Twenty years of a shared journey between history and the future
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Twenty years may seem like a short time to some, but in the context of Macedonian history in Australia — it is not a that short, especially for the youth — that already are to be found across several generations.
I have always believed that young people are our future. In MOYA I saw that future with my own eyes — young people coming from different regions, becoming one family in Christ, building sincere friendships, creating blessed marriages, and raising children in the Christian spirit.
As the years pass and our hair turns white, we watch those same young people grow, serve their communities, bear spiritual fruit, and spread the light of Orthodoxy — and your heart cannot help but fill with joy, and your eyes fill with tears of gladness.
This journey of ours together began in 2006 at the Monastery of “Saint Prohor Pcinski” in Donnybrook, by a small group of young people thirsting for Christ, with open hearts and sincere faith. Today, it continues at the Monastery of “Saint Clement of Ohrid” in Kinglake and represents a living testimony to God’s blessing and His grace, which imperceptibly and silently, but powerfully works among us.
From those humble, innocent/chaste beginnings grew the community that is MOYA today — about which, I believe, every Macedonian is filled with pride and admiration.
Tonight we celebrate not only the history, but a living future that continues to be built — a book that continues to be written by us, by you, and by every future Macedonian born on this land. As we do so, let us be mindful of what we write and what mark we leave in history and make in the future alike.
Father Gavril (Galev)
