Holy Cross Monastery - a story of survival

we love you John sighs club dance I can only be felt in all times of history where monks would lead the cities they would go out into the wilderness into the desert into the mountains and even into the ocean looking for that quiet peaceful place where they could meet God and their life eyes come to the setting of the Sun I raise the father the son a monk is someone who wants to pursue for the rest of his life Christ in a really intense way he doesn't want to be distracted with the things of the world with family life and he wants to focus completely on his life with Christ but it's not a selfish thing in the sense that he's only trying to save himself a monk believes that if he does what he hopes to do to follow Christ for the rest of his life and to live a prayerful life that it will be for the benefit not only of himself but for the whole world that the prayers he raises to God as simple as he may be that they have value and it calls down the mercy of God join us for our prayers because his kidney failure is now permanent he's on permanent dialysis and the doctors told him there's no pulse that his kidneys whatever determined again to normal function so he's very depressed about that mr. Peskin can't come visit the monastery very often people call in and mention how they were healed after after prayers will be to God that the Saints listened to our prayers around 2005 or 2006 after Margaret was diagnosed with cancer and we started coming here from Elevens to st. Punta laman and we would frequently ask the monks for prayers they told me my cancer that had spread a lot and was terminal but through the mercy of God and through all the prayers of the monks and through the help of state Ponte lame and I was healed of cancer by the novices and the monks trying to repent try to struggle with their passions grow closer to Christ live a life of prayer confess their sins and repent and change the whole world becomes a better place um we don't have to necessarily go out and do missionary work pilgrims come here which is wonderful but our main work is really prayer prayer for the whole world prayer for our country prayer for our church prayer for the poor prayer for the sick that's that's our job that's our duty that's our obligation and that's why we are when we on about 12 years ago when I decided to enter Orthodox monasticism I was very glad to find an english-speaking monastery with people like me that I could relate to that were perhaps converts to Orthodox Christianity and who really wanted to struggle in a traditional Orthodox monastic environment so as a mother of one of our monastics how do you what do you think is important about leave most money stirring about with next monasticism I think it offers not only the monastic but unbelievable to me there the family and the greater community adepts of spirituality that you really don't find anywhere else because there's no other place to set aside the world so I would say that the best thing other than the fact that Trevor brother Ephraim is in a place that I think fits him better than anything else I've ever known of the fact that he can put aside just daily things to concentrate on spiritual pursuits it's in a way it's enviable but and the fact that it's in America and you can do it in your own language and you don't have to learn another language to be able to fully participate in the community I think it's huge especially for America Holy Cross monastery for me is a place that is a perpetual challenge to me as I try to live out my faith as with lux Christian and also as a pastor of parish because it's so easy to live in the world and suddenly the world becomes the norm and we see here is what looks at normal for us with us is the one home experience in the world is not normal so it's but the challenge it's a consolation it's an affirmation of our faith as worthless Christians fathers here are truly there's humility there's obedience they know how to give love to everybody not only to the monastics but also to all the visitors to come here things the world seminar here at NOAA and lou gubrious american say miss lavinia is all of the monks our english-speaking all-americans North I mean the hymnody is sung in English as well but in Rogers I managed a struggle a monastic traditions are strictly Russian you see polluted one look at a photograph of the monks and you get the impression you are looking at belong it's for often they wear the same clothes the same dresses Allah they have the same schedule of divine services Teatro Club Bukhatir area say those are especially bogus and rainy in this russian orthodox monastery is mostly american converts from various backgrounds but the life that not only the monks live every day but that visitors feel when they first come here is a life of peace and prayerfulness and i tell people it's like there's like us a river of grace in this monastery and we live in it the monks live in it and so we sort of like float in this grace every day and you may not even notice it just all around you but when visitors come most of them even if they can't even describe what that grace is they step into that river that stream of grace and when they participate in our church services even simple things like working with the farm animals working in the gardens even helping with cooking or cleaning toilets or whatever there