Australian and New Zealand Diocese (ROCOR)

Trip to Australia

Archimandrite Alexis (Pobjoy)
Saint Edward Brotherhood
St. Cyprian’s Avenue, Brookwood, Surrey GU24 0BL, England.

I was invited to speak at the 42nd Annual Russian Orthodox Youth Conference of the Australia – New Zealand Diocese of ROCA, held in Adelaide. I flew from Heathrow on 13th December and stayed a couple of days in Singapore as the guest of Archimandrite Daniel (Toyne) of the Holy Resurrection Greek Orthodox Church (OEc.Pat.) there. I was met at the airport by Fr Daniel and by Paul and Audrey Lee, the parents of Benedict who used to attend church here. The Lees kindly took us out for a meal, and then my plan to have a rest on the journey were scuppered by Fr Daniel, who kept me up talking to four in the morning! Next day, we visited a disused church which Fr Daniel hopes to get for his parish, who are out-growing their present house chapel. Then we visited the exceedingly beautiful Botanical Gardens before meeting up with Paul Lee again and eating, apparently in my honour, at the British Club. Mr Lee then drove us round town to see the city.

I flew on to Australia, arriving in Sydney late on Saturday night, where to my surprise the driver meeting me at the airport was Archbishop Hilarion himself. He made the perfect host. Despite his exalted rank, he prepared meals at the church house, made sure I had everything I needed, arranged everything for the whole trip, and, to my embarrassment, even did my laundry!

On the Sunday morning he showed me the church alongside his house, dedicated to All Saints of Russia, in which they treasure an icon of the Mother of God, Akhtyrskiya, which may even be the original one. There he introduced me to the priests serving there that day and preparing to start their Liturgy. However I served with the Archbishop and his clergy at the nearby Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral church. Vladyka Hilarion preached immediately after the Gospel on the Holy Fathers (whose Sunday it was) and asked me to preach in English on the Gospel itself at the end of the service. After breaking our fast at the church and returning home for a short rest, the Archbishop took me on a tour of the city, passing most of the notable tourist sites, and more interestingly many of the Orthodox churches in town. We went out as far as Bondi Beach, and visited the Rookwood Cemetery, where the Russian community has several large sections.

On Monday we flew to Brisbane. “Don’t take mitre or klobuk,” he said, “it is too hot to have your head covered there!” We were greeted by Fr Gabriel Makarov, whose family offered us hospitality during our stay. In the afternoon, Vladyka blessed a rotunda in the cemetery, dedicated to all those Orthodox Christians who have died in exile. After a meal at the Russian Club, we went to the St Nicolas Cathedral for the All-Night Vigil service for the parish dedication festival. This is the church in which Metropolitan Philaret and the late Bishop Constantine (there are evidences of his work there) served, and is the oldest Russian Orthodox Church in Australia. Four priests served with the Archbishop, Fr Gabriel, Protopriest Michael Klebansky, Fr Peter Fomin and myself. – Fr Peter seemed to have an inordinate interest in cricket for a Russian!!! Who cares about the Ashes? – After the parish trapeza, we were taken into an exceeding high mountain some distance from the city, so that we could see all the countryside round about – but we were not greatly tempted there, except by ginger beer and chips!

We returned to Sydney late at night, and the next morning, Archbishop Hilarion took me to the Kazan Icon Convent at Kentlyn, where Mother Maria, with whom we have been corresponding for years, is the newly installed Abbess. As we arrived it was drizzling – apparently arranged to make me feel at home, and certainly it was a relief after the heat of Brisbane. Vladyka returned to the city to work, but before the Liturgy, Matushka Maria took me to the Convent’s old church, where Hieromonk Joachim was preparing to serve a Liturgy in English. Fr Joachim visited Brookwood many years ago, when he was still with the Serbian Church. After the Liturgy in the main church, in which they have an icon of St Seraphim of Sarov which has miraculously renewed itself, the sisters invited us to join them at their meal, and matushka gave an album of pictures which she had specially prepared.

