Dewdney BC All Saints of North America Canadian Orthodox Monastery 1973

Dewdney, British Columbia, All Saints of North America Canadian Orthodox Monastery, 1973

Prehistory from 1968

In 1968, during a visit to Mount Athos, Greece, Lev Puhalo and Vasili Novakshonoff developed the idea of founding a Canadian Orthodox monastery. Discussions with some of the monks on the Holy Mountain of Mount Athos brought to mind the fact that monasticism is very much at the heart of the development of national Orthodoxy in every country where the Orthodox Christian Faith has flourished. Since some monks whom they visited on Mount Athos had advised them not to delay, but to act at once on their calling, Lev and Vasili immediately set about developing their plan.

First hermitage, 1969

Having no financial resources for the undertaking, they began their struggle in a tiny hut east of Rosedale, British Columbia, Canada. The building had only a dirt floor, and in the late autumn of 1969, they built a platform of scrap lumber over half the floor, while the other half remained earthen. During the first winter (which was exceptionally cold and damp) the 2 strugglers found that their roof had several leaks. That year witnessed several ice and snow storms in the upper Fraser Valley region, and the 2 beginner ascetics endured much from the cold winds which blew through the poorly built walls of the skete. Since the building was uninsulated and it had no source of heat, they stretched 2 sheets of plastic over a rope line, placed a small kerosene burner between them, and these 2 make-shift tents became the first cells of these first Canadian-born Orthodox Christian monks.

The kitchen of this skete was in the area of the hut which had the earthen floor. This kitchen consisted of only a Coleman stove and a single tap with cold water. There was no plumbing. In such conditions, the 2 translated (from Russian into English) the “Life of Saint Theophil, the Fool-for-Christ of the Kiev Caves” and the “Life of the Blessed Xenia” (both published at Jordanville, New York), and a significant portion of “The History of Russian Imperial Coronations” for the Russian Orthodox Youth Committee, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).

In the spring of 1969, a symposium titled “Forgotten Voices, Women in the Early Church” was held near the monastic hermitage. It introduced both Orthodox Christians and a large number of Protestants to some great women saints of the early Church, such as Saints Zinaida, Philonella and Hermione. A large number of people attended from Metropolitan Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the state of Washington. In fact, not everyone could be comfortably accommodated in the auditorium and some were left to stand throughout the talks. The success of this symposium can be measured by the invitations from various Protestant churches for Lev to speak on the same subject to their congregations. Speakers at the symposium included David Goa and Anna Altmann from Edmonton, Alberta.

Lev was ordained to the Holy Diaconate in 1972, and he remained in the Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, New York, USA, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) for 1 year, before being assigned to serve in a parish in the USA for another 3 years. He then returned to Canada to resume the development of the first Canadian Orthodox English-speaking monastery.

Deacon Lev Puhalo travelled very often, and he gave lectures and talks for young people in Orthodox parishes. During these years, he developed a deep feeling of compassion for the isolated Orthodox Christians living in areas where church life was not available to them. His service to isolated Orthodox Christians was to become a central feature of the service of the Canadian Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America. Deacon Lev was, in fact, the first Orthodox missionary in the late 20th century to seek out and serve isolated Orthodox Christians in Canada and in the USA.

The second monastic site, 1973

The second monastic site was somewhat more substantial than the first. It consisted of a tiny 4-room cabin in the mountains above the Chilliwack River Valley, south of Chilliwack, British Columbia. There was no plumbing or running water in this building, but it was insulated and it had a sound roof. The development of the first Canadian Orthodox monastery continued on this site in 1973. Because of Deacon Lev’s frequent absences, Vasili carried on much of the struggle alone.

It was at this time that the "Synaxis Press" was founded. It thus became the first Canadian Orthodox publishing house. Publication of the “Canadian Orthodox Missionary” began in 1973, and the first edition of the “Synaxis Theological Journal” appeared in 1974.

During the first years of the new monastery, the monks kept themselves warm and they cooked food with an ancient wood-stove. Deacon Lev cut and split many cords of firewood each autumn. In 1974, he installed a pipeline that brought cold water into the monastery from a spring on the mountainside above the monastery building. This second monastic building never did have hot water or indoor plumbing.

Vasili continued with full-time secular employment in order to finance both the monastery and the mission to isolated Orthodox Christians. Deacon Lev built a chapel onto the monastery building for regular services. This chapel would become the site of the first English-language Orthodox parish in Western Canada. These were years of hard work and struggle for the monks.

Their service, purpose and goals were not understood by ultra-ethnic jurisdictions and similarly, the idea that Orthodoxy could be expressed in worship and in writing in the English language was strongly resisted. At the same time, Deacon Lev was one of the most active Orthodox Christian missionaries in North America. He travelled often as much as 16,000 km (10,000 mi) on Greyhound and other buses during a year in order to help isolated Orthodox Christians in small communities. While he was there, he spoke to many non-Orthodox groups about the Orthodox Christian Faith. As a result of his tireless but exhausting efforts, many people were converted or returned to Orthodoxy. All this activity was financed by the monks from their own labours.

Establishment of the missionary parish of Saint Tikhon, 1980

In 1980, a small group of Canadians of Romanian descent who lived in the Chilliwack area came to the monastery and asked whether they could worship in the monastery chapel. In response to the request (which was conveyed to the bishop under whose blessing the monastery subsisted), Bishop Irenej (Kovačević) of New Gračanica (of the Free Serbian Orthodox Church, who resided at the New Gračanica Monastery at Third Lake, Illinois, USA) ordained Deacon Lev Puhalo to the Holy Priesthood in order to serve the new parish of Saint Tikhon, and to serve the monastery of All Saints (both at Chilliwack, British Columbia).

Teaching at New Gračanica Seminary, 1982

In 1982, Father Lev Puhalo was called upon by Bishop Irenej to go to New Gračanica, north of Chicago, Illinois, to help found the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Seminary for the New Gračanica Metropolitanate.

In 1982, Bishop Irenej (Kovačević) tonsured Deacon Lev Puhalo to be a monk, and he gave him the name Lazar. Then, Bishop Irenej ordained [Hierodeacon] Lazar (Puhalo) to the Holy Priesthood. He assigned Hieromonk Lazar (Puhalo) to serve the parish of Saint Tikhon in British Columbia, and also All Saints Monastery (both in Chilliwack).

Later in 1982, because he was to continue in his obedience of teaching at New Gračanica, Hieromonk Lazar (Puhalo) (with the blessing of Bishop Irenej) tonsured Vasili Novakshonoff to be a monk, and gave him the name Varlaam. Afterwards, Bishop Irenej ordained Monk Varlaam (Novakshonoff) to the Holy Diaconate, and then to the Holy Priesthood. Hieromonk Varlaam (Novakshonoff) was assigned to serve the parish of Saint Tikhon in British Columbia, and also All Saints Monastery (both in Chilliwack).

Father Lazar spent most of the next 5 years at New Gračanica, and during this time, he rebuilt the Saint John the Baptist parish in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In 1985, the parish of Saint Nicholas in Langley, British Columbia appealed to the monastery for help and for a priest. Saint Nicholas Canadian Orthodox Church in Langley became the second English language Orthodox parish in British Columbia.

Because pure beeswax candles were not available locally, Father Varlaam built a small candle factory to produce hand-dipped, pure beeswax candles in the 2 parishes and the monastery.

The Feast-day of the icon “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” was established in 1984, when Metropolitan Irenej of New Gračanica presented the monastery with a small icon of the Theotokos as a blessing to the Canadian Mission of the New Gračanica Monastery.

The large icon, "Theotokos Joy of Canada", was painted by Slavko Protic for the Monastery of All Saints of North America, Dewdney, British Columbia, in 1986. The maple leaves and "fleur-de-lys" motifs on the garments and the annual Joy of Canada pilgrimage mark the advent of a Canadian Orthodox tradition which has continued to be celebrated on an annual basis.

Icon "Theotokos, Joy of Canada"

The Feast-day of the Icon of the “Theotokos, Joy of Canada”

Permanent establishment of the monastery, 1991

In 1990, Hieromonk Lazar (Puhalo) was ordained to the Holy Episcopate.

At about the same time, the monks felt that it was necessary to develop the monastery further. With prayer and fasting, and less than $5,000.00 in the bank, they began to search for new property. By God’s mercy, the monks were able to acquire a 40-acre property with a 744 square metre (8,000 square-foot) main building, all divided into large rooms. This particular building required considerable repairs and renovations.

Third monastic site, 1991

Nevertheless, the Canadian Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America was able, by God’s blessing, to take possession of the new property in November, 1991. This property was at Dewdney, British Columbia, not far to the east of the city of Mission. Nearby Mission, on the top of a hill, is the Roman Catholic Benedictine Westminster Abbey. Not far from them also are the Roman Catholic communities of Poor Clares, and to the north, a new Discalced Carmelite community.

When the monastery was purchased and established, Vladika Lazar named the property itself “New Ostrog” after the famous Ostrog Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Montenegro. The candle factory was dedicated to the protection of Saint Vasili of Ostrog.

In 1994, Hieromonk Varlaam (Novakshonoff) was ordained to the Holy Episcopate.

With God’s help, and the prayers of the faithful, the monastery continued to grow and thrive. The conference series, held under the auspices of the Saint Maximos Centre for Canadian Orthodox Studies (located in the New Ostrog complex within the monastery grounds) became a standard feature of Canadian Orthodox life and development. By God’s blessing, 25 years of lonely, patient struggle for the spiritual development of Canadian Orthodoxy began to bear fruit.

Move to the Orthodox Church in America, and the Archdiocese of Canada, 2003

In 2003, the monastery was received into the jurisdiction of The Orthodox Church in America (OCA).

Events in 2004

The monastery sponsored an exhibit commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders. The monastery hosted the Sunday of Orthodoxy Vespers, co-sponsored by the Fraser Valley Orthodox Clergy Association. On All Saints Sunday, Bishop Seraphim (Storheim) celebrated a Healing Service together with many clergy and Faithful. The annual pilgrimage and Feast of the “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” was celebrated in August, with a Cross-procession that included the carrying of Holy Relics and icons.

On 1 October, the monastery, together with the Orthodox Peace Fellowship and the Simon Fraser University Orthodox Club sponsored a peace forum in Vancouver. On 2 October, a new exhibit of icons by Canadian iconographer Heiko Schlieper opened as part of the monastery’s gallery. In November, a special forum was held, called “Conversations on Mars Hill” and featured dialogues on a wide variety of subjects between Archbishop Lazar and leaders of civil and secular society, moderated by Canadian philosopher David Goa. Finally, during 2004, some of the Synaxis Press publications were translated into Romanian, Russian and Greek.

Heiko Schlieper and Dr. David Goa

Heiko Schlieper Icon Museum and Centre for Iconography, Dewdney, British Columbia, 2004

On the afternoon of 2 October, 2004, about 50 persons from several parishes were present at the Monastery of All Saints of North America in Dewdney British Columbia. They were welcoming the distinguished Canadian iconographer, Heiko Schlieper, and celebrating the opening of an icon museum and centre for iconography that now bore his name. Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) officially opened the museum, after which David Goa then gave a biographical introduction about Heiko Schlieper, who was himself present. Heiko was not one to speak about himself.

