New Tikhvin Skete

10/29/2024

Please take time to hear out Father Gregory Horton as you are able.
God has brought us together through our shared experience in Miami, Florida with Archpriest George Gladky. Fr. Gregory and his wife Cynthia and I are all on the same track of having the church open every day. Father Gregory has been to Africa, to Romania, and is currently a priest in Idaho have baptisms every week and looking for a second priest. That would help us to have Father Gregory and Cythnia spend time with our monastic and school development both virtually and in person. About an hour through the video Father Gregory says to put out the word of a second priest so here it is!!! Mother Elizabeth (Carol Gladky Klipa Bacha), October 29, 2024.

In this 50th installment of THE ORTHOCHAT, we sit down with Fr. Gregory Horton to discuss his travels around the globe, mixed marriages in Orthodoxy, and wha...

10/12/2024

We at New Tikhvin Skete of the Holy Mother of God prepare our secondary Patronal Feast of the Protection of the Holy Mother of God (October 1/14). I opened my Bible on Friday and the page it opened to in the Orthodox Study Bible was about the two women each claiming "their baby" and the decision of Solomon to say he will have the child "cut in half". To me, this seemed like the present situation we as Orthodox Christians face in the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia and the implications the war has globally for us.

Here is the same passage in Contemporary English.
What are your thoughts?

1 Kings 3:16-28
Contemporary English Version
Solomon Makes a Difficult Decision
16 One day two women[a] came to King Solomon, 17 and one of them said:

Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, 18 and three days later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us.

19 One night while we were all asleep, she rolled over on her baby, and he died. 20 Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me.

21 In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn't my son.

22 “No!” the other woman shouted. “He was your son. My baby is alive!”

“The dead baby is yours,” the first woman yelled. “Mine is alive!”

They argued back and forth in front of Solomon, 23 until finally he said, “Both of you say this live baby is yours. 24 Someone bring me a sword.”

A sword was brought, and Solomon ordered, 25 “Cut the baby in half! That way each of you can have part of him.”

26 “Please don't kill my son,” the baby's mother screamed. “Your Majesty, I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don't kill him.”

The other woman shouted, “Go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.”

27 Solomon said, “Don't kill the baby.” Then he pointed to the first woman, “She is his real mother. Give the baby to her.”

28 Everyone in Israel was amazed when they heard how Solomon had made his decision. They realized that God had given him wisdom to judge fairly.

08/21/2024

Prayer & Pilgrims - Schedule with us for Prayerful Pilgrimages
in America's oldest Christian City, Saint Augustine.
[email protected].

07/22/2024

A new interview with one of the nation's leading experts on adult clergy-perpetrated abuse.
Professor David Pooler:
"...what I’m learning is that churches are the safest place for abusive and narcissistic people to end up in leadership; churches are not equipping people with the skills necessary to dissent or question leaders."
"And churches in the United States are unregulated. They’re just unregulated. All the other professions are regulated."
"So what that leaves us with then is what Lucy Huh and others and Hermina (Nedelescu) are working on is trying to criminalize this, create state statutes where clergy are added to the list of other helping professionals so that when they abuse, sexually abuse, someone, it’s a crime."

07/22/2024

Celebrate an Orthodox Christian Neurologist on World Brain Day, Dr. Hermina Nedelescu. Prayers for Dr. Hermina in the specialized work of neurology she is undertaking to address brain pathways and how these neural networks in those who have been abused by clergy and those who are the abusers can get healing and change.

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu is a Romanian-born neuroscientist involved in state efforts to protect adults from clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse.

07/09/2024

St. Phoebe Center has asked for a service event in honor of St. Phoebe the Deaconess. We honor their request with our Patron Feast Day prayers and especially during the next two weeks we intensify our prayers during our HRAM- Patron feast Day. Email Mother Elizabeth, [email protected] to know the schedule if you are in our area as we are doing several service projects events as requested and to dedicate them also to St. Phoebe as we work at building up our intentional community around our New Tikhvin Skete of the Holy Mother of God in Palm Coast, Florida. July 9, we will be in Saint Augustine, the first place Orthodox Christians came to the New World, June 26/July 9, 1768. There we are hosting a special music program of American Spirituals to share in the community and for what will be our film about the life of Father Roman Braga and his sister Mother Benedicta Braga. Plans are being made to officially canonize Father Roman Braga as an American Orthodox Saint!

In celebration of St. Phoebe’s feast day, the St. Phoebe Center is encouraging our supporters to host local service projects.

