A Russian Orthodox women’s monastic community dedicated to the Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God “Search of the Lost” – a dependency of the Lesna Monastery

  With the blessing of Archbishop Andronik and Bishop Akakios in November 2023 the sisters of the Lesna Monastery have begun organizing monastic life following the traditions of our convent in America, establishing a women’s community at the Mountainview Spiritual Center, dedicated to the Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God “Search of the Lost”.

  The founder of the Lesna Monastery, St. Catherine (Efimovskaya), envisioned her monastery not only as a fortress of prayer and ascetic life, but also as a missionary center of spiritual instruction and guidance, especially for children and young people. “Start your new monastery in a new way”, said Elder Ambrose of Optina to her, when Mother Catherine came to him for a blessing. Wrapping her in his own monastic cloak, he blessed her to lead the monastic community and gave her a prayer rule for the sisters.

  Another famous benefactor of our monastery from its very foundation still in Imperial Russia was St. John of Kronstadt. When he visited Lesna he compared the monastery to a beehive, and foretold that sisters would fly from Lesna just as a swarm of bees flies out to start a new hive. And indeed, the Lesna Monastery founded many new communities, first in Russia, then in Serbia and France. We hope that today a monastic community following the Lesna tradition will be beneficial to for America as well, and trusting in the prayers of our spiritual protectors, we asked the blessing of our hierarchs for this endeavour.

  Our American community will be dedicated to the Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God “Search of the Lost”, in memory of a member of our community, Mother Magdalina (Nozdrina), a spititual struggler of the Catacomb Church of Russia, who joined the Lesna Monastery in 1950. Her Icon “Search of the Lost” protected her in times of persecution and in exile and played a huge role in her life. She preserved two copies of this icon, and it was her lifelong dream to found a monastic community or to at least build a chapel dedicated to this icon. Mother Magdalina was the spiritual child of the New Confessor St. Seraphim (Zagorovsky), who was glorified along with the other New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981. Fr. Seraphim, Protopresbyter Nicholas in the world, was a well known and beloved pastor of the people in the spirit of St. John of Kronstadt in Kharkiv at the turn of the XX century, when the ruling bishop there was Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), the future first hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. A young law student, Michael Maximovitch, the future St. John of Shanghai, loved to attend Fr. Nicholas’ services. Initially Fr. Nicholas was not at all drawn to the priesthood, he wanted to be an actor. Nevertheless, submitting to the fervent wish of his widowed mother, he agreed to be ordained. He ended up as a parish priest in a tiny, distant village, and succumbed to depression and despair. Fervent, nightlong prayer before his icon “Search of the Lost” worked a miracle. The despairing young priest turned into a zealous shepherd and preacher. M. Vagdalina met Fr. Nicholas when she was 16 years old; she came to one of his liturgies with a group of friends. She was so moved by his sermon that she decided then and there to join the women’s community that Fr. Nicholas had founded.

  After the Russian Revolution the godless bolsheviks arrested Fr. Nicholas, a confirmed monarchist and loyal to Patriarch Tikhon, and after 1927 an opponent of the sergianist declaration and a catacomb priest, several times. Fr. Nicholas was sentenced to a prison term at the notorious Solovky concentration camp, where, thinking that he wouldn’t survive, he secretly pronounced monastic vows and took the name of Seraphim, in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov, for whom he had a great veneration. М. Magdalina followed her beloved Batiushka into exile, settling as closely as possible to the prisons and camps where he was incarcerated, doing everything that she could to alleviate his suffering, and sharing his spiritual labor of confessing True Orthodoxy. After Fr. Seraphim’s repose M. Magdalina was able to escape to France, carrying with her Fr. Seraphim’s miracle working Icon “Search of the Lost”. When the Lesna monastery moved to France she joined our sisters. For many years m. Magdalina ran the monastery guest house, receiving hundreds of pilgrims with unfailing love and charity, while never forgetting her monastic labors. In dedicating our new community to her beloved icon, we commit ourselves to her prayers and to those of her spiritual father, The New Confessor St. Seraphim. The icon “Search of the Lost” that accompanied M. Magdalina throughout all her wandering will always be treasured and preserved by the sisters at Mountain View.

  How can you help? The first and most important duty of any monastic community is the establishment of a liturgically centered life of prayer. Come and pray with us, and participate in our services, and become better acquainted with our monastic way of life. Perhaps you, too, will be called to join us. Send us the names of your relatives and friends, both living and reposed, for commemoration at our liturgies, at the sisters’ prayer rule, and at akathists before the “Search of the Lost” icon. You can write to: lesna@orange.fr. If you would like to support the sisters financially donations can be made by PayPal: lesna@orange.fr. Most important, pray for us, beseeching the Most Holy Mother of God and our heavenly protectors to guide us and to and intercede for us before the Heavenly Throne, that our monastic community might grow and flourish.

May God bless you!

with love in Christ, unworthy Abbess Evfrosinia and her sisters

June, 2024