Dr. Goa explained that Heiko had begun studying iconography in the early 1950s, and that Heiko had left his academic career at McGill University in 1976 in order to dedicate himself to iconography on a full-time basis. He added that the intention in establishing this museum was to provide a source of inspiration and reference resource for iconographers throughout North America. There was an interval during which those present visited the more than 50 icons belonging to this exhibit. At this time, one could hear conversations in English, Romanian, Russian, Arabic, and Greek. Then Archbishop Lazar gave a concluding talk, “The Icon as Scripture”, and the day concluded with the serving of Vespers in the monastery chapel.

Heiko C Schlieper museum in Dewdney opens, 2004

Events in 2005

The Monastery began a new outreach for serving Russian- and Ukrainian- speaking people by serving the Divine Liturgy once a month in Church Slavonic. This was met with great enthusiasm. It enabled people who live farther away from Vancouver to come to the monastery for liturgies, baptisms, and other services and sacraments. The monastery also continued to serve weddings, baptisms and other services for Orthodox Christians living in isolated areas of British Columbia.

The monastery’s video and DVD filming outreach continued to develop. With the co-operation of David Goa, Director of the Chester Ronning Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, and Father James Matta (of the Greek Orthodox Vicariate for the Palestinian/Jordanian Orthodox Christian Communities in California), the monastery produced several new videos and DVDs. All the recording was done in the "Heiko Schlieper Icon Museum", but work continued on remodelling a sitting-room into a filming studio. Videos are available, and many of these same videos have been transferred to DVD.

An Anointing Service was held on the Feast of All Saints, with the following clergy participating : Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo), Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff) and Hieromonk Moses (Armstrong) from the Monastery of All Saints of North America ; Archpriests Michael Fourik and Stephen Slipko of Holy Resurrection Church, Vancouver ; Father Iohanna (John) Ayoub from Prophet Elias Arabic Church, New Westminster ; Archpriest Lawrence Farley of Saint Herman of Alaska Church, Surrey ; Priest Nicolae Lapuste of Holy Trinity Romanian Church, New Westminster ; and Priest John Bingham of Saint Nicholas Church, Langley. The outdoor service was celebrated in several languages (English, Slavonic, Romanian, Arabic, and Greek). A Cross-procession followed, with clergy and laity carrying Holy Relics and icons.

Archbishop Lazar made 2 trips to Romania in 2005. In the spring, he gave some talks, particularly to students at various universities in Romania. In the autumn, he travelled again in order to speak at an international congress, which was sponsored by the Romanian Academy of Sciences, the Romanian Patriarchate and the Templeton Foundation. Vladika Lazar (Puhalo) spoke in both Bucharest and Constantsa. In that year alone, 3 of his books were translated into Romanian and published. Two of his articles have appeared in the official journal of the Romanian Academy of Science, and the Academy also translated and published his book “The Evidence of Things Not Seen”.

The popular book, “God’s Fools”, published by Synaxis Press and reprinted many times, was translated into French. It is readily available in France under the title of “La Vie des Fols-en-Christ : Folie du monde et Sagesse de Dieu”. In August, “God’s Fools” was translated into Greek and published on Mount Athos.

There was great joy when it became possible to set out for veneration 2 new Holy Relics : of Saint Paissy of Niamţ, Romania, and of Saint Haralambos, both of whom are greatly loved by Orthodox Christians.

In that year, the annual “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” Feast-day was marked by a special Cross-Procession. In previous years the icon of the Theotokos was carefully carried by 2 clergy. This time, however, a special icon case had been built for it, as well as a structure which allowed the icon to be carried by 4 people.

The “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” icon made its first journey out of British Columbia when it was taken to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and to Edmonton, Alberta. In Saskatoon, it was received at the Holy Resurrection Sobor with the chanting of the Akathist Hymn composed for it, and a Divine Liturgy. The reception of the icon was almost overwhelming in the love and sincerity shown by everyone. From there it was taken to Edmonton where it first visited Holy Trinity Church. There, Vespers and an Akathist were served. It also visited Saint Herman’s Sobor, where an Akathist was served. This was the first pilgrimage away from the Monastery of this holy wonder-working icon. The feast of the “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” is the first truly Canadian Orthodox feast, and it is appropriate that the icon should make pilgrimages throughout Canada as a blessing to our nation.

The Monastery of All Saints of North America sponsored a lecture and display commemorating the centennial anniversary of the Russo-Japanese War. Following a Slavonic Liturgy, Elena Koutarjevskii gave a spirited and illuminating talk in Russian about the significance of this war to Russians. An English translation of the talk was arranged by George Patrikeeff.

The monastery, mainly through the efforts of Archbishop Lazar, has made a very substantial outreach, first to local universities by means of talks, discussions and seminars, and to the states of the USA where similar lectures were given. Vladika Lazar’s extensive tours in Romania are a part of this outreach.

Several new titles were published by "Synaxis Press" and older titles were reprinted, such as “The Guardian Angel” (which has been reprinted numerous times). As well, the 2006 Traditional (Julian) Calendar was prepared and made available.

The monastery’s web-site was updated and consolidated, with an effort to make material more accessible to viewers.

Events in 2006

In 2006, the Monastery of All Saints of North America had a constant flow of pilgrims and visitors. They were all warmly received, given a tour, offered tea ; and in the case of Orthodox visitors and pilgrims, they are taken to the Church to venerate the many Holy Relics and icons in it.

The monastery’s web-site was further developed and updated, thanks to a concerted effort by several of the faithful. Its Russian-language page was greatly expanded and the web-site began to be truly Canadian in its multi-lingual approach.

Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) led some retreats during the year in Washington, DC, Virginia, Florida, Michigan and Baltimore, Maryland, in the ]https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States USA]. In addition, he led retreats in Regina, Saskatchewan and in Sifton, Manitoba in Canada. As usual, he gave many lectures. He was the keynote speaker at the Orthodox Christian Laity Association’s annual convention in Baltimore.

"Synaxis Press" continued to re-print various titles and to add new ones. More books written by Archbishop Lazar were translated into Romanian, and they were becoming increasingly popular there. Permission was also given to have titles translated into Russian and published in Russia.

The main events at the Monastery of All Saints of North America continued to be : the Sunday of Orthodoxy celebration ; Paschal Vespers service and agape ; the Anointing Service on the Sunday of All Saints (attended by more than 500 Faithful that year) ; and the Feast of the monastery’s icon, the “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” which is the All-Canadian Orthodox Pilgrimage.

In August, Archbishop Lazar led a pilgrimage from the prairie provinces to Sifton, Manitoba, which had by then become a provincial heritage site because of its Orthodox Holy Resurrection Temple, cemetery and former monastery. The 2 Canadian pilgrimages (one to the Feast of the “Theotokos, Joy of Canada” and the other to Sifton, Manitoba) made an indelible mark on the Orthodox Faithful, and certainly those of Western Canada.

The agricultural aspect of the Monastery had again not been very successful, since the bears ate most of the blueberries, apples, plums, cherries and pears. However, the monastics have become accustomed to sharing with the surrounding wildlife.

Finally, much outside publicity was given to the monastery, especially in a 3-page article in the “Vancouver Sun”, which is Western Canada’s leading newspaper.

Events in 2017

On 31 July, 2017, the Monastery of All Saints of North America in Dewdney, British Columbia, celebrated its feast "The Joy of Canada" on the last Sunday of the month. Each year, there is a concern about the unpredictability of the weather. There is usually little to worry about except midsummer heat that can be intense. This year was no exception and, after the Divine Liturgy, a Cross-procession began with the ringing of the monastery's Russian bells (donated by dear friends in Florida). They rang melodiously. Because of the heat, many of the older people and those with small children did not participate in the procession.

At the monument, with its large metal reproduction of the "Joy of Canada" icon, surrounded by lush greenery, those holding icons and Holy Relics stood up front and the moleben began. Some people had driven great distances to be present. Indeed, after the agape meal and a period of rest, there was the baptism of a baby girl whose parents had driven from Alberta especially to have her baptised at the monastery. The monks perpetually express their gratitude to God, and to the Theotokos.

Procession of the Icon of the Theotokos

In October, 2017, Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) suffered from 2 strokes. He recovered miraculously quickly from the first one, after which another one came, for which he received treatment.

Since that series of reports, the life of the monastery has continued in much the same manner. The main difference, however, has become evident in the effects of age on the senior monks. Because of age and physical illnesses, their activities have come to be somewhat limited in comparison with the multitude of previous works. Nevertheless, the regular daily, weekly and seasonal cycles of life in this monastery continue as before. The rational sheep of Christ (near and far) continue to be fed. The Lord continues to provide what is needed.

Events of 2018

On Sunday, 15 July, 2018, Archbishop Irénée (Rochon) served the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy in the Monastery Temple of the Theotokos, Joy of Canada. Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) and Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff) were present. During the Divine Liturgy, Archbishop Irénée (Rochon) ordained the subdeacon Mircea Markel Tihon to the Holy Diaconate. Deacon Mircea was assigned to serve at the monastery, and he was later ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Vladyka Irénée (Rochon).

Deacon Mircea Markel Tihon was born in Moldova, one of a set of triplets. One of his sisters, Galina, is a member of the congregation. Deacon Markel’s wife Rodica is one of the chanters who leads the congregation in singing on Sundays. They live in Port Coquitlam. Deacon Markel Tihon completed his seminary training in Romania, and he has served as reader at the monastery for some years.

Ordination photo

Repose of Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff), 2020

On 13 February, 2020, Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff) fell asleep in the Lord.

Panikhida (memorial) services then began to be served in the monastery for the newly-departed Bishop Varlaam.

On Friday, 21 February, 2020, the body of Vladika Varlaam was brought to the monastery at 4:00 p.m. At that time, a vigil began and continued on throughout the evening and night, until 11:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. The vigil consisted of the continual reading of Psalms and Gospels in a variety of languages.

On Saturday, 22 February, 2020, the Funeral Service for the Burial of a Hierarch commenced at 11:00 a.m. in the Monastery of All Saints of North America, in Dewdney, British Columbia. During the services, Archbishop Irénée (Rochon) and Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) participated from the Altar, but they did not serve (for health reasons). The Mitred Archpriest Michael Fourik, Dean of British Columbia and Yukon, presided at the services. Assisting him were : Archpriest Phillip Eriksson (Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Canada) ; Archimandrite Shio (from Georgia) ; Priest Matthew Francis ; Priest Aleksiy Isakov ; Priest Markell Tihon ; Priest Victori Gavgash ; Hieromonk Moses (Armstrong) (a member of the monastery of All Saints) ; Deacon Michael Ivanov (of Holy Resurrection Sobor, Vancouver) ; Priest Pavel (from Moldova).

After the funeral services, the body of Vladika Varlaam was transported in a funeral procession to the Orthodox Cemetery of Vancouver at Heritage Gardens Cemetery, in Surrey, British Columbia (19082-16th Avenue, Surrey, British Columbia.

The Interment Service was served at the cemetery. A memorial meal was served at the monastery afterwards.

Funeral Service for Vladika Varlaam

Remainder of 2020

During the remainder of the year 2020, the monastery continued to offer services as much as possible.

However, in the early spring, the effects and consequences of the "Covid-19 Pandemic" began to be felt. Limitations on attendance, "social distancing" rules, and mask-wearing requirements began to be applied (depending upon the intensity of the infection at the time).

