Anniversary celebrations at the Lesna Monastery
The Lesna Monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God celebrated several anniversaries between October 6-8: 140 years of the foundation of the monastery, 175 years of the birth and 100 years since the repose of the founder of the monastery, St. Catherine of Lesna, Duchess Evgenia Borisovna Efimovskaya in the world, and 75 years since the Lesna monastery has been in France. The anniversary celebrations were held in conjunction with the annual feast day of the monastery’s greatest spiritual treasure, the Miracle working Lesna icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. To the great joy of the sisters, many of our friends from far and wide joined us: around 200 pilgrims from 12 countries joined us for the celebration. We were especially grateful to receive so many pilgrims from the US, including experienced singers, who under the direction of the talented choir conductor from the Holy Trinity parish in Astoria, NY, George (or Yuri? Don’t know his last name), participated in the services and added such beauty to our anniversary celebration. The participation of the experienced subdeacons from the Astoria parish made it possible to celebrate the hierarchical services fully and with the proper solemnity. The Lesna sisters were also especially glad to welcome so many monastic guests. We were joined by many of our beloved sisters from Serbia and Bulgaria, who not only celebrated with us, but also shared in all our labors.
The divine services were led by our Serbian bishops, Vl. Akakije and Vl. Nektarije, and by our honored special guest from Russia, Archbishop Sophrony. The Vigil was sung mostly by the monastic choir, adding liturgical texts in honor of the Most Holy Mother of God and in memory of St. Catherine of Lesna to the Sunday service. The pilgrim’s choir sang the hymn to the Most Holy Mother of God before the 9th ode, and the Great Doxology. The festal Liturgy was sung by both choirs, and choir conductor George (-name?–) is to be commended for his thoughtful choices of compositions that blended so well with the monastic choir. After the reading of the hours, the monastery’s senior altar server, Ilya Shorban, received a blessing to wear an orarion. At the entrance clergy of the monastery and its mission received awards. Fr. Archimandrite Evfimy (Trofimov), who celebrated 35 years of service as a priest this year, received the honor of a blessing to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with the Royal doors open up to the Cherubic hymn, and Protopriest Aleksey Lebedev was honored with the blessing to wear an ornamented pectoral cross. Fr. Jovan Ristic, who serves at Vl. Akakije’s diocesan center at Uteshitelevo near Belgrade, in the church dedicated to St. Catherine of Lesna, was raised to the rank of Protopriest. The senior sisters of the Lesna community were also honored; M. Amvrosia (Jahns) was appointed prioress of the monastery and received the blessing of a pectoral cross, and m. Afanasia (Annenkova) was appointed the Abess’ assistant for administrative and financial matters, and also received a pectoral cross. At the end of the Liturgy the monastery thanked many of its benefactors and helpers with special certificates of gratitude. The liturgical and more official parts of our celebration concluded with a large festal trapeza meal, followed by the traditional monastery feast day bazaar, featuring the crafts of the sisters, and plenty of games for all the children present.
A small conference in honor of St. Catherine of Lesna was held on the final day of celebration. Svetlana Vais from New York spoke about the deciding role that Matushka Catherine played in the fate of another saint whose centenary we are celebrating this year, St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, as it was at Matushka Catherine’s request, based on her desire to get the young Bishop Tikhon (Belavin), the future patriarch, as far away as possible from Lesna that led to his appointment to the US. The second lecture by Abbess Evfrosinia, told of Matushka Catherine’s efforts to revive the ancient practice of ordaining deaconesses at the turn of the XX century in the Russian Church.
By the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God, and by the prayers of our founder and intercessor St. Catherine, the Lord helped us gather in these difficult times of such strife and division. The Lesna monastery heartily thanks everyone who supported us and shared in the labors of organising our celebration, as well as everyone who came to celebrate with us, especially our beloved Vladykas, and everyone that came from afar. I believe that all of us: monastics, clergy and laypeople, felt spiritually strengthened and newly inspired, and are grateful for the opportunity to have shared prayer and communion with so many like-minded kindred spirits.
A film of the celebration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjIy7guIySY
Photoalbum: https://uteshiteljevo.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post_7.html
For Russian speakers: St. Catherine’s centenary was remembered and celebrated in Russia on October 14th, by an online conference that Abbess Evfrosinia was invited to participate in, organised by the St. Philaret Institute in Moscow:
