Obedience

The word “obedience” in monastic parlance has two meanings:

• obedience in the sense of being obedient, as a means of healing the infirmity of self-love which is common to all mankind, and overcoming the ingrained habit of attaching great significance to one's own opinion,
• and obedience in the sense of a labor, an assignment or a deed which one carries out obediently, carefully and earnestly.

In our monastery, most of the sisters labor in workshops: in the icon-painting shop, the sewing room, and the church-singing and translation classrooms. Recently our monastery acquired a small publishing house of its own, which has released its first publications. The sisters also carry out obediences in the three monastery churches (where they read on the kliros and maintain order during the services), in the prosphora bakery and in the refectory. In the monastery there is a treasurer, a cellaress, an ecclesiarch. One of the most difficult obediences is that of steward. The very name of the obedience speaks for itself: the steward is responsible for the day-to-day life of the monastery and makes sure that everything is done according to the established order and monastic typicon.

Several sisters labor to ensure that the monastery bookstore always has a wide assortment of Orthodox literature, icons and souvenirs. In the monastery metochion in Merkushino there is the additional obedience of guest-mistress, who is responsible for receiving piligrims and arranging meals (trapeza), rest and excursions for them.