Some of the twelve great feasts of the Church come in two’s. Such was the case of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Dormition of the Theotokos, and so now also is the case of the Nativity of the Theotokos and the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross. At Holy Trinity Monastery the latter is celebrated with extra solemnity in that with the blessing of the Metropolitan, Archimandrite Luke is granted the right to perform the rite of the Elevation of the Cross, much to the spiritual joy of the monastics, the seminarians and the many faithful who attend this service, conducted toward the end of the All-Night Vigil.

On September 21 (8 O.S.), the first of the twelve great feast days of the Orthodox Church year was celebrated in the Holy Trinity Monastery, the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the church new year being September 1/14. The usual All-Night Vigil and Divine Liturgy were celebrated with the usual monastery solemnity.

On September 11 (August 29 O.S.), the holy Church commemorates the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Even though not numbered among the twelve great feasts of the Orthodox Church, nonetheless it is a very important holiday. As usual, the All-Night Vigil and Divine Liturgy were celebrated as is usual on such feasts in the monastery.

On September 10, 2017, the brethren of the Holy Trinity Monastery celebrated the feast of the Opening of the Relics of St. Job of Pochaev (August 28 O.S.). As in a previous posting was described the Labor Day Weekend festivities in honor of St. Job, the brethren in a perhaps more intimate way, commemorated their heavenly protector. As is peculiar to this feast, since the basement church of the Holy Trinity Monastery cathedral is dedicated to the memory of St. Job, the services were conducted there.

In the 1950’s, thousands of displaced people, or people displaced by the trauma of World War II, especially from Eastern Europe, found a new life in America. Many of them were Russian Orthodox people, who had suffered deprivation of their age-old culture, especially of their faith, under communism, and now found themselves in a very strange culture. It was not long before so many of them found their spiritual home in the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York.