06/12/2024

Pascha and Leave taking of this 40 day period tonight Tuesday, June 11, 2024 - Singing and praying with the Holy Dormition Momastery and the songs of Pascha (The Holy Resurrection - Easter). Mother Elizabeth New Tikhvin Skete of the Holy Mother of God, 26 Poppy Ln, Palm Coast, Florida 32164.

06/06/2024

04/08/2024

April 15, 2008 will mark the repose of Archbishop Gregory Afonsky.

In preparing for his Memorial we consider Archbishop Gregory's work as a specialist in Orthodox Canon Law regarding Missionary work and the problems of Constantinople.

Vladyka Gregory was kind to our monastery and in particular our music mission and "Sharing the love of God through Music". As we pause at the Cross we must in the Gospel when the call goes out to "Follow Me", "Pick up your cross and Follow Me", there is NOT a gender-based call. It is for all men and women.

Vladyka Gregory was so very kind to me in my youth and young adulthood as we envisioned traveling the country as 8 women singing in a group. Archbishop Bishop Gregory took us seriously and in September of 1972 invited the St. John's Girl's Octet to the State of Alaska to make the inaugural tour of what would be his new diocese. It was a monumental tour of over 50 locations and varied transportation. I was key to the start of the tour and the plan to go, but my parents would not let me go even though I raised the $300 needed to get to Seattle to do so that summer of my first college year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Now as a monastic woman and praying, I am reminded by Vladyka Gregory that while yet here on earth there is work to be done and God is with us!

The need for our Christmas Monastery School and New Tikhvin Skete of the Holy Mother of God to aid in the formation of missionaries both women and men and those who will serve in the church both in America and throughout the world comes with this Sunday's message both of the Annunciation of the Mother of God and "Be it according to Your will, and Pick up your Cross and Follow Me. Mother Elizabeth Klipa-Bacha April 7, 2024.

We are thankful for all who pray and donate. New Tikhvin Skete of the Holy Mother of God, 26 Poppy Ln, Palm Coast, Florida 32164
[email protected]



The late Professor Protopresbyter John Meyendorff makes the following suggestion on how to view the future canonical status of the Patriarch of Constantinople:

“The Orthodox Church, without a doubt, is in need of a world center for unity but not for authority over Churches. We will hope that the coming Orthodox “Great Council” will find boldness and the ability – with the help of the Holy Spirit – to move away from the long-obsolete system which was worked out in the Byzantine Empire and which still nominally determines the organization of world Orthodoxy. It must move in the direction of a realistic and permanent path assuring that of which the Church is in need: freedom, oneness and love.”

Source: Holy Trinity Cathedral, San Franciso CA by Archbishop Gregory (Afonsky) The Russian canonical school of the 19th and 20th centuries studied the question of the Patriarch of Constantinople’s canonical status in the Orthodox Church with care and diligence. For the most part books and monogra...

02/10/2024

The psalmist calls out to DO NOT REJECT ME IN MY OLD AGE.
The attached Psalm is set to music by the Composer Berezovksy and calls out BOZHE MOY _ My God - In Russian. There are times when we can feel very rejected by people, yet we call out all the more to God - DO NOT REJECT ME -

Berezovsky's 1744-1777 Russian Orthodox Sacred Choral Music captures this emotion so very well in this musical
Psalm /70 71
King James Version
71 In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me.

3 Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.

4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

5 For thou art my hope, O Lord God: thou art my trust from my youth.

6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.

7 I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge.

8 Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.

9 Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.

10 For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together,

11 Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.

12 O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help.

13 Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.

14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

15 My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.

16 I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

17 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.

18 Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.

19 Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee!

20 Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

21 Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.

22 I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.

23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed.

24 My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt.

02/10/2024

A heartfelt video from Father Spyridon sharing a personal message following his open heart surgery in England. He expresses thanks to God and those who prayed for him and cared for him in the hospital, and those caregivers who worked tirelessly to keep him alive. Insights are shared of Eternal Life and the prayer of the Church. Mother Elizabeth 2-9-24.

Priest Spyridon shares some reflections regarding his recent surgery.Please forgive the lack of volume in the spoken voice.

01/20/2024

Here attached is a beautiful video-loving filmed of the Women's Monastery (The Little Convent) in Alberta, Canada. Our dearest Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral referenced me in my teenage years to the bishop mentioned and buried here, Bishop Savva. There is much we can learn here of the patience and enduring love the Mothers and Sisters have shared within their monastic community among themselves and with their neighbors and the neighboring parishes.

In December 2022, a film crew from Saint Photios Orthodox Theological Seminary was sent to the cold and snowy land of Western Canada to film a documentary ab...