On Friday, June 30, 2023, the feast of the Holy Monastery of St. John the Baptist in The Hague in The Netherlands was celebrated with a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy.
Metropolitan Athenagoras of Belgium and Exarch of the Netherlands and Luxembourg presided over the Divine Liturgy with clergy of the Holy Metropolis. The nuns of the Holy Monastery chanted, surrounded by lay pilgrims. At the end of the Divine Liturgy, the Metropolitan congratulated Gerontissa Makrina and Sister Anna and recalled the importance of this Holy Monastery for Orthodoxy in the Netherlands.
The Holy Monastery of St. John the Baptist in The Hague was founded as a male monastery under the jurisdiction of the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR). It was founded by two Dutch monks, converted to Orthodoxy by Archbishop John Maximovitch (now revered as a saint). The names of the founders were Jacob Akkersdijk and Adriaan Korporaal. In 1965, Jacob Akkersdijk was ordained Bishop in Brussels under the arbitration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR), and was responsible for the Russian parishes in the Netherlands.
In 1972, Bishop Jacob and his parishes came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1972 Bishop Iakovos and his students bought the buildings of a former Catholic monastery that became the seat of the Bishop and at the same time functioned as a monastery. Archimandrite Hadrian and the nuns devoted themselves mainly to the translation and publication of Orthodox liturgical texts in Dutch. In 1991, Bishop Jacob died at the age of 77. In 2002, Archimandrite Adriaan died at the age of 89. Since then there have been two nuns. But for the Holy Services, there are many pilgrims who visit the monastery. Sacred services are performed exclusively in the Dutch language. In 2022 the Holy Monastery acceded to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and more specifically to the Holy Metropolis of Belgium and the Exarchate of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
