Mr. Bobby Maddex: Welcome to Ancient Faith Presents…. I’m Bobby Maddex, station manager of Ancient Faith Radio. Today I will be speaking with Fr. Thomas Colyandro and Hieromonk Mark. Fr. Thomas is the retreat director for the new Orthodox Monastery of the Mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow, and Fr. Mark is the presiding abbot of the monastery. Both are joining me to tell us more about this important and exciting new venture. Fr. Thomas, Abbot Mark, welcome to the program.

Fr. Thomas Colyandro: Thank you so much, Bobby. It’s great to be with you and with all of your listeners.

Hieromonk Mark (Kerr): Yes, Bobby, I appreciate your interest and hope that we can answer all your questions, and I’ll provide a little bit of information that you would like to hear.

Mr. Maddex: All right, well, let’s get to know you two a little bit. Fr. Thomas, we’ll begin with you. Tell me a little bit about your background, both vocationally and in terms of your Orthodox faith.

Fr. Thomas: Absolutely, Bobby. I come from a family, actually, of southern Italians. I’m second-generation American. While I grew up Roman Catholic, very early on I moved over to the Byzantine side and converted to Orthodoxy at three levels. It was spiritual, obviously, intellectual, and experiential. Essentially what that means to me is that through my life of prayer I saw what God was calling me to, and through learning of the holy Fathers, certainly, and some of the holy Mothers as well. And then I had a very specific experience, where God was being very clear with me about [the fact] that I should go deeper into the East, and I say that to you simply because I know that there are a lot of people who have come to the faith for a variety of different reasons and a variety of backgrounds. One of the things that we’re here to say at the monastery is you are welcome here, to learn and to grow and to pray with God so that you might find healing, and to acquire the Holy Spirit.

Mr. Maddex: And what about you, Fr. Mark?

Fr. Mark: Well, I was raised in the Episcopal Church, moved on my way through from low church to broad church to high church over by the time I was 32, when I decided to become Orthodox. It was in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, when things were getting crazier and crazier in the Episcopal Church. Had the opportunity to discover a small Russian congregation nearby, founded by refugees from the Russian civil war. Those elderly people—this is the late ‘60s, early ‘70s; they were still alive—on top of what I saw with the beauty of the liturgy and the theological and spiritual riches of Orthodoxy, I had a blessing to encounter people who had been raised in holy Russia before the Revolution, and saw the character and the personalities, the piety, the simple, simple faith, piety, kindness, warmth, love of God, love of neighbor, which equally impressed me with all of the intellectual or the aesthetics that I could experience at the time.

That set me on my journey, and in 1976 I became Orthodox and I embarked very quickly on a monastic life, which brings me to where I am today. I would reiterate what Fr. Thomas is saying or has said. We have a vision that we share, even though he’s a married priest, a parish priest; I’m a monastic. We share an understanding of the needs of the Orthodox faithful today for enrichment, spiritual enrichment, intellectual, and cultural, and the need to build stronger Orthodox communities to the extent that we can reach out to people and help them to grow in their faith and to develop a deeper, richer culture and community. This is very important today. We have to circle the wagons, in a sense. We have many adversaries today. So that’s a shared vision we have.

Mr. Maddex: Let’s stick with you for a second, Fr. Mark. Why was it decided to start a new monastery, and why in Tennessee?

Fr. Mark: Well, God’s hand was in all this, Bobby. I was originally tonsured a monk in 1978. I was in ROCOR at the time. Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko) who was archbishop in Novo-dieevo Convent in Rockland, New York—he was an auxiliary to Metropolitan Philaret—basically gave the instruction to a priest, a parish priest, a celibate priest, whom I had met, who was told to establish a monastery dedicated to the Mother of God, the Joy of All Who Sorrow. And I came along and found that situation shortly after baptism. I fit the description of one of the members that Abp. Andrei had revealed to our first abbot. So we started off on a rather difficult path. There were many issues that were systemic that in the end, by 2004, led to basically the dissolution of the original community. Nevertheless, I’ve continued on a journey since 2004 to a couple of years ago, in many, many different situations, gaining a lot of interest and information, a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience, preparing for this.

