An outtake from The North American Thebaid

Hello, Fellow Pilgrims,

Christ is Risen!

Earlier this week, as we approached the anniversary of the Repose of St. Alexis Toth today, I recalled photographing his reliquary at St Tikhon’s, and wanted to share this special outtake from the Thebaid Project, and draw our attention to this important saint.

St Alexis’s complete remains are venerated in a large reliquary with canopy, made of handsome carved wood, and with a full-length icon of the saint under a glass cover over his sarcophagus. When I made these photographs in 2016, his reliquary was in front of the windows on the north transept, left of the iconostasis, and up a few steps from the floor of the nave. The faithful ascend the steps and kiss the glass over the icon of St Alexis, light candles, and ask his intercessions. Molebens are performed in front of his reliquary.

St. Alexis’s icon is beautifully painted, and draws one to linger over it. Here is the resulting image:

St Alexis Toth is proclaimed as a “Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy,” for leading his parish and hundreds of other Uniates in returning to the Orthodox Church. He endured considerable poverty and struggles in fulfilling the Gospel through his parish work, writings, travels, and service to many. From his “Life:”

In the midst of great hardships, this herald of godly theology and sound doctrine poured forth an inexhaustible stream of Orthodox writings for new converts, and gave practical advice on how to live in an Orthodox manner. For example, his article “How We should Live in America” stresses the importance of education, cleanliness, sobriety, and the presence of children in church on Sundays and Holy Days…

[Fr Alexis] was instrumental in the formation or return of seventeen parishes, planting a vineyard of Christ in America, and increasing its fruitful yield many times over. By 1909, the time of his blessed repose, many thousands of Carpatho-Russian and Galician Uniates had returned to Orthodoxy. This was a major event in the history of the North American Mission, which would continue to shape the future of Orthodoxy in this country for many generations to come. Any future growth or success may truly be regarded as the result of Father Toth’s apostolic labors.

St. Alexis Toth is an important and prophetic figure for us Orthodox Christians in America, and is truly a forerunner of the great convert influx we are seeing around us today. There are Orthodox priests today whose families were brought back into Holy Orthodoxy by St. Alexis over a century ago, who themselves are receiving and forming converts now! You can learn more about his life on the St Tikhon’s Monastery website.

NOTE: * It is impossible to photograph in one view the icon in its setting, with the full reliquary and the canopy, so I also made this image of the reliquary: