Metropolitan Georgiy celebrated the Divine Liturgy at metochion of the Diveyevo monastery in Moscow
On November 28, Metropolitan Georgiy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal metochion of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery in Moscow. The service took place in the Synaxis of the Diveyevo Saints Church. Concelebrating His Eminence were Rev.Fr. Alexander Tenkaev, the head of the administrative office, Rev. Fr. Vladimir Kargin, the dean of the Diveyevo deanery and other clergy of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese.
Hegumenia Sergia, the abbess of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery with sisters of the monastery prayed at the service along with the parishioners.
At the end of the liturgy, Hegumenia Sergia expressed her gratitude to Metropolitan Georgiy for his visit, service and archpastoral care for the monastery and its metochions. The abbess of the monastery presented the prosphora to the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese.
In his saintly words, Metropolitan Georgy congratulated everyone with the remembrance day of Venerable Paisios (Velichkovsky) and the beginning of the Nativity fast.
“As we look at the life of Venerable Paisios, we can see it again that the Lord invisibly but actively supports our holy Russian land. If we look at the 19th century in the history of our country, we will have to admit it was full of contradictions. On the one hand, there were a lot of temples, and on the other hand, intellectual ferment took hold then, with our brilliant writer Leo Tolstoy as its brightest example. Like a star in the sky, we can observe the exploits by the ascetics of Optina Pustyn.The Optina elders played a huge part in the history of our country reinforcing its Orthodox traditions. The Venerable Paisius factored in greatly to the development of the tradition of church elders. After Venerable Sergius, he was the one who revived the school of Russian elders that bore fruit in the 19th century in the Optina and Glinskaya Pustyn monasteries as well as other monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church. We live at a time of revival of spiritual life in Russia. The example of the life of Venerable Paisios is truly important for us so that we won’t accept the temptations of this age but rather live in piety and purity,” said the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolitanate.