7 November 2015. Patriarch Kirill with Young Athletes… Why We Don’t See Likewise from Tikhon Mollard

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A while back, one of the Cabinet was bitchin’ and moanin’ that Tikhon Mollard doesn’t show up at athletic events sponsored by our parishes. Let me try to explain that. Firstly, Mollard doesn’t have the all-inclusive view of the Faith that we do… like most zapadniki, he sees it as a “religion”, and that blessing athletic events is “not done”. HH, being Russian, knows that the Faith touches all aspects of life, including those not specifically “religious” or “spiritual”. The Western newbies are either “religious hobbyists”, rightwing political activists, or simply overzealous clueless novices (as one can clearly see in Paffhausen, Dreher, Reardon, and Mattingly). They don’t care that X parish has sponsored a basketball team for decades or that the bowlers at St Nick’s brought home the trophy yet again. Cut them some slack. They’re either going to leave us or grow up. After all, we’re talking of people obsessed with homosexuality and abortion… when the Holy Church focuses on worship and the Incarnation. They’re going to wise up and find their way to the Only Homely Home or they’re going to leave us (and excoriate us for impurity as they do so). That’s the way it is…

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7 November 2015. Our Great Russian Motherland: Dalmatovo Assumption Monastery (Dalmatovo Raion. Kurgan Oblast. Ural Federal District)

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In 1644, Monk St Dalmat Ivanovich Mokrinsky founded this monastery when he built his cell in an isolated region to the east of the Ural Mountains (he came from Beryozovo in the Ural region). It endured until 1922, when the atheist authorities closed it. The property saw several uses… a theatre, commanders’ school in the VOV, factory. In 1989, the Church started to take over the property, a process complete in 1994. At present, there’s a small community of monks here, and the run-down buildings and property are under renovation.

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13 July 2015. Our Great Russian Motherland: Holy Trinity Serafimo-Diveyevsky Convent. Diveyevo (Diveyevo Raion. Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Volga Federal District)

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Founded in 1780, the claim to fame of Holy Trinity Serafimo-Diveyevsky Convent is that it had a connection with St Serafim Sarovsky. Closed in 1927, it reopened in 1988… well before the fall of the USSR.

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21 June 2015. A Little Bit of Russia in America… St Tikhon Monastery in South Canaan PA USA

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St Tikhon Zadonsky Monastery is the oldest Russian Orthodox monastery in the USA. St Tikhon Bellavin, who later became Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, founded it in 1905 as a monastery and orphanage when he was ruling bishop in the USA. It still exists today, but the orphanage no longer exists. However, a seminary opened on the grounds in 1938, which still operates. Every year, on the American Memorial Day weekend, there’s a monastery open house and pilgrimage that draws hundreds of believers from throughout the USA (but mostly from the Northeast, especially from NEPA).

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