Visit to Australia
In July-August 2023, our reader Sergey had a business trip to Australia and also attended church services there for two weekends.
On the first weekend, 29-30 July, the service was in the Holy Protection Cathedral Of Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in Melbourne: Vigil on Saturday evening and Liturgy on Sunday morning.
This church was founded in July 1949, with the majority of original parishioners migrating from Europe as displaced persons in the aftermath of World War II. The current church building was opened in September 2016, and it was built brick by brick by volunteers and skilled builders, with funds raised by parishioners over decades. The church is serving a diverse community, and services are conducted in both Church Slavonic and English.
On the second weekend, August 5-6, Sergey was invited to visit Fr Antony in Adelaide, and on that weekend, both of them travelled to the monastery of the prophet Elias in Monarto (South Australia), for the Patronal Feast celebration. This monastery is also under ROCOR and was founded in 1995. The monastery is quite small, and it currently has only one permanent monk, Abbot Fr Benjamin. The monastery has two main buildings: one building is for church services and another is for accomodation of monks and guests.
But on the Patronal Feast, about 70 people attended the celebration including Vladyka George (Bishop of Australia and New Zealand), 3 priests, 3 deacons, 3 subdeacons and 3 readers. It was a beautiful service, mainly in English, where about 15 people were singing in the choir. During the service, a reader was also ordained by Vladyka George to be a subdeacon.
After the service, there was also a nice lunch. There was not enough space for all guests in the accomodation building, and many people were sitting on the grass. It was a diverse community of people with different roots: from Romania, Serbia, Greece, Russia, Australia and Amerika. There were many Russian immigrants with their family who left Russia many years ago.
Reader Sergey is very grateful to Fr Antony for his kind invitation and his hospitality during the visit.
