Alumni News

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Alumna Sister Margarete (Roeber) now serves her monastic community of Holy Assumption Monastery, Calistoga, CA, as Mother Macrina. Mother Macrina was tonsured to the rank of Stavrophore on Wednesday, December 19, 2018, by the hand of His Eminence Benjamin, archbishop of San Francisco and the West, at Holy Assumption Monastery.

The service was attended by Mother Macrina’s father, Priest Anthony Roeber, professor of church history at St. Vladimir’s Seminary; her mother, Kh. Pat Roeber; sister, Maria; and brother, Christian Gregory. Mother Macrina’s family lives in St. Louis, MO, except her brother, who lives in Pasadena, CA.

Mother Macrina has obediences as cantor and bookeeper at Holy Assumption, under Abbess Melania. With Mother Melania’s blessing, Sister Margarete had been on a pilgrimage all over the world leading up to her tonsure to Stavrophore, visiting Orthodox communities in Greece, Jerusalem, Georgia, Poland, Estonia, France, England and Russia. She stayed in each community to learn from them and acquire new monastic experience. The same month of her tonsure, Mother Macrina was interviewed by St. Elsabeth Convent in Minsk, Belarus, and spoke about her journey to Orthodoxy and the monastic life.

Mother Macrina joined St. Barbara Orthodox Monastery, Santa Paula, CA, as a novice in 2009, and was transferred later that year, at the blessing of bishop, to Holy Assumption Monastery. She was tonsured to the rank of Rassophore at Holy Assumption Monastery in 2012. Her abbess and superior then blessed her to enrolled at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where she graduated with an M.A. in 2016 and a Th.M. in 2017.

The St. Vladimir’s Seminary community wishes Mother Macrina many years!