Abbess Anna and Mother Christina (known to Brookwoodites as Katie!) of the Presentation Skete in Bungarby were also praying at this Liturgy, and they then kidnapped me to take me to see their community, reputed to be some seven hour’s drive away. First we went to Fr Boris Ignatievsky’s house to raid his freezer, and were caught in the act by Fr Boris, so stayed and had coffee with him.

Mother Anna drove through torrential rains for about a third of the journey. She kindly took me on the scenic route, but for this part of the journey we only saw mist and rain. Suddenly the rains cleared, which was a mixed blessing: it allowed me to see the country but the area where Mother’s convent is situated has endured a seven-year drought! En route, we stopped at a little seaside town for refreshments, and then at a more remote coastal area to see the Sapphire Sea. By now we were running late, and Mother phoned her sister, Antonina Ganin, the renowned iconographer who has worked on many of the churches in Australia, and made a detour to visit her and her husband so that we could have yet another meal. We arrived at the Convent just before midnight – this seems to be the time when we arrived everywhere in Australia. As we drove up over the scrubland, our path was crossed by a rabbit (that happens here too), a wombat, and then a kangaroo – at last I was in Real Australia. Sydney and Brisbane are a bit like part of California that simply seemed to have ended up on the wrong side of the Pacific Ocean.

In the morning Mother Anna gave me a brief tour of their land. The seven sisters live in a small former farmstead, the guest house is nearby, and they have a beautiful wooden chapel. Then she drove me over to the Holy Transfiguration Monastery at Bombala, where the Real Father Alexis is abbot. This drive is by tracks across farmland, and every so often we had to stop and open gates, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Mother explained that these were to remind us of the toll houses, the last being the gate of Heaven.

Fr Alexis’ monastery is set in a wooded area, and is like a fairytale. The beautiful church – which to my untrained architectural eye looked rather Armenian in style, – is half surrounded by a cloister of buildings, something like those you see in Westerns, with verandas on the front side. Inside the church is beautifully frescoed, as one would expect in a monastery headed by one of the pre-eminent iconographers of our time. After speaking with Fr Alexis and joining them for the midday meal, Mother Anna left me there, and before Vespers Fr Alexis took me on a tour. After looking at the various workshops, he took me to one of their “sketes,” – cabins hidden in the woods, where the fathers can go occasionally to have periods of quiet. He promised the monks we would return at the end of Vespers, which began at 4 o’clock. In the event, we talked sitting on a skete veranda, and at about ten o’clock at night a posse of kangaroos came to tell us it was time to get back to the monastery and so we returned just in time to go to bed. Matins began at 4 a.m; it was chanted antiphonally, with one choir using Church Slavonic and one English. After a short break, Fr Alexis himself drove me back to the Convent, where he was going to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, it being Mother Anna’s nameday. She is named for the Prophetess Hannah.

That day, Matushka took me for a longer tour of the Convent’s 600 acres – much of it is like a filmset for a Western, with gullies, ravines, boulders and scrub. And after dining with the sisters in the evening she took me to the airport at Cooma to fly back to Sydney. The plane was delayed and I arrived back in the city just before midnight.

Early next morning, the Archbishop and I set off for Adelaide, where the Youth Conference was being hosted. On arrival, in what appeared to be one of the most cultivated, agriculturally, parts of Australia, we were taken to Saint Nicholas Church, whose pastor is Father Vladimir Deduhin. The ladies of the parish provided us with lunch in the church hall, before we set off for the camp site.

