http://hrmonline.org/BelvideremoveMove?
"Unless the Lord build the house in vain do the builders toil" (Psalm 127:1).
We are very aware that rumors have been going about for a while concerning the possibility of our monastery looking to relocate from our Newberry Springs location. It is now time to confirm publicly what many of our friends have known for some time privately. We are indeed looking to move. The purpose of this letter is to explain the reasons for this decision, and to give some details of the status of our plans. Through all this, we wish to remind ourselves of the Psalmist's teaching. May the Architect of all things continue to shape us according to His will!
From the very beginning of its existence in 1995 our small community of monks has remained committed to two basic goals:
� to live as fully and faithfully as we can the authentic liturgical tradition of the Byzantine Church, and
� to share that full and faithful commitment with as many people as possible.
We have had gradually to face the fact that our current location creates major obstacles to both of these goals. On the one hand the remote desert location cannot realistically support any kind of home industry necessary to help the monks earn their own living. The intense heat and the wild winds make almost any industry prohibitively expensive to support. On the other hand, the property is also unsuitable as a retreat center for more than a handful of people at a time, especially in view of the harsh environment. Our attempts to build have been frustrated by many factors beyond our control, including the complexity of the process, the physical health of the monks, and the difficulty of securing a reliable team of helpers, whether paid or volunteer. Our attempts to run a successful bakery were frustrated by the location and nature of our own property. To build and weather-proof a bakery facility on the premises would have been prohibitively expensive. The commute to our Big Bear bakery (two hours each way!) ate up most of our profits in gas and wear and tear on vehicles--not to mention the monks!
So what to do? We have never been afraid of hard work. But we have had to accept that we have had a hard time seeing tasks through to completion. We have tried to do things too complex for our collective experience. Work has not been our problem, but practical management has. What is needed is clearly a simpler, more straightforward set of goals that we can reach not by adding to our monastic vocation specialized skills sets we lack, but goals that we can reach precisely by living our monastic vocation. This is not really a new realization on our part (we've always just wanted to live those basic ideals we formulated at the beginning of our monastery). But what is new is the determination that we must try to mold our circumstances more intentionally in order to make this simple truth a reality.
After much prayer and soul-searching, and in consultation with our Bishop, we have reached a consensus within the brotherhood that our only real option is to move. First, we sold the equipment belonging to our Big Bear business around the middle of 2007. Now we need, above all, to find a property containing a better spread of built structures and one that is more accessible to large numbers of Eastern Catholic, Roman Catholic and Orthodox visitors. Above all, we need a location where the property is not so much an obstacle to support the community as a means to that support.
We believe we have found an ideal place in a property located near Belvidere, New Jersey (photographs of the property can be found here). We are currently negotiating with the Brothers of the Sacred Heart who own a monastery/retreat center on nearly 80 acres of land near the confluence of the Delaware and Pequest rivers. Among other attractions, the property comes with an existing 25-room retreat house in addition to a main monastery building with capacity for 12 monks. This location is obviously much more in the heart of large Catholic (both Eastern and Western) and Orthodox populations. It is also much closer to the heart of our own Romanian Catholic Diocese. We will be within a 90 minute drive of three Romanian Catholic parishes and missions. The property even contains a separate chapel building in very good shape. We look forward to rendering it suitable for the Byzantine Rite!
Above all, this location will enable us to greatly develop our ministry of presence and hospitality, enabling many interested Christians from the entire country (and abroad) to attend services, make retreats and pilgrimages and become part of our extended community of friends and supporters. We have great hopes that a relocation will also make possible the reception and formation of many more new monastic vocations than we have been able to receive and retain here in the desert.
While peaceful and bucolic, the Belvidere property is very accessible to major metropolitan areas, lying just south of the I-80 corridor through north-western New Jersey. New York City and Philadelphia are each a little over an hour's drive away.
The property was acquired in the 1960s by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic religious congregation of brothers devoted mainly to teaching ministry. They used the site as their novitiate until the 1980s. For 20 years, the brothers have run the property as a successful retreat center. We very much want to continue this retreat business, with some training from the Sacred Heart Brothers during the transition.
Buildings on the site include an old mansion, parts of which date back to the 1840s, onto which a large wing has been added to accommodate retreatants. The mansion contains 12 bedrooms, together with adequate bathrooms, a large commercial kitchen, dining and reception rooms. The new wing can accommodate 25 guests. There is a large chapel and sacristy, added shortly after the Brothers acquired the property. The Brothers have also converted a large coach house building into a two-story conference center. There are other buildings, including a small two-bedroom house with its own kitchen, sheds and workshops.
We have negotiated an acquisition price of $1 million, including all land, buildings, furnishings and other equipment (tractors, tools etc.). This purchase price is considerably below market for a property of this size and with these amenities. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart have generously decided to work with us to keep the religious character of the property, rather than maximize their profits from a commercial sale.
This relocation will also assist us to expand our ecumenical ministry of presence and hospitality, the Anastasis Project. Once we are established in our new home we will be able to provide guest accommodation for many more pilgrims and retreatants than ever before. All people will be welcome who wish to experience a full cycle of Byzantine liturgical services and a community convinced of the ultimate compatibility of the theological and spiritual expressions of East and West.
We also plan to take the opportunity this move provides to really establish programs of talks, conferences and group retreats (large and small). We want to be available to both individuals and groups.
I should also mention our long-promised "monastic associates" program. We believe it is important to institute a more formal mechanism for people seeking to experience something of the Eastern monastic spirit (both clergy and laity). It is appropriate that the Monastery, for the mutual up-building of all, recognize this commitment. After all, we must remember that the late Pope John Paul II called monasticism the "reference point for all the baptized." We truly believe that this move will make such an association easier to build due to our improved accessibility and capacity to accommodate visitors and worshipers.
As far as details go, we have already closed the sale of our property in Newberry Springs to our dear friends the fathers of St. Antony Coptic Orthodox Monastery, based near us in Yermo, CA. The selling price of this property was $600,000. We will be able to acquire the New Jersey property for $1,000,000, leaving a difference of $400,000 that we will need to finance through a mortgage. We need to find at least $3,000 a month to cover our likely mortgage payment. There will be other costs, of course, including a considerably larger utility bill and payroll than we have to manage here in California. But we believe that, if God is blessing this move as we think He is, He will also touch enough generous hearts among our supporters to make it possible.
We should say how grateful we are to the Lord for arranging that we were able to find such a suitable purchaser for our California property. Not only does the purchase by St. Antony's Monastery ensure that the site remains consecrated to God as a monastic house, but our Coptic brothers have also indicated that they very much want to complete the building project we were unable to finish.
At the time of writing this, we are still in the process of securing finance for the purchase. This is the final stage of our discernment process, of course. We have placed the final disposition of our future in the hands of our patroness, the All-Holy Mother of God, "Searcher for the Lost." Assuming, through her prayers, that the Lord wills that we do find the money, then we expect that we would begin the move in the late Fall.
In order to make the monks available for the likely move, there will be no October pilgrimage this year (2008). We plan to re-launch our annual pilgrimage at the earliest opportunity in our new home.
We will certainly miss the Mojave Desert. Above all we will miss the close contact we have built up with so many friends and supporters here in California and the West. We profoundly hope that these friends will understand the need for this move, and that they will continue to remember us in their prayers and with their material support. We look forward to keeping in touch, and will always keep a warm welcome ready for any who can make it out to New Jersey.
Finally, we must emphasize that this move affects Holy Resurrection Monastery only. The nuns of our dependant house, Holy Theophany Monastery, will continue to flourish in their home in Olympia, WA.
