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[[Image:St_Tikhons_Monastery.jpg|left|frame|The monastery church as it stands today, extensively renovated in 1965]]
The official opening and consecration of the monastery took place on [[May 30]], 1906. This occasion was the first of the annual Memorial Day pilgrimages. At the opening festivities gifts from [[Mount Athos]] arrived: an [[icon]] of the [[Theotokos]] "[[She Who Is Quick To Hear]]," and one of St. [[Panteleimon]]; both icons are still cherished by the monastery community. Hundreds of pilgrims from local parishes and from New York carried the icons in a cross-procession beginning at Mayfield. Travelling by train, the assembly was joined at Carbondale by Mitred Archpriest (Saint) Alexis Toth. The pilgrims -- whose numbers had greatly exceeded expectations, so that two chartered trains, with twenty coaches filled to capacity -- detrained in the forest near the monastery and the church hymns were sung as the procession, with the holy icons, advanced through the woods. After some eighty minutes, the pilgrims caught sight of a blue cupola with a three-barred cross, in the midst of a deep forest -- it was the monastery!.
Two [[Divine Liturgies]] were served. Archbishop Tikhon and some of the clergy joined in consecrating the [[altar]] and celebrated Divine Liturgy in the new church. Following this, a second group, headed by Bishop Raphael and Fr. [[Alexis of Wilkes-Barre|Alexis Toth]], served Liturgy under the open sky. Two [[novice]]s were [[tonsure]]d to the rank of [[Riasaphor]]. That same summer, 1906, Patriarch Saint Tikhon stayed at the Monastery, living with the monks and attending the services.