In October, 2020, Vladika Lazar (Puhalo), Hieromonk Moses (Armstrong) and Priest Mircea Tihon contracted the virus (presumably transmitted unwittingly by a visitor). Father Mircea was able to recover at the monastery, but Vladika Lazar and Father Moses were both hospitalised. They spent several weeks in the Intensive Care Unit of the local Abbotsford Hospital. By God's mercy, they both returned to the monastery in November, and they were able to be reasonably active thereafter.

Vladika Lazar, 2022

In the context of the previous events, Vladika Lazar had continued to receive treatments for cancer, and he suffered from several small strokes which increased his physical limitations. However, with God's help and after some rehabilitation therapy, he managed (with minimal home-care visits) to continue to be mobile and active. He published books with the help of voice-recognition technology, and he resumed teaching and participating in symposia through "zoom" technology.

2026

By 2026, Vladyka Lazar's health had weakened somewhat, and he was spending much more time in an assisted living centre for seniors.

Vladyka Irénée (Rochon) transferred the Hieromonk Nathaniel (Humphrey) from the Monastery of the Holy Annunciation in Nova Scotia to the Monastery of All Saints at Dewdney for the sake of continuity of the liturgical services and the stability of monastic life in the monastery.

Hieromonk Nathaniel (Humphrey)

Particular monastery details

This monastery is a monastic community within the British Columbia & Yukon Deanery of the Archdiocese of Canada, of The Orthodox Church in America. The Dean is the Mitred Archpriest Michael Fourik. The bishop is Archbishop Irénée (Rochon).

This monastery follows the Old (Julian) Calendar.

The Altar Feast-day of this monastery is the Feast of All Saints of North America, the Second Sunday after Pentecost.

In 2026, the abbot of the monastery is Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo).

The second priest is Hieromonk Nathaniel (Humphrey).

Address :

All Saints of North America Canadian Orthodox Monastery

37323, Hawkins-Pickle Road

Dewdney, British Columbia

V0M 1H0

Telephone : 604-826-9336

Web-site : https://www.orthodoxcanada.org/

E-mail : synaxis@orthodoxcanada.org

Facebook

Directions :

The monastery is located in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, about 70 km (43 mi) east of Vancouver.

From Vancouver and points west :

Travel east on the #7 (Lougheed) Highway through Mission City ; or drive on the #1 Highway east to Abbotsford, then north to the city of Mission on the #11 Highway. Where Highway #11 and #7 meet in Mission, it is 5 km (3 mi) east to Dewdney. At Dewdney, DO NOT turn right to pass over the railway tracks, but rather continue driving straight ahead onto Hawkins-Pickle Road. Turn left at 37323, Hawkins-Pickle Road. There is a large sign at the gate that identifies the monastery.

From the east :

From the Hope region, drive westwards on Highway #7 (Lougheed Highway) or Highway #1 (Trans-Canada Highway).

On Highway #7, continue driving westwards past Agassiz, Harrison Mills and Deroche. As soon as the road crosses the railway line, turn right onto Hawkins-Pickle Road (DO NOT turn left). Then turn left at 37323, Hawkins-Pickle Road. There is a large sign at the gate that identifies the monastery.

On Highway #1, from Hope, drive to Abbotsford. At Highway #11, turn right (northwards). Drive on Highway #11 to the city of Mission. At the junction with Highway #7 in Mission, turn right onto Highway #7 (east). It is then 5 km (3 mi) east to Dewdney. At Dewdney, DO NOT turn right over the railway tracks, but continue driving straight ahead onto Hawkins-Pickle Road. Turn left at 37323, Hawkins-Pickle Road. There is a large sign at the gate that identifies the monastery.

From Sumas, Washington, in the USA :

Follow the Washington Route #9 northwards towards the international border. Cross the international border in Sumas, Washington, USA. On the Canadian side of the international border, it is Highway #11. Continue northwards through Abbotsford, over the Trans-Canada Highway. Drive straight on, on Highway #11 to the city of Mission. At the junction with Highway #7 in Mission, turn right (east) onto Highway #7. It is then 5 km (3 mi) east to Dewdney. At Dewdney, DO NOT turn right over the railway tracks, but continue driving straight ahead onto Hawkins-Pickle Road. Turn left at 37323, Hawkins-Pickle Road. There is a large sign at the gate that identifies the monastery.

Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo), abbot

37323, Hawkins Pickle Road

Dewdney, British Columbia

V0M 1H0

Telephone : 604-826-9336

E-mail : synaxis@orthodoxcanada.org

Priest Markel Tihon

2362, Whyte Avenue #202

Port Coquitlam, British Columbia

V3C 2A4

Telephone : 604-441-7634

E-mail : mtihon@yahoo.com

Entrance lane to the monastery

Monastery entrance and gate

Monastery main building (chapels, refectory, kitchen, meeting-rooms, library)

Aerial view of the main buildings

Main building side view with ramp to the new chapel

Monastic residence, printing/publishing shop

Main building, side entrance

Georgian pavilion

Monastery war memorial

Reflections

19-21 April, 2001

The Spirit of Sava and Lazar in a Canadian Monastery

by David J. Goa

An invited paper for Diaspora Serbs :

A Conference of Cultural Analysis

M.V. Dimic Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies

University of Alberta

The Spirit of Sava and Lazar in a Canadian Monastery

How does it come about that a person enters the monastic life, builds a monastery, and gives shape and form to an evangelical vision that is manifest in Church, in the civil sphere, and in hospitality offered to the suffering and wounded of the world? In the New Ostrog Monastery, the Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America, I have come to see the memory of Serbian religious life that informs this humble monastery and shapes the vision of Archbishop Lazar Puhalo. I hear the echo of Ravanica in his understanding of the Gospel and its ability to speak to human passion, human suffering, and the informal shape of the Monastery as a spiritual hospital. I hear the echo of Saint Sava (1175-1235) and his struggles with the Bogomils in Archbishop Lazar’s rather vigorous debates with Seraphim Rose and the attempt to infect the Russian Church Abroad with teachings on the occult and the journey of the soul after death. The independence of this little monastery, its freedom from ecclesiastic authorities, has been a difficult path for the monks at Dewdney but it is not difficult to understand given the precedent set by Crown Prince Stefan Neminja in the foundation of Studenica Monastery and its Typikon, prepared by Sava himself, which made this type of independence a structural matter. Of course, there is also the whole matter of the deep role Serbian monasteries play in the formation and identity of Slavic Serbs, as sacred sites and mausoleums for kings and their families, as places of refuge from the terrors of history and objects of that terror, as bulwarks in the forging of a sense of peoplehood, nation, and finally, state itself. It should not surprise anyone that the humble monastery of All Saints of North America should have become, in recent years, a gathering place for intellectuals and activists who are attempting to forge a vision of Canada ringing the changes on the Red Tory Movement. Archbishop Lazar has often said he was a monarchist and socialist, who as a monk thought it improper to vote and as a citizen and Orthodox Christian thought it proper to participate in the civil discourse of our nation. The Nemaja seem alive and well in the Fraser valley of British Columbia.

The Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America and the Centre for Canadian Orthodox Studies is nestled in the mountains near Dewdney, British Columbia. This is the first skete (small monastery) in Canada that has focused its work on indigenizing Orthodox Christian tradition in the Canadian cultural context and it has done so, I will argue, because of an implicit theology of culture and the Serbian cultural, historical, and religious touchstone that informs the Abbot’s sensibilities. Its primary contributions have been through establishing Orthodox parishes that include people of various cultural origins; translating and writing of liturgical texts in which Canadian elements are joined with those of Saint John Chrysostom; establishing the first Canadian Orthodox feast day called the feast of the Theotokos, Joy of Canada, held on the second Sunday in August; and the publications of Synaxis Press, including Synaxis: The Canadian Orthodox Theological Journal and The Journal of the Nemanji’c Institute for Serbo-Byzantine Studies.

The idea of founding the Monastery was developed by Lev Puhalo (born 12 January 1941) and Vasili Novakshonoff in discussions with the monks of Mount Athos, Greece, in 1968. They returned from their journey to Mount Athos and founded their initial skete near Rosedale, British Columbia. Five years later the Monastery moved to its second site, a four-room cabin in the mountains above the Chilliwack River valley south of Chilliwack, B.C. It was here that the press and publications of the Monastery began to flourish. In 1991 the Monastery purchased a 40-acre farm with 12,000 square feet of buildings at Dewdney, near Mission, B.C., its current location. When the Monastery entered the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev in 1990, Fr. Lazar was consecrated bishop by three hierarchs of the Kievan Patriarchate, Metropolitan Evlogi, Archbishop Grigori, and Bishop Vigile. In 1994, His Holiness, Volodymir, Patriarch of Kiev and All Rus’-Ukraine, elevated Bishop Lazar to Archbishop and consecrated Vasili Novakshonoff, Bishop of Vancouver.

Since my first visit to the Monastery in 1986 I have discussed Orthodox theology, the spiritual life, philosophy, national and international politics with Archbishop Lazar and noted how often his reflections are peppered with references to the historical experience of Serbia and Serbian spiritual culture. We have discussed a number of these matters directly over the time of our fifteen-year friendship and I have been a regular reader of his Church paper and other publications which liberally draw on this aspect of his cultural memory. We have travelled together twice into the shadow of Byzantium and it was on the first of these journeys that I began to understand how memory and vocation are woven together and incarnate in his understanding and his work.

In early September 1998 I travelled to the new Yugoslavia in the company of Archbishop Lazar. It was a pilgrimage to his spiritual homeland as well as a field research trip for me in conjunction with work I was doing for an exhibition on the place of Jesus in the history of human culture. During the flight to Frankfurt and the drive through Germany, Austria, and Hungary to Belgrade to meet our guide, the eminent iconographer Gavrilo Markovich, and begin our journey to various monasteries, including several in Kosovo, we talked of the Archbishop’s ancestral homeland, its struggle with Islam and various empires (most recently, the Soviet Union), and the importance of warriors to protect the outer freedom and hesychastic monks to deepen the inner freedom. Shortly after entering Serbia he commented that the shape of Serbian history is “a struggle for the honour of the cross and for golden freedom.”

