Driving out a picturesque and quiet hollow in Wayne County, where you might spot smoke drifting lazily from the chimneys of snowbound cabins, you are just as likely to hear songbirds in spring and watch locals tending their gardens in summer. It’s a place that illustrates the cadence and continuity endemic to the culture of West Virginia’s people. And, up until the spring of 2000, it remained mostly hidden to the rest of the world.
It has been nearly twenty-five years since the Orthodox Christian monastics of Holy Cross Monastery made the move from Missouri to this West Virginia hollow on land gifted to them by Moe and Nadya Sill. And in the past two decades much activity, both physical and spiritual, have enriched this rural area of Appalachia.
The dozens of monks who call the monastery home have constructed new buildings, including cells (cabins) for individual living, community spaces such as a chapel, library, trapeza (kitchen/dining area), and guest house as well as workshops to facilitate their skilled craftsmanship. They have been making incense in the Athonite tradition as well as soaps and selling liturgical items as their primary means of economic support for many years.
When the brotherhood initially arrived, they were met with a measure of skepticism from their agrestic neighbors who eyed their black robes and long beards as “odd”. Some even dared to ask them what they were doing ‘up the holler out Wayne.’ It wasn’t too long, however, before the monk’s kind ways and generous hospitality began to ease uncertainty. You can enjoy firsthand accounts about some of these experiences from Fr. Sergius himself, whom I interviewed a few years ago when Beacon News WV was in it's infancy.
Often encountering locals at the nearby Walmart provides an opportunity for the community to know their cenobitic neighbors on a more personal level. Nowadays, as Fr. Seraphim, the Abbot of Holy Cross Monastery recounts, neighbors -even those who are not Orthodox Christians- often ask the monks to pray for them.
The monastics benefit from the locals as well in learning how to build on the rocky inclines so prevalent in West Virginia or sharing tips on bee keeping or gardening. It seems that the past twenty plus years has brought a harmony between two groups of people that, outwardly, may appear very different, even incompatible. But getting to know your neighbor is one of the enduring values of West Virginians, especially those in our rural communities. You can still encounter people swapping stories along with fresh vegetables from the garden over the fence here. Folks still spend time on the porch and greet their neighbors…still offer to cut grass or plow snow for those who need an extra helping hand.
And so it is that these Orthodox Christian monastics, coming primarily to live a life of prayer and repentance, have inadvertently woven the light of the Ancient Faith into the fabric of a friendly and resourceful community. One that, for the most part, has been loving and serving God in their own way for many generations.
That scenic country road winding through the rolling hills to Holy Cross Monastery is well traveled these days. Visitors journey from across the nation and outside of the country too for spiritual refreshment through attendance at the church services, meals, fellowship and the indescribable peace present in this holy place. The hospitality offered by the monks is unsurpassed, reflecting the example of Abraham in welcoming his guests as recorded in Genesis chapter eighteen.
Over the past decade the number of pilgrims visiting the monastery has greatly increased creating a need for a larger and more accommodating church. Aside from regular church services, the monastery also hosts large numbers of guests for special events such as the Pilgrimage Weekend, Pascha (Easter) and the Feast of St. Panteleimon, the monastery’s patron saint and protector.
Beginning in 2022, construction began on a new church to meet the demands of a growing monastic community and their commitment to hospitality in sharing the love of Christ with others. Funding has been provided by the monastery's savings, but increasingly on the generosity of faithful donors and benefactors.
The design of the new church is by Andrew Gould, a world renowned artisan and designer specializing in traditional buildings and liturgical art. The scale is grand and reminiscent of a traditional Orthodox Church from antiquity with modifications and landscaping to blend with the natural surroundings.
The construction workers are not Orthodox and yet some of them drive from great distances to labor on this project because they know it is a once-in-a-lifetime job. The story of the vision and building of the church is captured beautifully in a short documentary produced by the brotherhood called Building New Jerusalem, shared below.
With Orthodoxy growing in America, it is an incredible blessing to have Holy Cross Monastery as a beacon, brightly illuminating the Ancient Church of Jesus Christ and the fullness of the Christian faith from the hollers of West Virginia.
*If you would like to visit Holy Cross Monastery, please visit their website to learn how to arrange a visit. You may also make a donation for the new church on their site as well; a quick link is provided here: Donate to new church construction at Holy Cross
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