The Conference was held at the Dzintari Latvian Camp, some miles out of town, near Normanville, set in hills overlooking the sea, which was just over a mile away. On the Saturday afternoon, a moleben was chanted to bless the proceedings, and that evening the Vigil service was held in the hall in which most of the activities were to take place. A table was put up to the east with a Gospel Book and Cross, and two analoys with icons sufficed as an iconostas. In fact, I missed most of the service, as I was appointed as one of the two priests to hear confessions, and those continued for the greater part of the service. In the morning we returned to Adelaide for the Divine Liturgy at St Nicolas, and afterwards were treated to a banquet at the Russian House in town. Each day of the conference opened with Morning Prayers said in the trapeza, with participants taking turns to say parts, and some using English and other Slavonic, but booklets were provided in both languages.

After breakfast and in the afternoons we had talks or leisure activities, and the day ended with Evening Prayers said together. After the meals, the Archbishop had a question box, into which anyone could drop questions anonymously, and these he would hand out to priests of his choice to answer. I had one on why we don’t have female altar servers, and so told them about Mother Vasilia at Brondesbury Park! At the camp too, I met Fr Simeon Kichakov and his matushka. Fr Simeon had been in the same class as me at Holy Trinity Seminary in 1970 and I had not seen him since.

On one of the afternoons, the Archbishop hosted an impromptu Pastoral Meeting with the clergy, and on another he had the altar servers come in and practise the vesting of a hierarch, as each action was explained to them. The poor Archbishop was vested and de-vested about ten times, but bore it with his usual good grace.

The last night was Talent Night, and the participants put on a wonderful show, with songs, Cossack dancing, comedy skits, story-telling and whatever their talents provided. It was a great deal of fun (apologies – I don’t think that word is permitted in a church magazine here in the Old Country!). The Archbishop, the indomitable Protodeacon Vasili Yakimov and I were to be the judges of the contest, and as the one with the proper pommy accent I was volunteered to announce the five winners. It was a pity they could not all have won. That night proceedings ended just after midnight, but then continued with singing, dancing and eating back in the dining hall, with the wonderful cooking ladies setting to work again but also joining in the fun.

Next day, the Archbishop returned to Sydney, but I was posted on to Melbourne, where on arrival I was taken to see the Holy Cross Mission. We arrived as they were chanting Vespers, and Hieromonk Cyril, the priest, later invited us in for coffee and a chat. The mission is right off Parliament Square and in a former Anglican Convent. In fact, as they have subsequently found out, this was the place where the first Orthodox Liturgy in Australia was celebrated. The chapel is kept open all day and enquirers have someone there to speak with them and tell them about the Faith. Daniel Kisliakov, my “carer” at this juncture, then decided we should go to Chinatown for a meal, and the restaurant he chose was obviously the haunt of young Russians, and so we fell in with a group there who had also returned from the Syezd. We arrived at my destination, the home of Archpriest Michael Protopopov and his matushka Kyra, just before midnight.

Fr Michael is the priest of the Dormition Church in Dandenong. In the morning he took me to the Russian Welfare Society, where he works voluntarily as the Principle. This was a truly amazing care home, with accommodation for elderly people who could self-cater, for those who could not, medical facilities, and at the moment they are proposing to build a wing for those suffering from dementia. I also visited their church hall, which was enormous and built by the parishioners, and has classrooms for each grade of their church school. At the Welfare Society, I met another English priest, Fr Nicolas de Carleton, who was formerly in the Antiochian Church and had been at Balamand in his youth. He took me to his home for coffee, and show me his albums and told me of his great love of the Palestinians. After lunch, Fr John Smelic came to visit, and then we went to Father Michael’s church. By Australian Russian standards it is compatively small, but is, like most of the others, magnificently frescoed in a strong Russian style, and is a treasury of sacred relics, all immaculately kept in special cabinets. To the north they have a baptistery for adult baptisms, and the frescoes in this wing are of the great missionary saints, including St Boniface of Crediton and St Patrick of Ireland. When we arrived home again, I found that matushka, like her Bishop, had done my laundry – by that time I must have been rather smelly.