is a sense of purpose and beauty and richness that's on a on a spiritual level is fills everything that we do but also on a physical level my soul and forget not all the joy be gracious unto all I can equate East would save my people and the Stein inhabitants when victory to the Orthodox here there's a purpose to everything to every hour of every day so when you lay down to sleep you say your prayers say your Jesus Prayer and and if you wake up the next morning then it's time to pray again to do some spiritual reading to go to church to work and the lungs here have to work very hard because everyone is aware that if everyone together doesn't pull their weight do something constructive whatever that is whatever the obedience is they will be able to make it here where Jesus Chris st. John Chrysostom in his homily he said that the comparison wasn't between the sheep and the goats actually but it was the sheep in a good tears because the purple was life not about how the dogs are stubborn but goat kids are not productive sheep have war and things a benefit with the young goat kids are not mature you know they don't produce we're trying to pray no matter what we're doing that's the whole goal is denied ourselves with Christ in prayer and so one of the primary ways that the fathers have taught us is to say the jesus prayer while we're working it's not something where we work and where we're working and then we're praying and repairing no the prayer is 24/7 probably takes me about an hour to weed the entire row here and it's just really nice you know I can say the Jesus Prayer wah I pull the weeds or listen to the Psalter this is our onion patch and and I'm learning that if you can grow an onion you can grow just about anything so if you put your onion in too late and the day length goes down then the bulb will already have developed and then it'll go to seed and it'll develop a seed pod so this one is starting to develop a seed pod and it's no good for the table I really wanted to participate as fully as I could in the in the liturgical life of the church because because the the church hymns and the church services are or where we learn how to repent and we learn how to become Saints and we learn who we are and we learn who God is and we learn about what kind of a relationship we should have with our Creator and I felt like the monastery was the place that was most conducive for me to learn all of that and experience that so and I'm going bad in here get up to me what I do these two prays to these two us so long to the glorious do to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit both now and ever and unto the ages think a mucker has to really decide that he is ready to pursue this kind of life for the rest of his life that he's not looking for a leisurely time and that he's going to pray hard and work hard he's really going to struggle and with the support of the other brothers it becomes a little bit easier because he looks around and he sees that his other brothers are also working really hard they're working on themselves they're pursuing Christ they're trying to follow Christ their times of trying to die to the old man and they're also working hard for the monastery that they believe in the mission of the monastery monastics we like things that are you can do this kind of repetitive that we can pray while we work and so candles are made with prayer and they're made for Chris handle stub and these get melted down and recycled yes we can say it is we because their use preparer and then they are melted down and recycled and then they are merged with someone else's prayers so it's a continuous thing we use our own eggs we use our own milk and occasionally have our own vegetables but it's not enough to get our the large community through a whole year on the other hand being self-sufficient would mean not having to ask people for money when we're having a very difficult time financially so that would mean just working on our business like we always would we work hard here but we work really hard because we really have to it's not because we're we're bored and we're looking for hobbies or things to fill the time we work hard because we have to work hard but we also have to rely on donations and occasionally unfortunately we have to ask for those donations or make people aware of it because they're not aware of the needs of such a large community which is unique and that it's such a large English english-speaking monastic community here in America and here in West Virginia I'm broken gonna get paid okay no formed lots of good relationships with the local people we love them and respect them and we think they love us respect is - of course they if they need anything they call us we help them out as best we can um oftentimes with prayers I'm her baggage my neighbourhood a Holy Cross - a real good neighbor nice people they all wake up the Alpana need help and you wouldn't ask for any better neighborhoods advice the Baptist Church them takes credit through here but I still love these guys up here because they're such good people good to me good to my wife good to all my family all those yep out and death I give thousand financial if I need it they're just naturally anything you need they're ready to help since we've been in West Virginia the monastery has had trouble financially we fell that it's a really big challenge to support