visit to Georgia, Women's Monastery

  X-1: 9/12/2022: From Our Still-enemy-occupied,- Berdyansk, Ukraine: ROCOR Fr. Sergie Begashov's visit in Country of Georgia, serving in "TOC/GOC" Women's Monastery  

  Time:  Mon, 12 Sep 2022   

  From: Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com> 

To American readers of this: This  GEORGIA is NOT! our American State of Georgia, but the ancient nation of  Georgia!, in the Caucuous Mountains, near Armenia & Turkey.

     Retired Reader, Daniel Everiss in Oregon

    FIRST VIDEO: 

https://youtu.be/F0SF2HVvJqw

2) Second Video:

https://youtu.be/XnBD4xXhzok

Greek CPI/”GOC” : 13th Week after Pentecost, in Nation of Georgia

Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Publication date:September 12, 2022. Category: ROCOR .

On the 13th Week after Pentecost, on the day of the feast of the Beheading of the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, in the monastery of St. Anna the Prophetess in Georgia (Rector Abbess Nina, TOC of Greece), the Divine Liturgy was served by Archpriest Sergius Begashov (ROCOR). The day before, they served the  All-Night Vigil with lithium.

     More than half a year has passed since the Russian troops occupied Berdyansk. Life in occupation is not sugar. In addition to the constant direct and indirect threat, people experience terrible psychological pressure here. It was not easy for our large family even before the war, but when this horror came, everything became an order of magnitude harder. Having reached a certain limit of our psychological capabilities, it turned out to be vital for us, like a medicine, to go somewhere, at least for a little while, where you can just exhale. On reflection, it became obvious that Georgia could be the nearest place.

     Taking a blessing from the metropolitan and informing the local bishop, I started looking for friends from Georgia who would help the seven of us find housing for a couple of weeks at an affordable price.

     In my friends on FB, it turned out that there is a nun from Georgia, whose monastery is under the omophorion of our fraternal church from Greece. I got in touch with her, and just at that time Metropolitan Cyprian was about to visit them at the monastery. That is why I asked my mother to take his blessing for my service in this monastery. The Metropolitan kindly blessed.

     And now, having omitted all the details about the difficulties of crossing the borders and about the beauties of mountainous Georgia, I want to share the joy of our joint service in the monastery of St. Anna the Prophetess, where 5 nuns, including Abbess Nina, are saved. A priest from Tbilisi usually serves there, but this time he fell ill and the Sunday Liturgy was not planned. So I came in handy. Since I do not know the Georgian language, we each served in our own language. Fortunately, all mothers speak Russian. That was incredible. A modest, small, but lovely temple, in a convent in the mountainous settlement of Zemo Teleti, from where, as from heaven to earth, a view of the two cities of Tbilisi and Rustavi opens.

     After Vespers and after the Liturgy, we were invited to the table, where we learned in conversation that the mothers drew their knowledge about the truths of Orthodoxy from the books of such pillars of the Russian Diaspora as St. Philaret of New York, archbishop. Averky Taushev, Hierom. Seraphim Rose and others. And therefore, that icon of the First Hierarchs Abroad and the literature of our church, which we brought as a gift to the monastery, turned out to be very useful for them.

Archpriest Sergiy