On October 18 (31 N.S.), the Church commemorates the memory of the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke. This is the Saint’s Day of our superior and rector, His Grace Bishop of Syracuse.  As is traditional, Vladyka served the divine liturgy at 6 AM, together with the clergy of the monastery as well as some guest clergy.  A short moleben was served at the end of the liturgy, offering prayers for our Vladyka.  All those attending the service wished Vladyka good health and God’s strength in his church obediences.
 

On October 14 (New Calendar), the Russian Orthodox Church solemnly celebrates the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, which commemorates the vision of the Holy Virgin in the church of Blachernae, in the mid-10th century, during an All-Night Vigil, during which the faithful were imploring the aid of the Mother of God during a siege from pagan tribes of the ancestors of the Russians. 

The weekend of October 10 and 11, the Kursk Icon was present in the monastery, having been brought here by His Grace, Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, for the comfort of the monastery and the seminary, as well as the neighbors, for whom the monastery is their spiritual home.  On Saturday, after lunch, the icon was taken around to bless all of the rooms of the monastery as well as the seminary dormitory.  For some of our new seminarians, this was the first time that they had the opportunity to venerate in person this ancient holy relic of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The monastery has an immense blessing in having in its possession innumerable relics of saints.  One of our most treasured relics is a piece of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord.  It is set in a beautifully carved, wooden archimandrite’s cross which belonged to the ever-memorable Archbishop Averky, when he was an archimandrite in the Carpathian mountains area of north-western Hungary, before World War II.  Eventually, Vladyka used his cross for the setting of the wondrous relic, which itself was placed in a larger Maltese shaped cross, and which is used in the monastery for feasts of the Cross, especially the Exaltation of the Cross.

Although the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist is not one of the twelves great feasts of the Orthodox Church, nevertheless it is considered a great feast, as the Baptist was called by the Lord the greatest of men who had every been born.  The feast commemorates several things.  First of all, it is a day of great sorrow, that the holiest of men was put to death, not due to any fault of his won, but due to lust and envy.  Also it signifies the death of a man who connected the Old Testament with the New.  He himself stated that he had to become smaller while Christ would become greater.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, for the first time in memory, the monastery did not have its annual Labor Day weekend celebration of the memory of St. Job of Pochaev and the Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.  Due to this, the Pochaev Icon was not taken to the cemetery church of the Dormition on the feast of the Dormition as has been the usual custom, to be brought back in procession on Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. 
 

The feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos has always been celebrated with great solemnity in the monastery.  Traditionally, it has been tied into our St. Job of Pochaev Pilgrimages on Labor Day weekend, and even if the afterfeast of the Dormition ended before Labor Day weekend, we would still keep blue vestments and sing hymns of the Dormition together with the Pochaev Icon and St. Job.
 
           

The Holy Trinity Monastery has renewed the practice of serving the Lamentations and Burial of the Most Holy Theotokos in our monastery.  Forty years ago, the English language mission of the monastery, served by Hieromonk Ioannikiy and then later the late Archpriest Laurence Girard served this service in English at the conclusion of the regular All-Night Vigil in the cathedral of the monastery.  After a few years, unfortunately, the practice stopped.