That evening I gave a talk to the recently formed Victorian Orthodox Social and Cultural Association (VOSCA) – the association is Victorian with reference to the State, not to the period in which they live. This was in the church hall attached to the Cathedral of the Protection in Melbourne, and its pastor, Fr Nicolas Karipoff, the brother of Mother Anna, showed me round the immense newly built church. The interior is still not wholly complete, many of the frescoes have to be finished, and a side chapel is being appointed to St Xenia, but it will undoubtedly be a superb church when finished. VOSCA have published a report on their seminar in their internet magazine, “The Ark of Salvation,” – it contains a beautiful picture of the shrine here at Brookwood. Contact: voscassociation@gmail.com

In the morning, Fr Nicolas took me to the airport at five to catch the plane back to Sydney. He had told me that Melbourne was full of Greeks, and this was obviously the case, because even one of the black porters at the airport, recognising that we were Orthodox, greeted us in Greek.

Then occurred the only glitch in the whole trip. I arrived back at Sydney, and the arrangements for someone to meet me had gone awry. I waited there for about three hours, – of course I had not taken an address or phone number with me. However, if you wait around in Australia long enough you are bound to see a Russian. And sure enough, Liza, one of the Syezd participants turned up having flown back from Melbourne a day later. She arranged for her parents to take me to the Archbishop’s house.

Twenty minutes later we were off again! Fr Daniel Metlenko was celebrating his nameday, and off we, Archbishop Hilarion and I, went again to a reception with his parish, staying over for the All Night Vigil in the house-chapel of St Vladimir, which is his parish centre and the oldest church in Sydney.

The next morning, the Sunday and my last day in Australia, I was appointed to serve with Father Boris Ignatievsky (whose freezer we had raided) and Fr Michael Li at the Church of the Protection in Cabramatta, yet another magnificent church in Russian style. Again there are care facilities alongside the church, and as the senior celebrant I had to give communion; there were about twenty communicants in wheelchairs as well as about forty others. Then we rushed off briefly to attend the nameday celebration of an elderly parishioner, before returning to the church hall, where again I was due to give a talk – the fifth of the tour. Archbishop Hilarion arrived for this and so did Fr Joachim. Afterwards we returned to the Archbishop’s house for tea and for me to pack my bags. Then I took my leave of the Archbishop who had shown me such kindness and hospitality, and who is so evidently loved by all his flock. Fr Deacon Christopher Henderson and his matushka took me out for a burger, a final tour of the sights of Sydney, and to see the view from their balcony, which overhangs the wharf in Sydney, where preparations were being made for the New Year celebrations in the harbour. They kindly took me to the airport.

On my return, I again had a stop-over at Singapore and stayed with Fr Daniel for a couple of days, meeting some of his parishioners. He took me to the Armenian Church (the oldest Christian church in Singapore), and we tried to visit the Saint Nectarius of Pentapolis chapel of Fr Demetrios Sithuraj Ponraj (Synod in Resistance), but unfortunately he was out of town and we could only contact him by phone. Fr Daniel treated me to tea at Raffles – we had to do this in memory of Fr Niphon’s childhood days in Singapore, – and then later put me back on the plane home.

It was uplifting to visit a diocese in which the churches were thriving, and in which, despite some tensions and deep concerns regarding the rapprochement, there seemed to be an undoubted bond of love and mutual support between the clergy and the lay people. In two weeks, I stayed with more priests and their families than we have in England, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude, first to Archbishop Hilarion, whom I have known since 1970 and by correspondence even longer, to Archimandrite Alexis, Abbess Anna, Abbess Maria, and to Fathers Michael Protopopov, Nicolas Karipoff, Boris Ignatievsky, Gabriel Makarov, and to their matushkas and families, and to many others clergy and laypeople, for their extraordinary kindness and hospitality, and of course to Archimandrite Daniel too for putting up with me twice. There is no way I can thank them except to remember them in prayer, and I hope they will always pray for me.

Father Alexis

Source: http://www.saintedwardbrotherhood.org/0207/shepherd6.html