Our journey led us through the monasteries of the Morava valley. These monasteries were built largely in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and many have iconographic programs in the finest tradition of what we now call the Serbo-Macedonian School, deeply influenced by the hesychastic movement drawing on the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas. Many churches in the area were dedicated to the Transfiguration, the leitmotif of the hesychastic movement. Our first stop was Ravanica Monastery, founded by Prince Lazar and Princess Milica. Its charter dates from 1381 and its was here, in the Church of the Ascension, that the body of Prince Lazar was laid to rest after he was killed on the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Polje) in 1389. He was canonized a year later. Tsar Lazar was the protector of the Hesychasm movement. Ravanica, through the work of Tsar Lazar, occupies a significant place in the history of the Church and Orthodox culture for it was here that hesychast monks such as Saint Gregory Sinaites were given refuge in their flight from the Turks. Gregory Sinaites studied with the monk Arsenios and learned the “Jesus prayer,” the repetition of the phrase “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” This “prayer of the heart,” a continuous and imageless form of prayer combined with control of breathing, was a forerunner of Hesychasm. Turkish raids forced Gregory to flee Mount Athos and eventually to settle at Paroria in the part of Thrace which became Bulgaria, where he founded a monastery ca. 1330 on Mount Katakekryomene. On three occasions the monks were forced to flee their beloved Paroria because of famine and the threat from brigands and Turks. After one of these attacks on Paroria, they fled to Mount Athos where they lived as hermits, and when Mount Athos became endangered after the Serbian defeat at Marica in 1371, they moved on to Avlon and finally to the monastery at Ravanica. Other monks of note who lived for a time at Ravanica include Gregory in Gornjak and Sisoya in Sisojevac. The Orthodox Renaissance underway in Serbia is evident at Ravanica and other monasteries we visited where women and men alike are deeply engaged in the recovery of Orthodox tradition, largely through the study of the Hesychastic movement. The new generation of iconographers, hymn writers, and theologians, priest and laity alike, see this tradition which entered Serbia with Prince Lazar as the world of meaning and practice that informs their thinking and work. The two themes of co-suffering-love and the path of glorification leading to a glimpse of the uncreated light glimpsed on Mount Tabor informed our conversations every place we talked along this journey.

The whole complex of Ravanica, including the church, is architecturally significant. The Church of the Ascension has a trefoil shape and an unusual open narthex in front. (The trefoil form has been well known in Serbia since Justinian’s time and was used in many places in the Morava valley.) In the heart of this church, I began to see the various leitmotifs we discussed on the journey from Canada to Europe. Decorated stone carvings grace this building displaying elements of Turkish, Georgian, and Armenian design, along with the ancient Byzantine. The interior of the church is covered with frescoes, many of which are in rather poor repair. The Ravanica frescoes speak of centuries of trauma. A suite of frescoes depicts the miracles of Christ linking the valley of the Galilee with the valley of the Morova, joining the Passion of Christ to the passion of the Serbian people. Here the spirit of the repeatedly colonized Serbian people raised in my mind the poignant idea articulated by our own George Grant of how we are challenged to hold together the “love of one’s own” with the “love of the good.” One enters the church under an icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos and is greeted in the naos by a suite of festal icons in one register and Christ’s Passion in another. On the western wall a number of monks and hermit saints surround one, and in both transepts warrior saints, ancient and modern, join this great cloud of witnesses. My companion’s words at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic greeted me on the ground in our first monastery: Serbian culture is “a struggle for the honour of the cross and for golden freedom,” a struggle with the appetite coming from deep within our mind and heart and a struggle with the appetite of others sweeping over my portion of the world. Thus, at Ravanica the revered Saint Lazar and his family are shown among the holy hermits not among the holy warriors.

Some of the original materials were used in the reconstructed buildings of Ravanica. As a consequence, the walls of the church speak of the terrors of history and the genius of the human spirit, of layers of cultural identity and the struggles to hold on to that centre of faith which seeks to “make all things new” through the integration of history’s traumas. Built as it is on ruins, it is not surprising that Ravanica has become a place where sermons on the martyrs of Kosovo are common and where writing, including Serbian folk literature, has been nurtured. Indeed, educational activity based in the monasteries has always fostered the identity of the Serbian people and national consciousness. Perhaps for this reason the tension between the Monastery and the Turkish occupation authorities was constant. For six centuries Ravanica was a target of Turkish reprisals. The Monastery was attacked in 1396, 1398, and 1436. On each of these occasions the church just inside the walls was largely left alone. However, in 1686/87 a number of the monks were killed and all the buildings were demolished. When Hieromonk Stefan returned to the deserted monastery in 1717, after Serbia had been freed from the Turks in the Austro-Turkish war, he found the ruins overgrown with trees. He rebuilt the Monastery and church using the stone rubble and restored the frescoes bit by bit. Again in 1788, following the rebellion of Kocina Krajina, the Monastery was pillaged. It was rebuilt in 1850. In 1934 Sr. Jefimija, who had organized a monastery in Kovilj, near Nova Sadi, with her community with fifty sisters took refuge from the barbarism of the Ustash at Ravanica, re-establishing the Monastery as a women’s community. After World War II, Ravanica was one of the first great Serbian monuments to receive systematic conservation work.

Our journey next took us through the back country, twelve kilometres to Mount Kvchevo and to Sisoje Monastery, named for Abbot Sisoje, the Hesychast. The abbess Mother Tatjana greeted us at the gate of this monastery, which was built in the 1950s. Here a small group of women associated with Ravanica have come to make their home and build on the ruins of a monastic house built in the fourteenth century by Milica, Tsar Lazars’ wife, and dedicated to Sisoje, her spiritual father. A monastery had thrived here until 1691/92 when the Serbs lost a battle to liberate this area and the Slavic Serb population, including the monastics, were forced to flee. The restored church is dedicated to the Transfiguration, drawing on the connection with the hesychastic tradition, and the sisters use the Typikon of Saint Theodore of Studios (759-826) to shape their liturgical life. Exile, opposition to court and church authorities, and rehabilitation shaped Theodore’s life and informed his contributions to the monastic life. He valued family ties and paid serious attention to the role of women, always drawing on his own experience of adversity to encourage monastics in his many letters. Standing in the courtyard of this new monastery we talked of the Palamite presence on this ground, of Milica’s spiritual father, Sisoje, of their relationship to Theodore of Studios, and of their place in the grand story of struggle and joy. Century piled upon century, from the world of Theodore to that of Milica and Tsar Lazar and the struggles of Sr. Jefimija just a few decades ago. Story piled upon story and all with the gravity of yesterday, all with that curious grace that prepares one for tomorrow. It was time for us to leave when the police arrived and we did so at the bidding of the sisters without question, but with the realization that the landscape of struggle was as much existential as it was historical.

Later that day we came to Krushevac, the birthplace of Tsar Lazar. We parked in the centre of town and walked up through the central park to the Lazarevo Church, a site presided over by an elderly gentleman. We were surrounded by ruins and the memory of Tsar Lazar. After two hours or so we walked back down and 200 metres from the church were greeted by one of the local women railing at the world out of what appeared to be the madness of paranoia. She was inconsolable and unreachable. We travelled to Matrushka Banya for the night. This old resort town, with its spas and life of enjoyment, had turned into a refugee camp for Serbs from Croatia and Croatians from Bosnia. There was no room to be found for “the stranger” and finally the hotel clerk negotiated a private home where we could spend the night after the shifting around of various members of the extended family made several rooms available for the Archbishop, Gavrilo, my son, and me. Early the next morning sun broke through for the first time since we had started our journey and as we prepared to take our leave the gentleman of the house summoned us to the summer kitchen. A ragged picture of King Peter dangled over his table. We spoke of praying at King Peter’s grave in Libertyville, Illinois, because the terrors of history required burial on Republican ground in the New World. He bid us sit and take Serbian coffee and a large glass of his best Slivovitz, all consumed while we conversed on the monarchy, embargo, forthcoming elections, and other current struggles facing each and every one of his countrymen. By 6:30 a.m. we were duly fortified for the journey to the king’s town, Krayevo, 200 kilometres south of Belograd, and the Zhica Monastery.

Zhica Monastery was founded by King Stefan the First-Crowned (Prvovencani) at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The hagiographers of Saint Sava assert that portions of the monastery were built after he returned from the Holy Mountain in 1207. While the Church of the Ascension was the first church built on the monastery grounds, the Church of the Saviour was, according to record, built by Saint Sava and his brother Stefan. Sava left Studenica and returned to Chilandar on Mount Athos in 1217 in protest against the coronation of his brother Stefan the First-Crowned by a papal legate. In 1219 Sava was consecrated first archbishop of the Autocephalous Church of Serbia by the Nicene patriarch Manuel I Sarantenos (1216-1222) and continued his father’s work to create a viable Serbian state. He wrote a life of his father as well as edited monastic typika, liturgical texts, and the Serbian Nomokanon. He also organized the Church hierarchy and defended the independent Serbian Church against papal claims, the Bogomil influence from Bosnia, and the persistent efforts of Demetrios Chomatenos, Epirot archbishop of Ohrid, to subject Serbia to his diocese. Zhica became the seat of the new archbishopric during this period and many of the buildings were constructed to accommodate the church of the new nation. King Stefan, together with his son Radoslav, added lands to the monastery holdings and it was here that kings were crowned, and archbishops consecrated for decades to come. Later in the thirteenth century the see was transferred south to the region of Metohija, (Pec, as it is now called) for fear of Hungary’s aspirations in this region. Despite this, Zhica has remained the foundation of the Serbian Church.

The Monastery architecture belongs to the Raska style of building with its large naos divided into various parts with a wide apse to the east, a narthex to the west, and lateral choirs to the north and south. This cruciform church shows the evolution of the Raska style in the Nemanjic period which reached its full expression in this church. The proskomedion and diakonikon were added to the original plan somewhat later. Frescoes were added after the Serbian Church received its independence in 1219. Those fresco painters probably came from Saloniki. Both the government and Church worked to restore this monastery and establish a women’s community here in the 1960s. An icon school was established in 1978 with twelve sisters working on icons. Sister Magdalina, head of the icon school, talked with us about the iconography and architectural style of the church, comparing it to the monastery churches at Studenic, Milescva, Sopocani, and Arine. She pointed to the monumental painting style with its large, strong figures, and the use of strong colours in its festal program and discussed its “theological clarity.” We were told about fifty sisters lived in the monastery.

The church at Zhica is also a mausoleum for its founder, King Stefan. The Mongol horde, the Kumans, burned the monastery in the thirteenth century, although some of the buildings and portions of fresco work survived. It was rebuilt with new frescoes under King Milutin. In the Turkish period, 1690-1900, it was burned again and abandoned for a long period. After World War I it became an Episcopal Centre under the Archbishop Niko Zicki. One is never far from the terrors of history in any of these monasteries. For example, the Germans occupied Zhica in World War II and Bishop Nicoli was captured and sent to Dachau. He was considered a danger to the new regime because he spoke out against fascism and opposed the pact made with Germany during the war. After the war Bishop Nicoli left Germany and went to the United States. In recent years Zhica has been at the centre of the Bogomoltski, a pietist movement focused on various charismatic gifts, including dreams and prophecy, along with teaching seekers about the apophatic path using the spiritual classic The Way of a Pilgrim, and the works of Gregory the Allorgist, Shariphim Sarov, and Theodore of Studios. Largely a lay movement, the Bogomoltski use the “Jesus Prayer,” engage in charismatic preaching, and use a hymnology which combines religious and folk melodic forms. A nun who is part of this movement advised our guide Gavrilo, who is part of the Orthodox Renaissance movement, that he should give up his other activities, including iconography, and simply go to the village square and preach the Gospel to whomever will listen.

The next stop on our journey was the magnificent monastery that takes its name, Studenica, from the brook on whose banks it was built. We came to it having crossed the confluence of Studenica with the meandering Ibar River 10 kilometres from the Monastery and glimpsed this jewel in the early morning light nestled into the slope of Mount Radocelo. It was the largest of the monasteries we had visited with the Church of the Virgin Mary at the centre. A stone fortification surrounded it. Along the perimeter against the fortification was the Cell of Simeon Nemanja, King Milutin’s dormitory, a residential building raised by Prince Milos, a dormitory from 1912, the Refectory, an eighteenth-century dormitory, and two modest and elegant towers. Along with the Katholikon, the Church of the Virgin Mary, a Romanesque building which has retained its original shape despite its long and troubled history, there are three other churches: the church of Saints Joachim and Anne (King’s church), the foundation of the Church of St. John, and the Church of Saint Nicolas.

