The power and the grace of the holy and angelic monastic image is truly great. Rejoice, the wise virgins in the Lord who have been honoured to have such an angel-like life on earth.
Elder Joseph the Hesychast
His Eminence Philaret, Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus tonsured three sisters into the holy angelic image and five sisters into the rassaphore during the vigil service on April 13, the Great Monday, in St Elisabeth church. The service was marked with solemn beauty. The faces of those present were shining with openness and faith.
All the ceremony of tonsure is highly symbolic. According to the holy Fathers, the newly-tonsured is like the sheep lost and then found again by her Good Shepherd (Cf. Luke 15: 4 – 6), and like the man wounded by the cruel robbers (Cf. Luke 10: 30 – 37), and like the younger son who spent all his possessions with whores and then came to his merciful father with repentance (Cf. Luke 15: 11 – 32).
The most important and the decisive moment of the monastic tonsure is when a sister pronounces the great monastic vows. According to the rite of tonsure, the bishop asks the sister who is standing in front of the altar wearing a tunic and with loose hair several questions. Does she come to the Lord willingly? Does she agree to renounce the world, in accord with the Lord’s commandment? Will she stay in the convent to her last breath? Will she preserve herself in chastity and reverence even to her death? Will she be obedient to her Mother Superior and to all her sisters in Christ? Will she spend all her life in voluntary poverty for the sake of Christ? Will she endure all sorrows and suffering of the monastic life for the sake of the Heavenly Kingdom? The sister answers all these questions with: Yes, God willing, reverend Father! A person can utter such words and make her mind to take such vows only if she really believes in God’s help (understanding her complete inability and at the same time – trusting the Almighty Saviour).
After making the vows, the sister picks up and gives the bishop the scissors he throws down onto the floor three times from the Holy Gospel book which sits on the analogion. Then the bishop cuts her hair in the form of a cross in the name of the Holy Trinity. According to the Holy Fathers, a sister sacrifices a part of her body to the Lord, devotes herself to Christ, and renounces all earthly cares. It is that very moment when the newly tonsured is given a new name to mark the fact that she begins a completely new life. After cutting off her hair, the sister is vested in monastic habit. The black colour of the monastic habit is the symbol of repentance, sorrow for her sins and the lost paradise. St Symeon of Thessalonica says that a monk in a habit is like the Lord crucified and bound in linen cloths. The habit is a perpetual reminder of the main aim of the monastic life: to die for the earthly life with the Lord and to be resurrected in the Spirit in order to take part in the unspeakable spiritual good that Apostle Paul relates, “that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9)
In the end of the rite of tonsure all sisters, holding candles in their hands (to mark happiness, God’s grace and joy of Angels) kiss the newly-tonsured nun, asking her new name and wishing her to get saved in the Lord. After the tonsure, a nun spends three days in church, attends all services, devotes her time to prayer and reading the holy Fathers.
Sermon of His Eminence Philaret, Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk
after the rite of tonsure in St Elisabeth Convent on April 13, 2009
Beloved in Christ Fathers, Mother Igumenia and the sisters!
I greet you all with the beginning of the Passion Week when we recall the last days and hours of the earthly life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Church calls these days the days of Passion. Today is Great Monday, and then goes Great Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Great Saturday and the Bright Day of Resurrection. This is the way to the Bright Resurrection of Christ, the Eternal Life and God. This way is full of thorns; it is full of problems and temptations, as it was with the Lord Himself who spent the last week of His life in hardships, temptations and suffering.
Today we address the sisters with words of encouragement for this way of suffering, temptations and hardships, and at the same time, for the way to the greater glory of God, hoping that He will help every one of us during these holy days of Great Week so that we could spend them in a proper way.
We wish the sisters to have humility and obedience. These are the most essential virtues, especially for monastics. Humility and obedience allow us not to be guilty of grumble, envy, and not to become desperate. Now we have heard how difficult is the way of those who prepared their souls for the holy obedience.
The holy obedience cannot go without many temptations, but the Lord is always with us, the Lord is near, dear sisters! Whatever sorrows and hardships, the Lord will support us and help us overcome them to the greater glory of God. When we do everything to the glory of God and ask Him to help us in our work, everything turns out for the better and for the sake of God’s glory. This is what I wish every one of you.
