New stavrophore nun understands her vocation as ‘nursing souls’

EUCLID, Ohio — As a young Catholic woman, Motria (“Moki”) Lonchyna dedicated her life to serving the youngest and most vulnerable as a nurse, until God called her to embrace his plan for her life to nurse souls instead.

About 450 people attended a Divine Liturgy at St. Stephen Parish to witness her life profession as a stavrophore nun — she took the name Iliana in religious life — for Christ the Bridegroom Monastery Dec. 8, the feast of the Maternity of the Holy Anna.

Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, of Parma celebrated the Divine Liturgy and led the life profession ceremony. Her uncle, Bishop Hlib Lonchyna of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family in London, concelebrated, along with retired Bishop John Kudrick of Parma. Father Marek Visnovsky, protosyncellus of Parma, and Mother Iliana’s father, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, Father Taras Lonchyna, also concelebrated.

The life profession ceremony began with the candidate’s procession into the church, clothed simply in the “vlasyanitsa,” which is a white garment similar to a baptismal robe. She had laid aside her customary black, monastic habit and walked into the church bare-footed and her head bare, prostrating three times as she approached the sanctuary.

The other nuns of the monastery walked ahead of her, holding lit candles. Mother Theodora Strohmeyer, the hegoumena of the monastery, walked into the church alongside her, accompanied by Benedictine Father Boniface Hicks, a monk of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobre, Pennsylvania, who served as her sponsor.

After helping her up from her third prostration, Bishop Lach tonsured her, cutting her waist-long hair. Her father then handed the bishop each of the items that make up the habit of a stavrophore nun.

Therefore, in addition to the monastic habit she had been wearing since entering the monastery as a novice, she received the “klobuk,” the monastic hat and veil; the “paramandyas,” a square of black wool, embroidered with a red cross and the instruments of Christ’s Passion; the “mandyas,” a black cape; a wooden hand cross; a 300-knot chotki prayer rope; and a lighted candle.

She also received a wedding ring, which is customary for the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, worn to symbolize their union with Christ their Spouse. She received the title “Mother” to express the fruitfulness of this union. Before being tonsured, she relinquished all money, property and possessions and made the commitment to remain for her lifetime at Christ the Bridegroom Monastery.

Mother Iliana is one of three children of Father Lonchyna and his wife, Jaroslava. She grew up in the rectory of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father was pastor for more than 30 years. Currently, he is pastor at St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Trenton, New Jersey. She was baptized by her father’s brother, Bishop Lonchyna, then a Studite monk.

Prior to entering the monastery, Mother Iliana attended Catholic University of America and received a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2004. She worked at Children’s National Medical Center until 2009, primarily in the neonatal intensive care unit, but also in respiratory care.

She attended the University of Pennsylvania for graduate school, where she received a master’s degree in nursing. She worked as a neonatal nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, from 2010 to 2014, until entering the monastery.

During her freshman year of college in 2001, she started to experience the call to monastic life. By March 2003, she felt certain of this call, but she did not know where she was being called to live it out. 

In the years that followed, she traveled to Haiti on a medical mission and to Brazil as a lay representative at a Synod of the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on how to help monastic life grow. She also traveled to the Holy Land, Ukraine, France and England and visited many monasteries, but she felt God wanted and needed monasteries in the United States.

Mother Iliana told Horizons her discernment took a long time because she wanted to be sure of God’s call for her — either to nursing or to monastic life — and where. 

She first met the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery at a March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2012. As luck would have it, she lost the business card one of the nuns gave her, and tried for months to find them. Providentially, sometime later, she came across a post about the monastery on the “Imagine Sisters” Facebook page and found its website. 

She was disheartened when she saw a picture of a cat on the website and, being allergic to cats, cried at the thought that this monastery was not the answer to her call. She decided to visit the monastery nonetheless. Surprisingly, she did not have an allergic reaction to the cat. 

After some discernment at the monastery, she knew she was being called to stay. She already had an entrance date set — Dec. 8, 2014 —  when she heard God tell her, “Do not be afraid, it’s souls you’ll be nursing.”

Bishop Lonchyna preached the homily at Mother Iliana’s life profession. He said being in the monastery is like being in the desert, where one is open to God and free to serve the Lord with joy and gratitude. He told his niece that she should “be for the world a beacon of hope that God is with us.”

At the reception, he told Horizons what Mother Iliana’s life profession meant for the family. He said a vocation in the family is a great blessing; one is not losing a daughter, but gaining more family.

Mother Iliana is the fourth stavrophore nun at the monastery. Currently, the monastery is comprised of six women.


 
Caption 1: Mother Iliana Lonchyna prays before an icon of Christ the Bridegroom while holding a candle and a hand cross, after making her life profession as a nun of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. The life profession ceremony took place at St. Stephen Parish in Euclid, Ohio, Dec. 8.
 
Caption 2: Mother Iliana Lonchyna holds a candle and a hand cross as she stands with the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery and friends. Directly behind her stand, from left to right, Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, and Bishop John Kudrick.
 
(Photos by David Bratnick)
 
As published in Horizons, Dec. 23, 2018.
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