The origins of Studenica and the founding of its churches play an important role at both the beginning and end of the political career of Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja (1166-1196, +1199). In the biography written by his son, whom we have come to know as Saint Sava, the building of two churches at Toplica, in Nemanja’s part of the principality whose rule he shared with his brother, completely changed the course of his life and was foundational to the development of the Serbian nation. His building activity became a source of envy we are told, and the struggle that ensued resulted in the Grand Prince becoming the ruler of the whole of Serbia. He resumed his building activity towards the end of his life, and it is from this period that Studenica dates. Saint Sava speaks of his father hunting along the lovely brook on Mount Radocelo, an “uninhabited hunting ground of wild beasts.” It was a site of considerable beauty and isolation with all the necessities for the maintenance of the life of a monastic community. There is no written record of the building of the monastery, but we do know that the fresco work was done after the death of Stefan. We are told in the writing of Stefan the First-Crowned (Prvovencani) that the building of this monastery had a singular effect on his young brother, Rastko, which led him to go on a pilgrimage (1190-92) to the Holy Mountain and enter the monastic life.

It is assumed that the walls and towers of the Monastery and the construction of the Katholikon were likely completed by the spring of 1196, when Nemanja himself renounced his throne in favour of his second son, Stefan, and he, the first King of Serbia, began the long line of monastics. He entered the monastic life at Studenica. He was tonsured along with his wife by Bishop Kalinik of Raska and served as the first Abbot for the next two years until, as his biographers record, he followed in the footsteps of his eldest son joining him at Mount Athos. The Grand Prince was now simply the monk Simeon who joined his son Sava in founding Chilandar, a monastery on Mount Athos, for monks from Serbia. Saint Sava’s biographer, the monk Domentian, tells us that Simeon asked his son to have his body buried at Studenica. He left this life on 13 February 1199, but events in his homeland prevented his burial along the little brook of Studenica until 1204 or 1205 when the warring brothers Stefan and Vukan reached a peace. The biographies and hagiographies speak of the relics of Nemanja exuding myrrh, that sign of divine grace that speaks of healing from beyond the grave. Within five years of his falling asleep he was brought back to the monastery he built as former ruler and as saint, patron, and protector of his nation and family. His sons laid their feud aside and met the procession at Hvosno, in the Pec region, completing the journey to a tomb prepared for him in the Church of the Virgin Mary. No sooner had they arrived than myrrh poured from his bones. The devout and the sick started to come seeking healing at the tomb of Simeon Myroblitos (the Myrrh-giver). The Grand Prince was home and bridging the Eternal and life’s struggles for those who came to venerate his relics. Studenica remains the centre of the cult of St. Simeon and to this day his Office is chanted there on February thirteenth.

Shortly after the translation of the relics the abbot Dionisije died, so, at the request of his brother Prince Stefan and because Mount Athos had fallen under Latin control, Sava went to Studenica as abbot from roughly 1208 to 1213/14. It was during this period that the extraordinary frescoes of the Church of the Virgin Mary were completed. A recently discovered inscription records the role of Stefan Nemanja in raising the Monastery and the participation of all three sons in the completion of the frescoes. From this inscription we know that the iconographic program was completed between September 1208 and August 1209. Sava was responsible for giving the Monastery its rule of life and administration and he adapted a translation of the Typikon of the monastery of the Virgin Evergetis (Benefactress), founded in the eleventh century just outside the walls of the city of human desire, Constantinople. His family had made donations to this monastery and its dedication to the Theotokos linked this Byzantine monastery with both Chilandar and Studenica. The Virgin Evergetis had been founded by a distinguished person who, like Stefan, withdrew from civil life, and its Typikon shaped the community’s duty of holding commemorative services for the founder and his family. It also provided full autonomy for the Monastery, placing it beyond the reach of secular authorities or ecclesiastical authorities other than the abbot. Both of these particular elements perhaps suggested it as a model for the Typikon for Studenica.

The novice Joyan who guided us through the Monastery spoke of how the terrors of history have had their way there also. The fall of the Serbian state in 1459 ended the brilliant period in the life of Studenica. Portions of it were destroyed by the onslaught of Turks then reclaimed again and again. In 1569 the frescoes were restored only to be damaged again in the great earthquake in the seventeenth century. The restoration that began again in 1631 saw as many as thirteen churches within the monastic complex by the second half of the seventeenth century. Studenica, like Dacani, enjoyed some privileges under the Sultans and was exempt from taxes in return for falcon hunting rights on its property. Severe destruction was visited again on the monastery during the Turkish-Austrian conflicts at the end of the seventeenth century and this damage was not repaired until 1798. Again, in the nineteenth century, with the Serbian Insurrection, substantial damage was done. Restoration began again in 1839.

Our journey continued through the Ibar valley to Novi Pazar, a city built by the Turks in 1460. This is the home of the Altum Alem mosque, a fine example of fifteenth-century Muslim architecture. Our destination was the Church of Saints Peter and Paul located on a hill overlooking the city. The oldest church in Serbia still in use, it dates from circa 900 and is identified as the place where Stefan Nemanja became Orthodox. In a little house on the site an elderly woman, Baba Jovanka, tended her flower garden. She welcomed us and we walked through its ancient graveyard towards the church. She had an enormous key, that appeared to have descended down the ages from the time the church was built, to open the door. We entered this womb chamber, and lit candles in front of several icons in the nooks and crannies of this ancient stone building. A baptistery with stone steps down into it stands off the naos in the ambulatory some twenty feet from the Holy table. When we emerged into the brightness of the day the muezzin was calling the faithful to prayer from twenty-eight minarets dotting the city before us. Thirty years ago, I was told, there were over twenty Orthodox churches in this town. Now we stood in the shadow of the only one remaining. The gravestones looked tired, tilted this way and that, and the elderly woman spoke of her vigil at what seemed like the unfolding of the end of age if not the end of the world.

We returned down the mountain through the streets of Novi Pazar, streets that resembled a bazaar in the Near East more than a European city and found the small road running southwest in the direction of Parariste. We entered the Raska valley near the source of the Raska river and travelled 16 kilometres to the Sopocani Monastery (named with that old Slavic word sopot , source, reminiscent of the Cistercian use of its Latin equivalent for their monastic community in France), tucked away in a peaceful mountain setting. We arrived at Vespers to join in prayer with the monks, virtually all part of the Orthodox Renaissance, in one of the greatest of Serbia’s monasteries. Sopocani was built by King Uros I (1243-1276) during a period of considerable affluence. As with several of the other monasteries, it was also a royal mausoleum, so our Vesper chant was to join that of the King and his family including his mother, Ana Dandolo, granddaughter of the Venetian doge, Giovanni Dandolo.

At Sopocani we had entered the third generation of monastic houses built by the Nemanja dynasty that governed Serbia for over 200 years. King Uros I was the son of Stefan the First-Crowned. During his reign there were conflicts with various neighbours – Greeks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Ragusans – and he is known for the alliances he forged and his nurturing of good relationships across Orthodox and Roman Catholic lines within Serbia, as well as for developing commercial links with Italy and bringing Saxon miners to help open up lead, copper, and silver mines. His mother was from Venice and his wife, Hélène, was French, and this period was one “conducive to the development of culture, art and architecture and enabled Serbia not only to benefit fully from the heritage of Byzantine art, but also to create its own style and tradition … a circumstance that helps us understand the building of Sopocani.”

We do not know the precise date of the foundation of Sopocani but recent restoration work has suggested that the frescoes were painted between 1263 and 1270. Archbishop Sava II, who became head of the Church in 1263, is shown in the procession of archbishops in the apse and King Uros’ son, Dragutin, is shown as a young boy in the narthex. It became a mausoleum of the royal family and the King’s mother, Ana Dandolo, his father, Stefan the First-Crowned, and his cousin, Grand Prince Djordje, were all buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity at the centre of the Monastery. Sopocani was a prosperous monastery through most of the fourteenth century, but it was devastated after the Battle of Kosovo (1389) by the Turks. The monastery buildings were demolished and burned. It was rebuilt during the time of the despotate when a large main gate and tower were added, and a smaller refectory was built along with porticoed buildings on the northern and southern sides of the courtyard. In the sixteenth century the monks abandoned the monastery several times because of the Turkish threat and on one of these occasions they took the coffin and relics of King Stefan the First-Crowned to the Monastery of Crna Reka for safekeeping. The Church lost its roof during one of these raids and the outer narthex was partially destroyed. The end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century saw the return of prosperity to the Monastery and with-it considerable building and restoration. Finally, in 1689, the monks fled the advance of the Turks as the Monastery was burned and demolished. The lead roofing was carried off leaving the stone building vulnerable for the weather to complete its ruin. It was 200 years before the monks returned to this jewel of a monastery. The few accounts we have from travellers who lingered in its courtyard during this period speak of the ruins and decay, the collapsed dome, caved in vaults, and buildings covered with rubble and earth.

It wasn’t until 1926-1928 that the ruins of Sopocani received attention. The upper part of the church was rebuilt using stone from the original building and man-made materials of questionable quality. Portions of walls, arches, dome, and rows of arcades were restored to their original form and the roof was reconstructed and covered, not with the lead sheets that had last graced it in the sixteenth century but with tiles. While this work arrested the deterioration of the building, much of the restoration was problematic. When Sopocani came under the care of the Serbian Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments after World War II some of the work done in the 1920s was torn down. Detailed investigations into the original structure and features of the church and monastery began in 1975 and was continuing when I visited in 1998. Our chanting of Vespers on the evening of 16 September competed with the whirr of power equipment used in the repair of the dome over the open porch of the church. Archaeological and architectural investigations during this period involved UNESCO and a fascinating study of the old builders’ system of measurement were all used in the restoration project. Part of the drum, the dome, the gable walls, the rows of arcades, and the cornices were rebuilt with new travertine, an Italian cream-coloured limestone. The surrounding wall of the Monastery, both entrances, the refectory, and other monastic buildings were uncovered during the archaeological investigation and heaps of old travertine, marble capitals, bases of mullions, fragments of the altar screen, and the sarcophagi were all uncovered and portions used in this work. Piles of these materials were sorted and remained in the building yard we passed through when entering the monastery gate.

The iconographic program in Holy Trinity Church at Sopocani stands in the centre of Orthodox tradition and the remarkable hand of its unknown master finds an echo in some of the finest work in the whole of the Orthodox world. A figure of King David found in a Psalter (MS 46) in the Stavronikita Monastery and miniatures in two Gospel Books in the Iviron monastery on the Holy Mountain (MSS Nos. la and 5) bear a striking resemblance to King David of Sopocani. Miniatures in MS No. 38 on Mount Athos and MS W 53F in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore in the United States of America have also garnered the attention of scholars as they work to trace the hand of the master of Sopocani. I have spoken at length with Archbishop Lazar on the obvious hesychastic sensibilities of the iconographer who did this work, which is not surprising given the deep and abiding connections between Serbian monasteries and the followers of Gregory Palamas. The quiet joy and inner silence and harmony characteristic of hesychastic iconography spring from this noble vision of human nature found in the thought and discipline of the hesychastic movement.

