Northern Lights

Reprint from 2011 Spring/Summer Newsletter
written by Brother Stavros

This past February I had the chance to reacquaint myself with a relatively young Monastic Community of Jerusalem, composed of men and women, founded about 10 years after New Skete but dedicated to bringing monastic values to urban settings.  I had occasion several years ago to visit their mother house in Le Marais district of Paris. Their Montreal home was right next to the Mont Royal metro stop at the Sanctuary of the Blessed Sacrament, a large, spacious church, built in 1892, with a two-tiered gallery wrapping around three sides of the nave.

I had arranged with the monks’ prior, Father Antoine Emmanuel, to pass Sunday with them and stay overnight.

When I arrived for the morning service the community was assembled, monks on the right and nuns on the left, in the chancel area, where they stand in ranks to sing the office. And sing they do, most beautifully. The French I had studied up in Quebec in 1961 served me well in understanding the psalms and hymns and in ordinary conversation. The structure was equivalent to our Sunday Matins and included many elements of our Orthodox worship, such as the Trisagion, a Resurrection Gospel, and “We have seen Christ’s resurrection,” sung to Kievan Tone 6 as everyone venerated the icon of Christ's rising.

          One of the brothers found me at the end of the service, in my own monastic habit, not hard to miss, and brought me into their sacristy and through various connecting passages to the brothers’ quarters, where he showed me my room. The rule of the Jerusalem Community embodies the vow of poverty by not owning any property. The archdiocese gives the community members the use of the church, and they rent the attached buildings, which flank the church. The brothers share their lodgings with housing for senior citizens, thus the confusing route to and from the church.

Sanctuaire Saint-Sacrement Montreal

Returning at 11 a.m. for the Eucharistic Liturgy, I was surprised to find the church packed (rare, I was told, in the numerous parishes throughout the city). The nuns outnumbered the monks by several members, and they assisted in the unfolding of the Liturgy by carrying candles for the processions, taking readings, and performing some musical interludes for the short periods of reflection built into the service, much the way we do. Here again, many elements of the Byzantine liturgy were employed, including responses during the commemorations after the invocation of the Holy Spirit similar to those we sing at the Liturgy of St. James.

I was impressed with the devotion of the whole congregation, who sang the responses throughout with much gusto, and appreciated watching young and old approach for the Holy Eucharist.

The brothers had their main meal not long after the Mass was concluded. The basement floor held an ample kitchen, a dining area, a small prayer room, and an informal kitchenette.

The meal was in silence, but classical music played as we ate. I helped with the dishes, and after the clean-up we gathered around a large round table in the kitchenette for coffee and a terrific pie made by Br. Francis. Our conversation was very natural, despite my stumbles in French. I showed them an album of photographs of New Skete and presented them with a copy of our Psalter and the Book of Prayers. Also at the table was another visitor, a young man from France, who described for the brothers the effect of new media on the revolution in Egypt, with which he seemed particularly familiar.

Several of the brothers made plans to spend the afternoon ice skating in a park a few blocks away. It was still snowing from the night before and looked to continue all day. I took a nap and went out to take some photographs.

Vespers was sung in the church; at its conclusion one of the nuns sought me out with a warm welcome. She was American and knew of our dog books. As I was there just that one night, she encouraged me to return another time with more of our New Skete members and partake of hospitality on the sisters’ side.

          A supper followed, again in silence. I could not help noticing the booted legs of city-dwellers passing by through the windows that faced the street, as an image of the Jerusalem Community’s mission to bring a spirit of prayer and stillness into the heart of the city. On work days the brothers and sisters all have morning jobs around the city to share in the toil of modern life before returning to the monastic regimen at midday.

We again had some coffee and tea informally, and I asked about various aspects of their monastic life, its formation and character. It was a delightful sharing where we discovered how much we have in common. Their rule incorporates much from St Basil and other Eastern Fathers and Mothers. As we do at New Skete, they take Monday as a “Desert Day,” with no formal services or meals, but as time for personal enrichment or creativity. I planned to leave very early to begin the drive north. The next morning I fixed a little breakfast for myself, and just before my departure a brother appeared and gave me a copy of their rule in English.

Heading north through a serious snowstorm, I reached the second monastery in my boreal pilgrimage, Notre Dame du Val, a Cistercian (Trappist)  community formerly at Oka, west of Montreal, now deep in the country in an elegant new monastery of contemporary design featuring lots of wood and glass. I enjoyed three days of silence and prayer and attended the monastic offices, which, as at Mt. Athos, include a vigil at 4 a.m. However, unlike most Orthodox monastic schedules, the hours are not linked together in two long blocks but are shorter and spread around the 24-hour clock. The singing is beautiful, and each guest is provided with the psalter in French with a little chart enabling visitors to follow along as the psalter is divided over the week. Compline ends with a hymn to the Theotokos, with only a small light at her image, the dark church only faintly aglow from the moonlight reflected on the snowy mountain visible through the glass wall behind the altar.

On my return trip I made a morning visit St. Seraphim’s Hermitage in Rawdon, about 30 minutes south.
 It is a small wooden cabin to which is attached a diminutive chapel located beside a large Russian cemetery on the edge of town.

Bishop Irénée, the OCA’s new bishop of Québec, kindly met me there to open up the hermitage and the larger summer church and show me around. We shared a breakfast of French pastries from a local shop while I gave him a quick acquaintance with our monastic life and learned of his ministry in the province. After getting his blessing I set out for home via a beautiful drive over the northern islands of Lake Champlain.