Two years ago, some lay people came to Bishop Longin of the Serbian Midwestern Diocese, proposing to choose property for a monastery in Tennessee. They were the ones who wanted it in Tennessee. They chose the property; we had nothing to do with it. They presented the project to Bp. Longin; he blessed it. I was living at New Gračanica at that time, and Bp. Longin needed someone to be involved with this. One of the original supporters had specified that he wanted this monastery to be dedicated to the Joy of All Who Sorrow. And here I am as the surviving member of the first community dedicated to the Joy of All Who Sorrow, in place at New Gračanica at the diocesan center, when this emerged. So I can only say it’s God’s hand, to continue the work that was started back in 1978.

Mr. Maddex: Well, I already mentioned your respective titles with regard to the monastery, but what role do each of you play on a day-to-day basis in these early stages of the monastery’s establishment and growth. Fr. Thomas, can you answer first?

Fr. Thomas: Absolutely, Bobby. As the retreat director, what I would do, specifically at the early stages, is reach out to people. I have found, exactly as Hieromonk Mark is saying, that the desire for this has been amazing in the way that God is always amazing and more faithful to us than we are to him. The number of people who have reached out to me, already asking for spiritual direction, already asking for opportunities to come and be in a place of silence, in a place of prayer. Initially that outreach is going to be a big part of what I will do, but as we settle down and settle in even more to provide the opportunities for people to come to learn to pray—and I will add this, and this is something that the hieromonk and I share…

In my travels, Bobby, I’ve had the opportunity to study at the Oriental Institute in Rome, at Cambridge in England, to travel through Turkey and some of the northern Persian countries. As far-flung as that was, and as near as I have been in places all around the United States, one very common thing that I think people share is a desire to pray—but they feel like they don’t know how, or in what manner. This is something that we will do, is give them the opportunity to understand. In Orthodoxy, of course, as you know, and as your listeners will know, we cherish silent prayer. As we make our way through vocal and meditative and contemplative prayer to coincide with the need for catharsis and theoria, to understand more of what God is doing inside of them and to reach toward that illumination requires something very different, I think, than particularly American culture can provide. So this is the space that we want to do that in. While God, I always say, does 99.9% of the work, that 0.1% that each of us has to do is to go and be in a place where we can allow ourselves to be found, so to speak. I hope that gives you a sense of what I will be doing there.

Mr. Maddex: And what about you, Fr. Mark? What do you do on a daily basis as the acting abbot of the monastery?

Fr. Mark: At this point, the greatest degree of engagement right now is building the buildings here. We have acquired… We had two factory-built buildings: a 14’x48’ one-bedroom house that is the hermitage, and a 14’x36’ chapel, a building for the chapel. We’re engaged right now in finishing that. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a Church reader, Paul, who is well-versed in construction. He has been doing most of the construction work, finishing these buildings. So that’s my engagement, as well as receiving visitors, receiving contacts with people. I’m continuing the pastoral work I’ve been doing since I became a monk back in 1978, engaged in various kinds of activities over the years.

The mission statement of the monastery is essentially the icon, the Joy of All Who Sorrow. There’s nothing more to be added to that. That was the commission that was given to us by Abp. Andrei, and I have always done my best to follow that and to live out and express that mission. I’ve worked in many areas with many different kinds of people. I’ve worked with delinquent youth in Florida, I’ve worked in hospital chaplaincy, pastoral work, parochial parish work, as well as continuing working with the young people that God sends to me, to advise and to guide in their lives, on their path in their faith. That’s what’s happening now.

Mr. Maddex: You may have already mentioned this, and if so, it slipped by me for some reason. Can you tell us under what diocese the monastery operates? And then who are the principal people involved other than you two?

Fr. Mark: Yes, this monastery is under the omophor of Bp. Longin of the Serbian Orthodox Midwestern Diocese, New Gračanica Midwestern Diocese. So Bp. Longin is our diocesan bishop. He’s also one of the board members. Also we’ve had a lot of close support from Archimandrite Serafim Baltic, who’s the abbot of New Gračanica, where I lived for about five or six or seven years before coming here. We have a number of other people that are friendly toward us and are helping us along the way. We have a few families that have begun to come here. When we had our feast on the sixth of November, we had actually 32 people who showed up for our first liturgy in our unfinished chapel. So the word’s getting around, but right now it’s primarily Fr. Thomas and I that are carrying the load along with Reader Paul who’s doing the construction work, and his family. That’s where we are right now.