The Founder’s composition flanks the west wall of Holy Trinity and when one enters the naos one encounters the remarkable Crucifixion on the second register. The beloved disciple John cradles the Theotokos in her grief at the foot of the cross. The whole of the icon speaks of a serenity and stillness that includes grief and holds it within the mystery of the death of the Saviour. Opposite is the fresco of the Resurrection with Christ reaching into the depth of death and pulling forth Adam and Eve, an icon speaking of the Orthodox teaching of the redemption of human nature itself, the heart of the Christian revelation. The cycle of festal icons on the Life of the Theotokos begins on the eastern central arch with the Annunciation and ends with the Dormition of the Theotokos on the west wall. Surrounding the Holy table in the apse are frescoes of Christ’s appearances after the Resurrection binding together those narratives which speak of the inability of the disciples to recognise Christ in their midst with the grace bearing Presence of Christ given to the faithful from the Eucharistic table. The central space depicts the Descent of the Holy Spirit and the lower register, seen vividly over the Royal Gates, is the Mystical Supper with each of the Apostles coming to take communion from Christ. On the south wall is a procession of the Church Fathers and liturgists, including St. Sava, with a similar procession on the north wall showing Archbishop Arsenije I of Serbia and Sava II. The festal icons from the Life of Christ accompany additional events in His life throughout the central part of the Church. The painting in the dome has disappeared without a trace during the 200 year period of ruin but one may assume it had Christ Pantocrator surrounded in the drum by a suite of prophets. The Evangelists were painted in the pendentive with medallions between them depicting three prophets and Seth. An inscription is painted at the base of the drum and a fragment has survived giving us the poignant line from the Imros of the Third Ode: “O, Lord, the fortress of those that place their trust in Thee, fortify this church of Thine.” Patriarchs and prophets adorn the arches supporting the dome and the Archangel Gabriel approaches the Virgin, an icon of the Annunciation, in the upper register on the northeast pier with Prophets, martyrs, and warrior saints below this composition.

Sopocani, like Orthodox temples everywhere, weaves the local and national story into the great narrative of human aspiration and salvation. A fragment of a fresco of the Raising of Lazarus may be seen along with the founder’s composition in the primary register. It is striking to see Christ Enthroned and the Theotokos approaching him leading Saint Simeon (Stefan Nemanja), with his son Stefan the First-Crowned and the founder of the monastery and grandson, King Uros I with a model of the church in his hand. Princes Dragutin and Milutin flank them on the west wall. The detailed painting in the outer narthex also speaks of this connection. Along with an extensive and lively narrative of the Joseph story and frescoes of the Tree of Jesse and the Last Judgement there is a fresco of the death of Queen Ana Dandolo, the founder’s mother. On the east wall the Ecumenical Councils are shown along with the Last Supper and the Council of Simeon Nemanja. To the left of the door is Christ and to the right the Theotokos recommending King Uros, Prince Dragutin, Queen Jelena, and Milutin to her Son. The fresco of the Dormition of Queen Ana Dandolo mirrors that of the Dormition of the Theotokos, with Dandolo’s grieving family having replaced the Apostles and the Theotokos and Christ on the margin witnessing her departure from this life. The southern chapel of the church is dedicated to Simeon (Stefan) Nemanja, the founder of the pious dynasty. Here we see scenes illustrating Nemanja’s departure for and arrival at Mount Athos, as well as the translation of his relics to Studenica, showing the warring brothers Prince Vukan and King Stefan the First-Crowned carrying his hearse. The northern chapel next to the narthex is dedicated to Archdeacon Stephen, a patron of the Nemanjic dynasty. Various compositions from his life accompany icons of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Archangel Michael, along with the inscription: “The Guardian of the Holy Trinity.”

This historical weaving continues in the outer narthex, an open porch dating from between 1338 and 1346. On its east wall are frescoes of the founder’s family all dressed in monastic garments. A portrait of Archbishop Joanikije adorns the wall of the bell tower, and the archangels Michael and Gabriel stand at the entrance. It is in this liminal space between the temple and the profane that a suite of icons, drawn from Christ’s parables and miracles, speaks of the human vocation: the Healing of the Paralytic and the Blind, the Virgin and Christ Providing Food for the Poor and Orphans, and the story of the wealthy man who laid up his treasures on earth only to be surprised by death when he had finished everything.

There were approximately forty monks at Sopocani under the direction of Iguman Petar, a tall man probably shy of his fortieth birthday with a dark, full, amber beard. Most of the monks were his age or younger and during our two days with them I saw only two monks who were older. They gathered in the courtyard after Vespers eager to talk with the four strangers who had shown up shortly after the chanting of the Proemial Psalm (Psalm 103) at the beginning of the service. We had barely completed introductions when a rather elegant, somewhat tough looking woman approached, cigarette in hand. She was from the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and was supervising the reconstruction of the outer narthex. After a brief discussion on the progress of the work she bid us goodnight and the monks invited us to join them in the Konik for dinner. The shape of prayer before and after the meal was reminiscent of the New Ostrog Monastery in Canada, and after dishes were cleared away we settled in for our evening conversation. I inquired of Iguman Petar how he had come to enter the monastery. His story shared some of the central features I had heard from others in each of the monasteries we visited. Raised in the Tito years, he described going to church once or twice with his grandmother as a child and maturing through his university years into a proper atheist nihilist. Like our guide Gavrilo, he had read many of the philosophical classics of the modern West, including Sartre and Camus and, to my surprise, had made the acquaintance of Derrida as well. French and German letters had been the primary sources for the intellectual life for most of those we met. He went on to speak of his growing lack of ease with life and his particular journey to the Church and the recovery of an Orthodox identity along with the sources of Serbian Orthodox culture.

Other monks joined with their particular path to what was a shared story of the recovery of identity, Church, and culture. We explored the legal status of the Monastery, and I learned of the confiscation of Church and monastery property in the early years of socialism in Yugoslavia, of the return of monastic property within the confines of the monastery walls some years later by President Tito, and the continued retention of all the built structures on the monastery grounds by the State. When the monks returned to Sopocani they did so as renters under the watchful eye of the Ministry of Cultural Monuments. The whirr of the power tools during Vespers was an assertion of authority as well as a contribution to the restoration of the Monastery. An election was on the horizon and there was a local politician, running on a radical nationalist platform, promising to return all confiscated Church and monastery lands prior to Tito. They expressed their horror at this idea, convinced it was a deliberate way of destroying the solidarity of the Church with the people or simply an inadvertent way of doing so. Politics leads to politics, so I mentioned our brief stay in Matrushka Banya, the refugees, Serb and Croat, and inquired about their sense of the last few years under President Mylosovic and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Like a chorus they responded: we Serbs have a deep responsibility for the many horrors committed during these struggles and we must face them and confess them. There were horrors committed against Serbs as well. All three communities share in the evil of this period, but we must face our portion and work from a recognition of it. I asked about the current situation in Kosovo and how they were situated in the midst of it. It had seemed to me that one could cut the tension in Novi Pazar with a knife, and what did this mean for them and the remnant of the Slavic Serbian community around the Monastery. There was a tense quiet after I had introduced this subject and for a little while I feared it was too difficult to speak of this. Finally, Iguman Petar spoke of his friends in the Shiptar community, artists and intellectuals he had known for a number of years. He said they would meet often until two years ago when it became impossible. Why I asked? Again, the silence engulfed us. Finally, he told me that if they continued to meet his Shiptar friends would be executed by members of their own community. Heads bowed; the sign of the cross passed like a wave over the brotherhood. I looked at my friend the archbishop and at my 18-year-old son Simeon, a bit uncertain how to proceed. Finally, I asked, what would happen to them. “We too” several murmured. “By your own community?” I asked. “Yes.”

Our silence remained unbroken for some time, and we pondered what happens when the civil order disintegrates completely and good people are corrupted. I thought of Plato’s remark that the corruption of the best is the worst, of Tim Juda’s essay on the “Stink of History,” and of the fortified walls surrounding us, excavated from the rubble of time, ready for the next assault. The monks spoke of how their beloved country had come to such a pass under President Mylosovic, how they were reaping the whirlwind from the communist period which brought civil order, in part by banishing the sources of each particular culture. Archbishop Lazar mused on the conversations that had occurred in this monastery and others in Kosovo in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, conversations between Orthodox and Muslim theologians, conversations exploring each other’s way of understanding the great ideas, and how they did not devolve into rancour and hostility, conversations on the very spot where we now sat. Iguman Petar asked him to speak more of this since it was unknown to him, the fruit of the cultural amnesia of the Tito years. We finished our evening conversation reflecting on the Christian teaching of co-suffering love, central to the Orthodox vision, and those saints called Passion-Bearers who, like Christ, took the suffering upon themselves instead of passing it along. The crucifixion seemed awfully near to us as we walked under the stars back to our hotel 2 kilometres away. Thinking about this moment in history we had brushed against I remained awake long into the night thinking about Sopocani, a name rooted in that ancient Slavic word for “source,” for the waters of life springing forth from beneath the earth, thinking about the cultural amnesia in both the East and the West and how it prepares the fields of fascism.

Our journey led us south from Novi Pazar taking the eastern fork leading to Pristina and the monastery of Gracanica in the Roman-Byzantine town of Ulpianae, then on to the Field of Blackbirds, the heart of Kosovo and the heart of Slavic Serbia. Gracanica was built by King Milutin and completed in 1321 just before he died. It was the first church to feel the brunt of the Ottoman expansion. Between 1371 and 1383 the tower and library were burned. They were reconstructed over the next five years by Simeon, Archbishop of Gracanica. It was damaged again during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, although its most difficult days came after the fall of Novo Brdo in 1445. The monastery flourished again in the sixteenth century, as a fine library was established as well as a print shop producing liturgical books among others. The church also suffered from extensive damage during World Wars I and II and many saw photographs of its damage during the recent war on Serbia.

Gracanica is a cruciform church about 13 by 17 metres with a central dome flanked by four small domes. The drum of the central dome sits on four masonry columns that rise 10 metres from the floor. I recall asking Archbishop Lazar why it was that Serbian churches tend to be small in comparison to Western European structures of similar import within their particular cultural contexts. They have a sense of intimacy about them, almost a womb-like feel. You never climb up into them but enter from the ground itself and once inside you feel cosseted as well as drawn upward to the dome. He said they express aspiration not ambition. Indeed, in Orthodox thought aspiration is a part of our nature, in itself holy but often becoming confused and devolving to ambition. We know little of the original church decoration prior to the extensive reworking of the interior surfaces and the new frescoes commissioned by Patriarch Makarije Sokolovic in 1570/71. Our time here was short, so I was unable to study the iconographic program except to notice the entwining of biblical typologies into a program focusing, as usual, on the Great Feast Days and the Life of Christ. King Milutin holding a model of Gracanica and Queen Simonida are painted on the intrados of the arch leading from the narthex into the naos of the church. At the crown of the vault Christ is shown giving His blessing to them, while angels are coming bringing the King and Queen the crown of Life. Here, for the first time in Serbian iconography, we find a portrait of sixteen members of the Nemanjic dynasty. The work of the anonymous painters of Gracanica, particularly the icons of the Virgin with Angels in the Garden of Eden, the Angel Bending the Heavens, the River of Fire, and Moses’ Burning Bush, have been compared to various similar scenes in the Kahriye Mosque (the Chora Church, 1320/21) in Istanbul. The question of whether it is the same hand has not been resolved but the comparison speaks again of the web of relationship between Mount Athos, Constantinople, and the Serbian monasteries over a period of several centuries.

