The great feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos was celebrated in the usual very solemn way in the monastery this year.  Especially noteworthy was that this was the first time the new Shroud of the Dormition, given to the monastery by his Grace, Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, was used for the feast.  This greatly intensified the compunction felt by the monastery brotherhood and its numerous pilgrims, who found their way to the monastery for the feast. Many were moved to tears as they contemplated the beautiful depiction of the falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin.  

As is our tradition, at the end of the Divine Liturgy on the feast, the monastery copy of the Pochaev Icon of the Theotokos was carried in a Cross procession up to the cemetery church of the Dormition with the hymns of a moleben and of the feast being chanted.  At the same time as in the cathedral, the Vigil and Liturgy services were conducted in English, it being the feast of the cemetery church. Those who attended the English liturgy joined those who came up to the cemetery in the procession to perform the solemn moleben around the church.  The Pochaev Icon, itself, was left on the altar table of the church, where it will remain until the festivities of the Labor Day weekend celebration of the feast of St. Job of Pochaev.