FOUNDATION STONE LAID FOR THE NEW MONASTIC HOUSE
ON THE EVE of the feast of the Enshrinement of St Edward’s Sacred Relics, Friday 2nd /15th September, the foundation stone for the new monastic house at Brookwood was laid. We were honoured that Mrs Sarah Goad JP, the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, who has shown a lively interest in our Building Fund appeal, kindly consented to perform the ceremony for us.
The ceremony, which took place at 5.30 in the evening, was also attended by the Right Reverend Christopher Hill, the Bishop of Guildford, by Cllr John Kingsbury, the Mayor of Woking, by our County Councillor, Mrs Elizabeth Compton, and by our heroic Borough Councillor, Philip Goldenberg, as well as by several other councillors and local people who have helped us and encouraged us over the years and welcomed us into the borough.
Fr Alexis met our honoured guests as they arrived, and a short moleben was served at the site where the stone was to be laid. Mrs Goad was helped in her task by Mr Lee Jackson of our contractor’s firm, H. W. Fisher and Son of Aldershot. After the laying of the stone and cementing it in very securely, she gave a short speech, which was greatly appreciated by the members of the Orthodox community here, and which we have obtained her permission to reproduce below. Then the principal guests were photographed with our project manager, Mr Tony Sumners, our architect, Mrs Irina Aldersley, and our landscape designer, Mrs Annie Shaw, as well as little Miss Anastasia Dimitrievna Popova (who wanted to be in the photo).
Before the Vigil Service for St Edward’s feast, light refreshments were offered guests in a marquee on the church lawn, and at 7 p.m we began the service. Members of the congregation were pleased to see that numbers of our guests joined us for at least part of the three-and-a-half hour service, and they were impressed that Bishop Christopher Hill stayed through almost to the end of Mattins, even though our services are doubtless longer than ones he is used to.
For the festal services, the four clergymen appointed to our Brotherhood were joined by Fr Elias Jones of the St John the Wonderworker Parish in Felixstowe. And at the stone-laying ceremony we were also joined by Protopresbyter Milun Kostic and Protopresbyter Radomir Acimovic of the Serbian Orthodox Parish of St Sava in London, Fr Stephen Platt of the Saint Nicholas Parish in Oxford (MP), and Fr Stavros Solomou of the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Shepherd’s Bush (OEc.P). Fr Vadim Zakrevsky of the Dormition Church in London was unfortunately unable to attend because of illness, and Archimandrite Kyrill of the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, sent a kind letter of support. One of the oldest members of the London Russian Orthodox parish, Ludmila Purvis, was also with us on the feast.
We would like to thank all those who participated in this significant event in the life of our brotherhood, and for all those who supported us and worked to make the event such a success, especially to Elena Holden and her band of stalwart women who prepared the foods then, on the following day for the Parish Breakfast, and yet again on the Sunday.
The Lord Lieutenant’s Speech
MOST OF US spend some time wondering why we are put on this earth and what we are meant to be doing here. I’m not at all sure that the Anglicans have got a written protocol for this - nor do I know how the Orthodox Churches would frame their conclusions,* but I do know that the old Roman Catholic shorter catechism had it down pat: To the question, What is the chief end of man? The prescribed answer was: To worship God and to enjoy Him for ever.
I think that that brings together fairly neatly this life and the life hereafter - of which we could hardly be more sharply reminded than here in the grounds of Brookwood Cemetery. As in the Christian liturgies we are brought through the life and death of Jesus Christ to the mystery of our redemption and the promise of eternal life - and linked in that mystery with all those who have gone before us - so too in this place we are reminded in the words of Edith Sitwell that “Love is not changed by Death and nothing is lost and all in the end is harvest”.
Recently you have commemorated here the anniversary of the bringing of the bones of St Edward, King and Martyr, in recent years to this resting place to be a centre for prayer and liturgy for the growing congregation of those of the Orthodox persuasion and for the many others who are welcomed here.
And so we come most importantly to the needs of the Living: the new accommodation for the community here which will provide more space for its work to go forward and for the growing harvest to be gathered in. I am delighted and honoured to have been asked to lay the first stone and I trust that the new building will rise swiftly and beautifully upon this foundation.
Domestic Footnote: As Mrs Goad reached this point, there was a scrap between our two dogs, Perkin & Albert, which may or may not have been an indication of normal relations between the Orthodox!
