September 25, 2006
Euphrosyne of Alexandria
Repose of St. Sergius of Radonezh
Martyr Paphnutius
2006
Monastery Report for the Diocesan Assembly
of the
Diocese of Washington and New York
With God's mercy and help,
in the beginning of September a year ago, the Holy Cross Monastery was started.
The first few months
involved the preparation of legal documents and the establishment of the Holy
Cross Monastery, as well as the refurbishing of the rectory.
To enable the monastery to
become self sufficient, and to be a cradle of Orthodox spirituality in western
New York, there are still a few projects to be completed.
In order to prepare the
main building for monastery use and to accommodate a monastic community, we
already stripped and cleaned out all the debris from the inside and the outside
of the building, removing 15 large containers of debris. Now we are ready to
continue the work on the main building.
We purchased all the
roofing materials using a metal roof which was partially installed. During the
month of October we will demolish the part which will house the library, putting
in new windows and installing the metallic roof.
In addition, we also
purchased a separate building which we completely rebuilt inside and out, and we
did a major repair to the roof. All that remains to be done is the rebuilding of
the front part, which is now in progress.
We put in a new electrical
system and heating and plumbing, new inside doors, an alarm system, and a fire
preventions system. We purchased the following new equipment for the pierogie
manufacturing: 1 commercial stainless steel three-door refrigerator, 1
commercial stainless steel three-door freezer, 1 commercial range 33,000 BTU
capacity and 1 special stainless steel hood, 2 stainless steel tables, 1
two-door steamer with 52 special stainless steel trays and 4 carts, and 1
pierogie-making industrial machine.
We also purchased a cargo
van to be used for delivery, but the refrigeration system still needs to be
installed in the van.
Thank God that in addition
to accomplishing so much, we were also able to hold all the church services on
Saturdays and Sundays and all the feast days.
I am sure we have done much
more, but I didn't want to go into greater detail.
Thank God and all those who
helped us to progress to this point in our project, especially those from my
former parishes who were the major supporters of this project.
In Christ,
Archimandrite Nicholas, Abbot