There are some inquirers, some young men that have made inquiries and I have continued to engage with them and talk more about monastic life and help people to discern their vocation, if it’s monastic or even if it’s married life. A number of seminarians I knew in New Gračanica, I had some good connections with, and three or four or five of them have either married or are on their way. And that’s a wonderful thing, too, to see young men that you can mentor and support, setting out, embarking on establishing Orthodox families with good Orthodox women, pious women. You have the hope, the hope of the growth of healthy families and healthy Orthodox children emerging from what little influence I’ve been able to have.

Mr. Maddex: Fr. Thomas, I understand that the monastery plans to have a pan-Orthodox focus. What exactly does this mean, and how will it play out practically in the monastery’s day-to-day activities?

Fr. Thomas: Absolutely, Bobby. Now, I do understand that that phrase can often have a lot of very strong feelings attached to it. What I will first do is say what it is not. Pan-Orthodoxy in this environment doesn’t mean a messy conglomeration of different liturgical styles and cultural clash; what it does mean is that all are welcome, that because we are under the Serbian Midwestern Diocese—and we are extremely grateful to His Grace Bishop Longin—that we want both the locals and those who come from afar to feel that they can see themselves here. As we follow a more Byzantine typikon in the liturgy, I myself and as well as Hieromonk Mark are quite proficient in, for example, Church Slavonic, and we might have services in that.

We want people to, in the end, know that it is not just a monastery for Serbians to come; it is for all comers, whether they be under the jurisdictions of the Greeks and the ROCOR and Antiochians and OCA, and then those inquirers also, to make them feel a sense of comfort, that we have come from these communities and we know what it takes to move forward in the process of becoming Orthodox and learning to develop the Orthodox phronema. My background, in fact, is quite deep in retreat work, so this is the sort of thing that we are familiar with. Hieromonk and I share that kind of vision.

Mr. Maddex: Where do things stand with the monastery, Fr. Thomas? What has been completed and is set, and what remains to be done?

Fr. Thomas: Absolutely. To reflect what Hieromonk was saying just a few moments ago, that we have started with very simple log-cabin buildings which are already on the property. One is Hieromonk’s residence and a people for people to come and sit and enjoy refreshment and nice conversation, and the other, of course, is the all-important chapel, which is already open for prayer. One thing that I should mention, actually, is that this property itself is 15 acres, and seven of it is cleared, eight of it is wooded. The next step in all of this is to build two things: one, a larger bunkhouse, either for visitors or for monastic inquirers, and then a larger space where we can do actual retreats and seminars. We use that word, “retreat,” which is not really terribly typical in the Orthodox parlance, but it is common for people in modern America. We talk about pilgrimage; we talk about learning and growth and prayer. So essentially that’s where we need to go from here, and I will add that there are a few details still to be finished in the residence and meeting area as well in the chapel. Of course we would love to have people visit, but we would also love them to help with their own time, talent, and treasure, to put this over the edge, as we say.

Mr. Maddex: Hieromonk Mark, the monastery website, I noticed, goes to great pains to explain how monasticism actually works. Why did you feel this was important?

Fr. Mark: At the very beginning of our journey, I wrote a number of articles that tried to lay out for people a clear idea, so that they understood what was going on and what the direction was and what the intention was. So those few articles were basically intended to introduce people to the concept that I understand and embrace and am trying to live out as a monastic, so that there was an introduction. It was basically introductory material at the beginning. Now we go on with more personal contacts, reaching people one on one and cultivating relationships that naturally develop when we encounter each other.

Mr. Maddex: What are your hopes and dreams for the future of the monastery, Fr. Mark?

