Service
I long to give thanks, to give thanks every minute for everything that the Lord has given me. I long to bring Him my insignificant gratitude, serving Him and His suffering children.Great Duchess Elizabeth
In God man acquires completeness, ceases to reason in narrow, worldly ways. He already lives in eternity. The mystical light of the Resurrection lightens the path of the man who follows Christ. The bearer of eternity – Christ’s love – gives itself without limitations to the service of others.
The Lord gathers together scattered children – people who desire to devote themselves to works of mercy. In this way, by God’s Providence, the Orthodox Sisterhood named in dedication to the Holy New Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth was founded in Minsk. The labor of the sisters is apostolic. They carry light and warmth where everything is degraded, distorted by sorrow and despair, and the Lord with His love washes away, sanctifies and cleanses souls crippled by sin. Every person is a divine image and in everyone there is goodness, only often it is hidden by a murky layer of vanity.
By repenting and realizing one’s likeness of God, a person may shine and become holy. The calling of the sisters is to help people meet the loving, caring, forgiving God.
The Orthodox Sisterhood, having chosen the Reverend Saint Great Duchess Elizabeth as its patron, was created in 1996. The main direction of the sisterhood’s service is providing spiritual help to people.
At the present time the Sisterhood cares for the Republican Psychiatric Hospital and Municipal Clinical Hospital as well as boarding homes for children and adults with psychological and physical disabilities, a tuberculosis unit and a home care facility for mentally handicapped children. Next to the village of Bald Mountain, 30 km. from the convent, is located a farmstead where many people have received a new life and encountered God – people who formerly lived in gateways, train stations, hospitals and foster homes.
Sometimes it is not easy to see that the results are still small, but the sisters try to remember that they must serve and sow, not expecting an immediate fruit or recompense.