We reached the valley in southern Serbia between Pristina and the Laba River in mid-afternoon and the monument to the martyrs of Kosovo came into sight. We drove up the modest rise on the Field of Blackbirds and parked close to the house and restaurant of the custodians of the site, some 50 metres from a large chain link fence with barbed wire atop that surrounds the events of 15 June 1389. In the centre of this few acres stands the monument. Two wolves paced frantically back and forth in their large pen next to the restaurant and I noticed the run which, when opened, took them into the compound of the monument. They were appointed to keep the night vigil on the sacred ground, the ground of the martyr’s blood, the ground where Tsar Lazar had given his life in that afternoon which forged Serbia’s identity. I wanted to linger a while to refresh my memory in conversation with Archbishop Lazar, to ground my understanding of this place upon which we were about to step. It was too late. The archbishop walked briskly ahead. The three of us followed slowly, stopping when the archbishop fell in prostration at the first steps leading up to the dais upon which the monument had been erected. He lay there in prayer. After a time, he moved to the next invisible station a little closer to the monument. Again, the prostration, the lingering in memory, in prayer. The next station and the next, prostration and prayer, moving ever closer to the monument. This was followed by prostration and prayer at each of the cardinal directions of the monument. He then appeared to wander in the field itself looking and finally falling in prostration again in a place marked only in his memory. It may have been an hour or so before we met in the shadow of the monument, the shadow of Serbia, the shadow of Byzantium.

He broke the silence reflecting on how it was here, with the martyrdom of Tsar Lazar, that Serbia was wedded to Golgotha and thus to the Church: “Serbia is one of those rare places where a defeat is victory, where failure gives life, where loss and the baptism of the martyrs leads to the abundant life which contains and transfigures death.” Three days before we had chanted the prayer of memory for the 700,000 Serbian martyrs in World War II at the hands of those who claimed to be Roman Catholic and in three days it would be the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross. From the ancient past the Cross of Christ beckoned us. From our own century the cross of that horrific turning point in the twentieth century beckoned us. At the centre where we stood in the reliquary, this windswept field, where almost 800 years ago Golgotha was again present, we were woven into the common anamnesis. In his cell back at the Monastery of All Saints of North America in the Fraser Valley near Dewdney, under an icon of St. Leo sits a glass box filled with soil from the Field of Blackbirds. “It is an icon to me,” said Vladika Lazar.

Orthodoxy is a tradition of sombre joy. Its vision speaks of salvation, the healing that ancient Greek word suggests, and of the redemption from death. The terrors of history are transfigured into a life of co-suffering love. We looked south perhaps 1,000 metres to the mausoleum of Murad I, leader of the Turkish army on that June day. All were gathered here, friend and enemy, saint and infidel. In the air I thought one could smell the coming of another crucifixion. Little did I know how quickly it would arrive. We were alone on the Field of Blackbirds and the only patrons of the restaurant that afternoon. Few come these days, we were told. The archbishop became animated as we talked and we remembered my son’s eighteenth birthday and ordered double Slivovitz and one for him to drink as we chanted “Memory Eternal.” We reflected on his name Simeon, for the Righteous Rabbi, the New Theologian and, given our journey these past few days, the echo of the monk who took this name on the Holy Mountain and as King and Saint wove the fabric of the Serbian nation.

Our journey led us through Macedonia to Thessalonica and various churches and monasteries, including Mount Athos and Meteiori, up the Adriatic coast of Italy from Saint Nicholas Church in Bari through Ravenna and other Orthodox sites and finally back to Canada. Within a few months I saw some of the sites we had visited on CNN as the Shiptar people in Kosovo were driven out by the Special Forces of President Mylosovic. For several weeks we saw NATO bomb Kosovo. Finally, the Shiptar people returned to their devastated homes and the images shift to that of fleeing Slavic Serbs and the blowing up of churches and monasteries in the region.

In a field leading to the New Ostrog Monastery stands a monument commemorating the recent terrors of history in Serbia. It was erected in 1999. Two medallions grace the monument. One medallion has at its centre, Kosovo II, 1999, the NATO Destruction of Serbia. Around the edge we read “In memory of the victims of the NATO massacres, communism and ethnic enmity.” The second medallion has at its centre, “Bosnia, 1990-1996, The NATO destruction of Yugoslavia, In memory of the victims of war, ethnic enmity and NATO.” Around the edge we read, “Bosnia, Herzegovina, Krajina, Slavonia, Kordun, Lika.” This monument speaks of the terrors of history, but the mythic identification and its existential claim is rooted in the soil of the monastery itself, as is so often the case.

Shortly after the decision was made to build the monument, when the materials were delivered and the base had been graded and graveled, a 35-year-old monk and son of the Abbot, weary of life sat down in this field, leaned against the stack of materials for the monument, and shot himself. He had come to the monastery some fifteen years before, off the streets of Vancouver. We had talked together many times, and he was a man of wonderful intelligence and humour. In his teens he had been stricken with schizophrenia and suffered enormously from fantasies that were only partially controlled by medication. He had become a monk, was ordained a deacon, and lived, as so often happens in the monasteries of the Christian East, a fruitful and long life, given his illness. His last words to Archbishop Lazar were words of affection and love, for here was home and father even if he was unable to carry on. The terrors of history are woven with the personal story, and both are planted on the ground at this humble monastery in the shadow of Mount Saint Nicolas.

At a recent conference co-sponsored by the Monastery and a local community college, a conference on the Red Tory Tradition, the banner behind the lectern had the logo of the Canadian Orthodox Church consisting of an icon of Christ the Teacher against a backdrop of a Canadian Maple Leaf, the red image pulled from the Canadian flag. Also, on the banner and under this logo were the words from the prophet, “Let justice roll down like rain and righteousness like a never ending stream.” This was followed by the words, “In memoriam and solidarity with all people everywhere who are victims of persecution, oppression and inhumanity.”

Liturgical Calendar of the Monastery The ordering of time is another way in which cultural memory and living tradition are vivid in the religious life. For many years now the Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America has published a liturgical calendar for the parishes it serves. Along with the obvious great feasts of the Church, times of preparation, and the cycle of fasts, all noted on this calendar, there are a number of saint’s days which echo Serbian history, shape the living tradition, and cultivate memory. In the calendar for 2001, the following types of days are noted, each with assigned scripture texts and additional notes on spiritual disciplines associated with the day. Two days in this calendar form a kind of axis for Serbian national identity. In one, the grace-bearing presence of the Eternal beckons the Serbian people to consider their Spiritual Father. In the other, the terrors of history, Serbia’s Golgotha, casts its complex shadow. The feast day of Saint Sava of Serbia is 27 January (14 new style). It remains the most common name given to Serbian churches and halls in North America. The second day of memory brings 1389, the Field of Blackbirds and Prince Lazar’s martyrdom into the present. It is called Vidovdan and falls on 28 June. George Steiner has argued that when the dominant ideology or mythology of a people is eviscerated by modernity the anomie it creates opens the community and culture to evil in a singular way. The nostalgia for the absolute floods into the void. In the spiritual culture of Serbia these two days are held together, informing each other and calling for a higher form of integration. When they are separated from each other, as happened in the most recent chapter of the history of this country, fear seizes the centre, untempered by the example of the saint and the teaching of the Church, and the enemy of the absolute is given a face, and its eradication becomes a matter of state policy. Over the last fifteen years in which I have visited the Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America I have, time and time again, heard Archbishop Lazar speak a prophetic word about political actions that, in his view, were destructive of the human family, actions based on fear and appetite masquerading as the Absolute. They run the gamut from the war on Iraq to the Christian Right’s attempt to prevent homosexuals from having the normative rights within the liberal democratic societies of Canada and the United States of America. The challenge of Vidovdan and the gifts of Saint Sava together inform his concern and critique and anchor his call to enter into co-suffering love with the wounded of the world.

The calendar identifies a number of the Krsna Slava days within the Serbian community: Synaxis of St. John the Baptist on 20 January, Dormition of the Holy Theotokos on 28 August, St. Petka of Serbia on 27 October, Synaxis of Archangel Michael on 21 November, Great Martyr Barbara on 17 December, and St. Nicholas on 19 December in Little Lent. St. Clement of Rome on 8 December is also on the calendar because it is the Krsna Slava of Archbishop Lazar. Characteristically, he invites friends to the Monastery and serves this household liturgy at table in the Konak remembering his ancestors in the prayer of thanksgiving that centres this liturgy. This is a unique aspect of Serbian tradition and the major household feast, even in homes within the Canadian community that have become quite secular. Anthropologists have argued for its ancient roots in the cult of ancestor and household deity. This day passes through the patriarchal line of the family and commemorates the day on which the ancestors entered the Church, in essence the family’s spiritual birthday. St. Sava encouraged this liturgical practice, and it is one of the ways Serbian Orthodoxy blesses the significance of family, its particular memory and its Christian vocation. One of Archbishop Lazar’s earliest memories is of the smoke from the censer rising up and playing across the ceiling in his grandfather’s home.

He inherited his Grandfather Luka Nicoli’s Slava, a man born in Herzegovina who grew up in Banya Luka in the north of Serbia. He had been a plum tree dresser as a young man, served in the Turkish government briefly, and to avoid service in the Austro-Hungarian military immigrated to Trois Rivières, Quebec. The immigration officials were going to give him a new name, “Louis” and he is remembered as arguing he had a perfectly good name in “Luka.” The officials said this name was unknown to them. He said, “You don’t know the Gospels?” He returned to Serbia during the war and fought against the Germans on the Dalmatian coast and up the Varda against the Bulgarians. He was decorated by the King, a medal treasured by the Archbishop for its connection to his grandfather and Serbia. It was in his grandfather’s home that he met Prince Lazar and Saint Sava, chanted the Kosovo Cycle, and admired the pictures of the Maid of Kosovo and of Milos Obilic who killed the Sultan on the Field of Blackbirds. Both were hanging on the living room wall. They sung the Hymn of Saint Sava and he grew up knowing the spiritual father of Serbia as a member of the family: “You never thought of him as someone who was dead. He was a living breathing person who embodied everything Serbia was meant to be. You celebrated his birthday every year on January 14th.”

Archbishop Lazar’s theological reflections on the Slava focus on the bread prepared for the occasion. You slice it open and pour wine into the middle of it. Here, at the centre of every Serbian home, is a parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through” (Matthew 13:33). The parable is revealed in “the blood of Christ on the cross. The blood of Christ is the yeast of the cosmos, giving the world its vitality. When we rotate the loaf, we sing the three hymns sung at weddings. Slava is a re-sanctification of the family that our ancestors initiated with conversion and that we continue in an unbroken chain of sanctification down to our own day.”