and build the monastery just with some little handicrafts like incense and with the occasional bit unpredictable donations we've nearly doubled in size in the last two to three years so the positive aspect is it keeps you reliant on God the the more human element is that it it many times makes you nervous or perhaps anxious about where where the money is going to come from a lot of times the bill sheet of all the bills that we have to pay comes to me and I'm looking at tens of thousands of dollars every month traditionally we have never been able to pay those off all at once it's always you pay a little bit but you're always behind there have been more and more times over the last two or three years where I've sat with those numbers and really had a test of faith imagine a family of five people and they think they have a lot of bills I mean quadrupled that we've got a huge family here plus all the hundreds if not thousands of guests would get every year that we provide for them with food and shelter so it is a great burden that has it's spiritual dimension that keeps us stretches our faith in God but also is difficult and that mainly were not able to do a lot of the things we would like to do such as build a church these are not just things we'd like to do these are necessities building a church a new trapezoid the most pressing need probably is building new cells for monks because monks have come here several of them we have to tell them do you have enough money to build your own self as we can't pay for this so there is not enough housing right now for the monks some of them living in RVs or the basement of the guesthouse sometimes guests are having the campout because we don't have room for them the news of the support coming from the FFA really brought a lot of joy to the hearts of the brothers here and I think they felt that well the Orthodox Church and people in general really do want the monastery to succeed and they proved it by making those donations to the fund for assistance of course with with the donation that came from FFA the fund for assistance this year I can just tell you the stress and the ability to breathe easy has been I have remarked on it many times to people it's just amazing when we get our bills they write the check we send it off and it's like whoo you know you can just breathe easy so that's it's a blessed feeling and God has provided wonderfully in that way this year after the FFA successful appeal we received a large donation it's been about a year now we were able to stabilize our finances pay off some debts and some overdue bills and then move forward with project Kelly oh thank god so far we've been successful in collecting a little over half of the funds needed to complete this building and we hope that in the future people will continue so to support us so that we can finish this building and place in those cells 10 monastics thanks to the generosity of our many benefactors we are able to try to live a monastic life without the cares of this world this nameless piece climbing for defense before the drug judgment seat of Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit thus commit ourselves and one another our life unto Christ Americans 20 times the number of monasteries we have much larger monasteries bigger guesthouse bigger churches to minister to armed our ailing are spiritually ailing society and hopefully through through people contributing to the fund for assistance and coming to visit monasteries and praying praying for us as we pray for them this will all come about things will begin to change in our country can become spiritually more nourished and more solid and powerful and more peaceful in this humble little monastery many people come to terms with God and with himself and reorient their life toward Christ in a way that they could never do out in the world the most important service of the monastery is our prayers the life that we live the fact that we're here in this quiet little holler hidden away in West Virginia while it seems to have no effects on the world around us it has a profound effect we believe as monks and believe that the famous quote of Saint Seraphim is very dear to our hearts because st. Seraphim said uncle you acquire the people peace of God in your heart and a thousand souls around you will be saved my girl forgive me I will test everything right because my kids will just state that there they're not alone the Orthodox they'll understand that there are more people who aren't worth of actually care about God they'll just see it how much fun I shall become 40 let's hit our the me idiot let's go native on British after righteousness for they shall be let's hit our the merciful for they shall you

Channel: Fund4Assistance

Views: 86,070

Keywords: Holy Cross Monastery, story of survival, Wayne, WV, Orthodox Christianity, Russian Orthodox, church, monastery, monastic, Fund, Assistance, Russian, Orthodox, Church, FFA, Christianity (Religion), West Virginia, Bishop George, Eastern American Diocese, abbot, documentary, monk, survival, story, seraphim, money, fundraising, convert, Russian-American, project, Kelia, cell, brotherhood, service, znamenny, Victor, potapov, sergius, hieromonk, deacon, hierodeacon, prayer, igumen, dixon, Holy Spirit, dean, archpriest, truth

Id: EeWWoswuInw

Length: 28min 44sec (1724 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2013