His Eminence Tikhon, Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada (Orthodox Church in America), visited Putna Monastery between the 4th and the 5th of June 2024.
On Wednesday, the 5th of June, Metropolitan Tikhon celebrated the Divine Liturgy.
His Eminence Tikhon’s speech after the Holy Liturgy
“Christ is risen!
I want to express my gratitude to His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church for the blessing and invitation to serve the Divine Liturgy here, at this sacred Monastery of Putna.
I have come with my delegation from the Orthodox Church in America, travelling many miles to visit here.
And it is truly a great comfort to me and a joy to my heart to serve this Divine Liturgy, the Liturgy that is common to all Orthodox Christians throughout the world. And it is truly a blessing that I will bring back with me to my faithful of America, to share with them the love and hospitality of the Romanian Orthodox Church and especially of this holy monastery.
Among the first, I am grateful to the abbot of this monastery, Archimandrite Melchizedek, abbot of the monastery, and all the brothers who served with Us, especially those who offered the beautiful hymnody at this service. It is always a strengthening of my soul whenever I am able to spend some time in a holy monastery.
The monastery is the place above all where one learns humility. Humility is not always easy to attain in one’s mind, in one’s person. But our Holy Father Dorotheus of Gaza, whose memory we celebrate today, offers us a way. Abba Dorotheus tells us a story of a man who is swimming in the ocean and the waves of the sea are pushing against him. And Abba Dorotheus says a bad swimmer tries to swim over the waves. But, when he does that, the waves are simply pushing him backwards. This is not the correct way, he says. A humble man is one who swims under the waves and so, by going under the waves, he makes forward progress.
This, I believe, is our life in a monastery. We have many temptations that come against us like waves in the sea, but the only way to move forward is to go down in humility. We do this in imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who descended from heaven to earth, Who descended into the grave and then ascended up into heaven. So, if we wish to ascend on high, we must follow our Lord in His descent.
I thank all the brothers for their prayers and for their example of this life of humility. And I offer my thanks to the abbot, your holy father in Christ, Archimandrite Melchizedek. As a small expression of our gratitude, for the opportunity to spend these few days at this sacred monastery, I would like to present this small gift, a palitsa (epigonation – ed. note), as a remembrance of My visit.”