There are a number of other feast days associated with Serbia that grace the liturgical calendar of All Saints of North America, including St. John-Vladimir of Serbia on 4 June, St. Stefan of Dechani on 24 November, and St. Gabriel of Serbia on 26 December. There are also days on the calendar which have a particular embodied life in the Monastery. St. Basil of Ostrog, whose day falls on 12 May, has been adopted as patron of the Monastery candle factory. The Monastery feast day is the Theotokos, Joy of Canada held on the second Sunday of August and is the first feast day to my knowledge that explicitly weaves Canada into the fabric of liturgical time. Here again we see the richly cultivated sense of peoplehood that has been part of Archbishop Lazar’s cultural memory coming from his Serbian grandparents to galvanize his sense that, just as St. Sava nurtured the identity of the Serbian people by weaving their story into the Gospel story, so he must weave the Canadian story into the Gospel story. Nowhere is this clearer than in his shaping of the Monastery feast and the Akathist Hymn for The Theotokos “Joy of Canada” Here is the Troparion followed by the Kontakion from the Akathist hymn as it is chanted in the procession from the gatehouse of the Monastery across the little “Jordan” river running through the Monastery property, on the annual feast day:

O royal portal through whom the Eternal King came forth. O unbroken seal of the promise, we thy people rejoice in thy sacred ikon which has blessed thy sacred monastery and doth shine forth the light of Grace to all the land of Canada. Wherefore we beseech thee, open to us the gate of paradise, for thou art the hope of all who take refuge in thee.

O thornless rose of ineffable beauty, thou didst bud forth on the border of paradise. For through thine unopened gate, the gate was opened… and through thy sacred ikon, thou dost call the Canadian people to enter in, proclaiming thyself to be their protectress and defence against the enemy. Wherefore we cry unto thee: Rejoice joy of Canada.

This celebration speaks to the faithful about the meaning and purpose of the birth of Jesus and calls them to identify with the Theotokos (“Birth-giver of God”), giving birth to divine love in the world. The Joy of Canada is focused on the human vocation to enter into co-suffering love with all human beings.

In 1980, Bishop Iriney of the Serbian Orthodox Church presented the Canadian Orthodox Mission and the Monastery of All Saints of North America with a small icon of the Theotokos as a special blessing and patroness of the mission. The icon was named, “The Joy of Canada,” and in August 1981, the first Feast of the Theotokos, Joy of Canada was held at the Monastery. The Joy of Canada icon was carried in procession and given a special place of honour in the Monastery. In 1982, then Abbot Lazar composed the Akathist Hymn for the Theotokos, Joy of Canada. Along with its central place in the summer feast of the Monastery it is chanted on Wednesday evenings in the various churches associated with the Monastery. In 1990, Archbishop Lazar asked Slavko Protic to paint a larger panel version of the Joy of Canada icon. He added several unique features to the larger panel, including a maple leaf motif which he worked into the clothing of the Theotokos and the Christ Child. This is carried in procession on the feast of the Joy of Canada, together with the original icon.

Orthodoxy has a remarkable theology of culture, and where this faith has taken root over the last two millennia the faithful have come to see their community and nation through this prism. Icons associated with city, nation, and empire have been painted (“written” is the more precise Orthodox term, since iconography is a part of liturgy and theology more than simply an artistic creation) as part of the sacred memory of the community showing the unfolding participation of their life within the presence of the kingdom of God. The Theotokos, Joy of Canada is singularly significant for Canada since it is the first example of such an icon “painting” Canada into the panoply of Orthodox self-understanding. For Orthodox Christians the Theotokos is central to the divine revelation for she is the mother of Jesus, the Incarnation of God, and the fullest expression of human nature. Through her openness to the Holy Spirit and her bearing of Jesus she has come to be understood as an icon of the human vocation. Orthodox teaching suggests that all women, men, and children have both the capacity and the deep longing, at the centre of their being, to give birth to divine love in their daily life in the world. This teaching is central to Orthodox anthropology, its teaching about human nature, and Archbishop Lazar stands in the very centre of this tradition of teaching. Finally, the Monastery has influenced the liturgical calendar by commemorating on 13 September the memory of the 700,000 Serbs martyred in World War II by Croatians often claiming the banner of Roman Catholicism. This day of memory has been adopted by the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, among others, following the lead of the Orthodox Monastery of All Saints of North America.

The publications of Synaxis Press are also reminiscent of the various publication projects undertaken by St. Sava and his successors in the monasteries of Serbia. A similar focus exists. For many years the Archbishop has published the Orthodox Missionary a decidedly catechetical church paper circulated to his various parishes from Alaska to Texas, from Vancouver to Thessalonike. A series of Orthodox theological publications have flowed from the press along with booklets on spiritual discipline, the lives of the saints, and occasionally, on particular spiritual problems facing the community of the faithful. The Monastery has published the work of Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky, particularly his essays on Dostoevsky. A large suite of liturgical books as well as liturgical studies ranging from the Divine Liturgy through the meaning of icons and the mystery of holy matrimony fill out this enormous body of work. In January 1992 The Nemanjic Institute was founded by the Archbishop along with a journal for Serbo-Byzantine Studies. The most recent publications reflect the political interest of the Archbishop. He edited an anthology, Searching for Canada, The Red Tory Journey in 2000 following the publication of a series of essays by Ron Dart, The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes: A Series of Essays in 1999. He is currently working on a biography of the distinguished Canadian political thinker and activist, Robin Matthews.

At a recent conference on the Moral Ethos of Canadian Culture held at the Monastery several papers referred to George Grant’s incisive comment on how we must learn to “love of one’s own” if we are to come to love the Good. Archbishop Lazar knows this as the Orthodox idea of “philokalia”. Discussing this idea after the conference I talked about our trip together to Serbia, visiting the monasteries and standing together on the Field of Blackbirds. “That’s something I feel when I am there,” he said. “We lost part of the Kingdom on that day. Serbia never recovered a spiritual culture to match the culture of that age, the spiritual content of that age. Tsar Lazar was unusual. I get irritated when I hear Western commentators speak about our pathology about the memory of Tsar Lazar. None of them have any idea of hesychia … of the prayer life Tsar Lazar had and how he and his ancestors had shaped monastic life. We need to consider what it must have been like to live in a town next to a monastery or in a monastery and partake in the monastic cycle of services. What was it like to live in a valley and look out and everywhere you could see the cave of this hermit and that hermit, know them by name, know their story and count them among your spiritual friends, perhaps even your elder. Since that time we have not had a king that became a monk. We have had only warlords that became kings.” I recalled our conversation in the naos of the church at Gracanica and my sense of how small it was and how it stretches upward. What does it mean to build a church of those particular dimensions, cosseting the faithful and teaching them to aspire? You said, “it has to do with aspiration instead of ambition because ambition is the catafalque of aspiration.” I see our society as one which quite cunningly turns the aspiration of the young and gifted into ambition and asked the Archbishop when he first made the connection between ambition and aspiration. “I first thought of it in a sermon on the sons of Zebedee who come to our Lord and make a request.” The Gospel account is found in Mark 10:35-40:

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him. ‘Master,’ they said to him ‘we want you to do us a favour.’ He said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ They said to him, ‘Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’ ‘You do not know what you are asking’ Jesus said to them. ‘Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized?’ They replied, ‘We can’. Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptized you shall be baptized, but as for seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant.’

The dynasty that forged Serbian “identity built churches so you could walk directly in on the ground level because the kingdom of heaven had come down to earth. But it did not leave you there nor invite you to the ambition of the sons of Zebedee but rather aspired and accepted the fruit of baptism. In the Nemanjic era people had a consciousness of these things.” This consciousness has grounded the Monastery of All Saints of North America, in the shadow of Mount Saint Nicolas in the Field of Blackberries near Dewdney, British Columbia.

References

Hopko, Thomas, ‘Monasticism’ in “The Orthodox Faith”, vol. 2.

Orthodoxwiki article about the Monastery of All Saints of North America

Prokurat, Michael ; Golitzin, Alexander & Petersen, Michael, eds., 'Monasteries' in “The A to Z of the Orthodox Church” (Lanham, MD : Scarecrow Press, 2010), pp. 223-224. ISBN : 978-0-8108-7602-6.

...... 'Monasticism' in “The A to Z of the Orthodox Church” (Lanham, MD : Scarecrow Press, 2010), pp. 225-227. ISBN : 978-0-8108-7602-6.

Wikipedia article about the history of Eastern Orthodox Christian Monasticism

Additional information :

Archdiocese of Canada (OCA) listing for the Monastery of All Saints of North America

Orthodox World listing

Archdiocese of Canada (OCA) web-site

Orthodoxwiki article about the Archdiocese of Canada

Orthodox Church in America (OCA) listing for the Monastery of All Saints of North America

Orthodox Church of America web-site

Orthodoxwiki article about The Orthodox Church of America

Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor)

Metropolitan Herman (Swaiko)

Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)

Metropolitan Tikhon (Mollard)

Archbishop Irénée (Rochon)

Metropolitan Irinej (Kovacevic)

Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo)

Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff)

Orthodox Canada : The Canadian Journal of Orthodox Christian Thought and Theology

Synaxis Press web-site

Wikipedia article about the Monastery of All Saints of North America, Dewdney, British Columbia

Wisdomheritage.org article "Monastic Legacy and the Name"

Monastic Communities in the Archdiocese of Canada

Archdiocese of Canada article : Monasteries are the Heart of our Orthodox Life

Wikipedia list of Orthodox Christian Monasteries in the USA

Orthodoxwiki article about Monastic Ranks

The Canadian Orthodox Church History Project, no. 63, pp. 196-200

The Canadian Orthodox Church History Project, no. 64, pp. 202-204

“Healing Service at All Saints of North America Monastery, Dewdney, BC” (30 June, 2013)

“New Reader for All Saints Monastery of North America in Dewdney, BC” (13 October, 2013)

“D-Day Commemoration at the Monastery of All Saints of North America in Dewdney, BC” (6 June, 2014)

“Visit of Russian Ambassador to Monastery, Dewdney, BC” (27 May, 2015)

“Russian Delegation Visit to All Saints of North America Monastery” (20 January, 2016)

“Feast-day of the Monastery Church : ‘The Joy of All Canada’” (31 July, 2017)

Ordination of Deacon Markel Tihon (15 July, 2018)

In Memoriam : Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff) (13 February, 2020)

Archdiocese of Canada : Preparation and Serving of the Funeral of Bishop Varlaam (Novakshonoff) (17-22 February, 2020)

Video of the Funeral Service for Vladika Varlaam

Video of the Interment of Vladika Varlaam

'Monastery holds healing Service' in “Canadian Orthodox Messenger” (Autumn, 2004), p. 9.

'A holy Procession' in “Canadian Orthodox Messenger” (Winter, 2004/2005), p. 14.

'All Saints' Day at BC's Monastery' in “Canadian Orthodox Messenger” (Autumn, 2006), p. 7.

'An Archbishop in "Retirement"' in "Canadian Orthodox Messenger" (Winter, 2007/2008), pp. 4-5.

'Monastic Community to be Site of Orthodox Peace Fellowship Conference' in “Canadian Orthodox Messenger” (Summer, 2008), p. 4.

‘“Joy of Canada” Icon visits Ottawa Cathedral’ in “Canadian Orthodox Messenger” (Summer, 2009), pp. 9, 20.