Move to Valyermo!

Monasticism, breathing with two lungs!

Responding to an offer of monastic hospitality from the Benedictine community of St. Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo, CA, the brotherhood of Holy Resurrection Monastery is embarking on an exciting new venture. For the next three years the two communities will live side by side, while maintaining their own integrity, in order to give powerful witness to the possibility of deep unity in authentic diversity within the Catholic Church, east and west.

The move will be completed by April 30th, 2009. The accompanying letter from the Abbot of Holy Resurrection Monastery provides more details.

Dear friends:

Christ is in our midst!

In 2007 our monastery announced that it was embarking on a new way to bring its spiritual and ecumenical ministry to the service of the wider Church. We are calling this ministry the "Anastasis Dialogue" and the "Anastasis Project" depending on whether we wish to emphasis that it is a conversation or a work. The truth is that it is both! In order both to engage in ecumenical dialogue and to work for Church renewal through the witness of Eastern monastic life, we set out some specific goals:

• Be a center of prayer and self-giving for the cause of Christian unity.

• Offer hospitality and bring together Christians of various traditions in a spiritual family that extends beyond the bounds of the monastery, creating a milieu for friendship and ecumenical exchange.

• Organize exchanges and visits with other monasteries so as to allow our members and theirs to become acquainted with the particularities of different traditions.

• Promote joint studies, seminars, conferences and publications on the major figures of monasticism in both East and West, and on their spiritual teaching.

• Witness, especially through fidelity to our Byzantine liturgical and spiritual heritage, to the possibility of a true union of East and West in which the authentic distinctiveness of both sides is respected and nurtured.

As you know, looking at these goals we soon realized that our home at Newberry Springs had outlived its usefulness. So we sold this property and did all in our power to move to a part of the United States where, we believed, these goals might be more easily achieved among a larger population of Eastern Catholics. As you also know, what was in our power did not amount to much. And thank God! For it now seems clear that He has something else in store for us, something like a resurrection from the death of our plans, something greater and far more exciting than those plans could have achieved without their first being mortified. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24).

But first let me return for a minute to those goals of our Anastasis Project. We have always said that one way to carry them out is to seek out our Orthodox brethren in pursuit of unity. But another, and I think equally important aspect of this ministry for a Greek-Catholic monastery, is to seek out our Catholic brethren, particularly those in the Latin Church, in order to help make our unity stronger and more fruitful. I often think that ecumenism with the Orthodox will not bear much fruit until the Catholic Church first comes to better terms with the presence of distinctive ways of hearing and doing apostolic Christianity within its own communion. This is a vital role of Eastern Catholics and, in a special way, of Eastern monastics as the reference point (as Pope John Paul II put it in his apostolic letter Orientale Lumen) for how Eastern Christians are to live their Christian vocation. This is a vital role: by our authentic witness of our own traditions to prepare the Catholic Church for the longed-for re-union with the Orthodox Churches.

This great work is certainly not something just for our monastery and those few people whose lives it touches! No, it is something for all Eastern Catholics to embrace, and for all Latin Catholics to help make possible. But there will be no progress without many, many small steps. Our announcement today is just one such little step.

The monks of Holy Resurrection Monastery have been invited by the Benedictine monks of St. Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo in northern Los Angeles County, California, to enjoy their hospitality for the next three years. We understand that with this invitation also comes an opportunity to explore possible ways to make this relationship even more durable for the building up of both communities.

Above all, this invitation makes possible a way of carrying out every one of our Anastasis Project goals even as we continue to seek out the Lord's will for out permanent home, and to do so in a way in which even our living situation is itself a witness to what the Anastasis Project is all about, namely the possibility that the Church really can (to use Pope John Paul's famous phrase) "breathe with both lungs." While we were searching out ways to do this in the Midwest or on the East Coast, the Lord was preparing us to see that what we were looking for could be found right here in Southern California!

Turning to the specifics of the arrangement, I want to stress that it will not affect the legal, financial or canonical status of either community. There may be people who fear either that we are "becoming Benedictine" or that they are "going Byzantine"! Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole point of this arrangement is to celebrate the possibility that monastic communities of distinctive Churches can live together, work together, "breathe" together, without either being absorbed by the other.

St. Andrew's will provide living and office space for the monks of Holy Resurrection. The communities will share most meals, with due regard made for the fasting regime of the Byzantine tradition. We will contribute to the support of St. Andrew's both by money rent and our own labor. Most importantly, the old Youth Center chapel will be adapted for the Byzantine Rite and will enable the monks of Holy Resurrection to continue to serve publicly the full round of services according to the Typikon as we have always done.

People wishing to visit the monks of Holy Resurrection Monastery, whether for pilgrimage, spiritual direction or simply to pray with them, may continue to do so. Overnight guests may be accommodated in the main retreat house of St. Andrew's Abbey. (Please note, however, that space in the guest house is limited, especially on weekends, and bookings should be made well in advance to avoid disappointment.)

St. Andrew's Abbey has a well-developed program of retreats and workshops throughout the year. We expect that, in time and with proper planning, the monks of Holy Resurrection will be able to plug into this tremendous resource by designing some programs of their own and as well as by offering joint programs with St. Andrew's.

We are also pleased that this arrangement may well equip us to better foster new monastic vocations. By relieving us of many worries, it should also help us develop our relationship with our sisters of Holy Theophany Monastery in Olympia, WA as well as building up our new monastic associate program.

As part of the invitation extended to us by the Chapter of St. Andrew's, we have been asked to share with the community our plans for the future as they develop. We have come to learn that these plans must necessarily be constrained by limited resources. Together with our newly-formed Interim Capital Finance Committee (ICFC), we are researching ways to turn a very limited capital budget (under $500,000) into something beautiful. This will almost certainly involve careful acquisition of good quality land on which to place well-crafted, low-cost buildings, most likely using modern pre-fabricated technologies. One possibility we may actively research will be to make a permanent settlement on some land adjacent to St. Andrew's Abbey. However we must stress that this is only one option, and that both communities are simply open at this point to discussion and discernment. No decision will be made before full consultation between the communities and their advisors, and then only with the approval of the St. Andrew's Chapter.

I cannot conclude without extending my enormous gratitude to Father Prior Damien of St. Andrew's Abbey, to his Council and to the Chapter. We initially approached them to ask for hospitality for one year; they immediately turned around and offered three!

I must also thank our patient and benevolent hierarch, Bishop John Michael, without whose blessing this important step could not be taken. Thanks must also be given to all those who have helped us in our discernment over these last few difficult years, especially to the patrons of our Anastasis Project as well as to those here in Southern California who have rallied around us in these past few months.

Finally, a special thanks to Father Anastasi, hegumen of St. Antony's Coptic Orthodox Monastery. Thanks to his patience and understanding we are able to stay on here in Newberry Springs for one more Great Lent and Holy Pascha.

We plan to complete our move by April 30. We will provide more details in the coming days. Meanwhile, please keep us in your prayers and be assured of ours for you.

Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Nicholas (Zachariadis)
Abbot