginning of the Nativity Fast!

Today the Holy Orthodox Church marks the memory of many wonderful saints, including the Holy Hierarch Gregory of Neocesaria, Saint Nikon of Radonezh, and Saint Sebastian of San Francisco and Jackson. Also, in parishes of our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Saint Paisius Velichkovsky is commemorated. Saint Paisius reposed on the 28th of November, on the first day of Advent. It is somewhat inappropriate to mark the memory of such an important saint on the first, especially penitential, day of this fast when a Liturgy is not served, therefore our small but self-governing Church has transferred his feastday to today’s date. Today let us very succinctly, without going into details, discuss the lives of our Holy Fathers Paisius and Sebastian, noting only that which is most exceptional.

Our Holy Father Paisius Velichkovsky was born in Poltava in 1722, became a monk at a young age, and spent most of his adult life in Moldova, although quite a few years were spent on Mount Athos in Greece. He died at the Neamț Monastery in modern-day Romania in 1794. Although he is not as venerated as other Russian monks, such as Sts. Sergius and Seraphim, he played a key role in the revival of Russian monasticism in the 19th and 20th centuries. St. Paisius had such strong love for the Lord that he was ready to give up his own will and be completely and permanently in obedience to an experienced and holy monastic mentor. Despite his desire, this never came to be as Paisius could not find himself a suitable elder. Since he could not find a person to teach him, he turned to the works of the Holy Fathers, but here Paisius quickly realized that there was little available in the Slavonic language, and that which he could find was translated so poorly that often the meaning was lost. For this reason St. Paisius learned ancient Greek and began to meticulously translate the ascetic tracts of the ancient monastics into Slavonic. His burning love for ascetic struggles and austere monastic life attracted many disciples to him. Amongst them were Russians as well as other Slavs, as well as many Moldovans. With true Christian love St. Paisius instructed all of them by conducting spiritual conversations or talks in the evenings – one evening with the Moldovan monks in their native language, and the next – with the Slavs in Russian. His nights were spent in translating. To his deep regret, he became not a novice in obedience to a spiritual father, but a mentor and elder to others. The translations of our Holy Father Paisius Velichkovsky lead to a wonderful revival of monasticism in the Russian Church, the fruits of which became Seraphim of Sarov, Herman of Alaska, the Optina Elders, and others.

If Paisius Velichkovsky played an enormous role in the development of monasticism in Russia and Moldova, then our Holy Father Sebastian played just as important a role in the life of the Orthodox Church in North America. Sebastian was born to Serbian Orthodox immigrants in San Francisco in 1863. After completing high school, he began working as a reader at the cathedral church in San Francisco and later in Sitka, Alaska. He received his higher education at the St. Petersburg and Kiev Theological Academies. Afterwards he returned to North America, where he served first as a deacon and then as a missionary priest. We will only slightly exaggerate if we say that St. Sebastian visited every corner of North America where Orthodox Christians could be found. He travelled from Alaska to Arizona and from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. During his missionary travels, he founded parishes, performed the sacraments, and preached in Russian, Serbian, and English. His struggles were, without a doubt, apostolic. At the beginning of the First World War he left for Serbia to become a military chaplain. He reposed in Serbia in 1940 and was canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2015.

Today, at the very beginning of the Nativity Fast, let’s follow in the footsteps of today’s wonderful saints. In these salvific days of Advent, let us open Holy Scripture and the works of the Holy Fathers, let us approach our Creator with fervent prayer and sincere repentance, and let us serve our neighbour so as to prepare, as worthily as this is possible, for the feast of the incarnation of our God!

priest Alexis