Enthronement speech of Abbess Pavlina
April 17th, 2015
Your Eminence ,
The renovating experiences of the Holy Passions of Our Lord are still fresh in our minds, where our God and Creator was led to the cross like the guileless lamb for the slaughter, accepting the crown of slander " Thou who didst adorn the earth with flowers” and “Thou didst wear the robe of revilement, O Thou who didst clothe the firmament with clouds" "Thou who endured spitting and scourings and pierced with the lance the King of Glory for our sins,” gave unto us the type and foundation of truth, to follow the most excellent path, the path that God walked, the one we should follow in our personal lives.
As such the proestos (elder) should be the imprint of Christ, person with maximum humility, clothed in meekness and purity, shepherd and ruler and an excellent physician, who has ascended into the heights of virtue, immovable teacher, that received from God "through the finger of God,” the spiritual book. Since according to St. John of the Ladder, it is inappropriate for teachers to teach “from copies and manuscripts”. He is a person who became worthy of the sight of God and the Holy Light and descended in the deepest valley of humility of Horeb, calling himself as Moses did, a feeble of voice and slow of tongue, and was united with love, that is God.
Your eminence, however, we today, the monks of the last days, of whom the spiritual condition, when the Great Pachomios saw in a vision, trembled and was in fear and retracted, that “we are as abnormal eyesore, among the monastics and we are not worthy to be called monastics” according to the word of Apostle Paul, what shall we say and what word shall we articulate?
Simply, obeying to our Holy Church, that through the Holy Spirit puts boundaries and officiates over the responsibilities and initiatives of the presider (abbot &abbess?). After we express our heartfelt thanksgiving to Your Venerable Person, unworthy though we are, for the blessing that you have given us today. We ask of you, and implore you, as well as the honorable sisters, that tolerate us as their spiritual guide, and the honorable priests and of the pious people, that are in attendance with so much love, to pray fervently to our Triune God and His most pure Mother. Let us implore our Triune God to make us worthy to complete and finish our responsible diakonia – servitude, in deep humility, in excess of wisdom and love, with fear and trembling, wearing the linen cloth and washing the feet of the sister nuns, everyday. In partaking the Mystical Supper, we would come to the unity of the faith and the blessedness of the Kingdom of the heavens.
Thank you.
Christ is Risen!
