One of the most moving services of Passion Week is the matins service of Holy Friday, during which there are twelve readings from the four Gospels concerning our Lord’s salvific Passion.  As is traditional, there was a ringing of a large bell at the end of each Gospel reading, according to the number of the reading.  At the end of the twelfth reading there was a light trezvon, symbolizing that the Lord’s salvific feat on the Cross was finished. 

“Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” exclaimed the children of Israel, as our Lord proceeded into the Holy City, surrounded by many people who thought that he had come to overthrow the Romans.  This after it was widely reported about how He had raised Lazarus from the dead.
 

The feast of the Annunciation is celebrated differently every year, depending on what day it falls during Great Lent of Bright Week.  Neither Great Lent nor Bright Week disappears on this great feast of the Mother of God, and a unique way enhances the feast.
 

Dear pilgrims and vistors to Holy Trinity Monastery

By the directive of our ruling Bishop, Metropolitan Hilarion, pilgrims are discouraged from visiting the Monastery for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.

Due to continuing Covid restrictions the Monastery Guesthouse is currently closed and we are not able to accomodate overnight stays at the Monastery. Also due to regulations regarding the operation of the Seminary the refectory is also closed to visitors and pilgrims. 

If you have any questions regarding visiting please write to info@jordanville.org

+ Bishop Luke

After the first week of Great Lent, one of strict fasting and long and compunctionate services, the monastery celebrated the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the triumph over the heresy of iconoclasm.  The Divine Liturgy on Sunday was presided over by His Grace, Bishop Luke of Syracuse and abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery as well as rector of the Holy Trinity Seminary.  Vladyka was co-served by the monastery clergy.  During the Small Entrance, Igumen Theophylact was raised to the rank of archimandrite by Vladyka.

At 3PM on Sunday, March 14, after the usual hierarchal Divine Liturgy, the brethren of the monastery along with the seminarians and gathered for Great Vespers, which started as a hierarchal service with the formal meeting of our abbot, His Grace, Bishop Luke, and his vesting.

            On February 2/15 the Holy Church celebrates the feast of the Meeting of the Lord.  In the Russian Church this feast is considered a feast of the Mother of God, even though it has several aspects of a feast of the Lord.  Another interesting detail of this feast is that the afterfeast can be either a full week, such as happens this year, due to the late date of Pascha, or it can be non-existent if Pascha falls on the earliest day possible.  The rubrics are very extensive to cover all the possibilities of celebrating this feast due to its proximity to the Lenten Triodion.

   The feast of the Three Hierarchs, Our Holy Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory the Great, and John Chrysostom, is the feast day of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary.  This year, the seminary was blessed to have the presence and service of three hierarchs!  Archbishop Gabriel of Montreal and Canada, Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, and our own Bishop Luke of Syracuse, presided at the festive services.

 
            The feast of Theophany is the culmination of the church festal period known as “The Holy Days,” in the Russian Orthodox Church, which commences with the feast of the Lord’s Nativity.  During this period, there are no full prostrations in church and no fasting from animal products.