Fr. Mark: Well, Abp. Andrei was very specific to the priest I was a co-founder with, that there would be great opportunities for growth and development, that this monastery could make a significant contribution to life, Orthodox life in America. I pray that I’m worthy of guiding that path, walking that path, and guiding the development of this community so that I leave behind something that is a strong monastic witness, a center of social unity, of bringing people together to share their culture, their traditions, their faith, their struggles; to build a healthy monastic community that is a witness and a source of grace and life and fulfillment, but also beyond that to build around that a healthy lay community, to encourage lay people to lead a firmer, richer, stronger Orthodox life.

The most important thing is the children. We have to provide for our children to have an Orthodox upbringing, to be formed in Orthodox life: prayer, worship, culture, receiving the holy Mysteries, and imbued with our faith and our culture so that they can become strong Orthodox Christians and support their families.

Mr. Maddex: Fr. Thomas, how can listeners get more information about the monastery and help support it?

Fr. Thomas: Absolutely. There’s two places online that everybody can go. One is to monteaglemonastery.org. Monteagle, of course, is the actual city that it is in, so it is monteaglemonastery.org, and we are on Facebook under The Joy of All Who Sorrow as well. Of course, on that website there are also ways to get in touch with us via email and by phone, and we encourage, if you’re a monastic inquirer, please contact Fr. Mark. Everybody else can feel free to contact me, if you need spiritual help or you’re interested in participating in the retreats. Those would be the two best ways to get us.

Mr. Maddex: I should point out that I will include those links in the description to this podcast episode, and also, in just a few days, there’s going to be a large sponsorship banner on our home page that will be advertising Joy of All Who Sorrow Monastery, and you will be able to simply click right there and be taken to the website and see what you can do to help support this important work. We will also be having some audio spots; it’s going to be front and center on Ancient Faith Radio for at least the next month. Please be sure to pay attention and locate those ways of getting in touch with Joy of All Who Sorrow.

Well, you both did a very good job of presenting the monastery. Is there anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap this up?

Fr. Thomas: I would, Bobby, if you don’t mind. To you and all your listeners, we thank you for this attention to this great moment. I will say that when Bp. Longin was out at the property at the end of July, blessing the foundation stone, he made a beautiful and prophetic comment that in this time period, in this year, when so much has been shut down, so much has been restricted, that God shows his glory and his mother shows her protection by deigning that this monastery should come alive, right here, right now. It reminded me of the great story that, on the property, the original property that St. Herman himself was on in Alaska, was found an icon of the mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow. And I share in Hieromonk’s vision and belief that where we are now with this really hearkens back to the early days of Orthodoxy in America, and may God bless this foundation to continue forward and with the prayers and the great help of others we know that his blessing will continue to be with us.

Mr. Maddex: And what about you, Fr. Mark?

Fr. Mark: Well, I thank you for the opportunity to speak, Bobby. The biggest concern now is getting the two buildings we have here already finished. Funding is very, very tight right now. Building material expenses have increased significantly, and winter’s coming on. We need to move forward especially to get the hermitage finished. We’re probably a month or so away, if we can afford to keep purchasing the materials that we need to finish it.

Then we have to turn our attention to the chapel, because right now, as the weather gets colder, it’s very difficult. The building is simply a frame with an exterior shell. There is no insulation; there’s no electricity. We have the framework of the iconostas built. We have services there as much as we can, but as it gets colder it’s going to be more difficult to have services. So it’s very critical that we move forward as much as possible, as quickly as possible. We pray that your listeners will understand and be able to and willing to help complete this project. Then we’ll go forward. We have people coming, but we have to provide them with a place where they can visit, where they can pray, that’s habitable. So please keep us in your prayers, and, if you’re able to help us financially, it would be immensely appreciated.

But especially if you can, pray. Pray because God hears our prayers. God has sent help. My path since things in the first monastery led to its dissolution in 2004, my path has been one paved with miracles and by God’s grace. Unworthy as I am, God has been gracious through the prayers of his mother, through the prayers of St. Mardarije now of Serbian Diocese, and of St. John of San Francisco, who has also been a helper in my life since I became Orthodox. So that’s what I would conclude with. Again, thank you, and may you have a joyful feast, and all of your listeners, too, as we approach the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, the beginning of our salvation, to quote from the Annunciation troparion. Thank you very much for your time.

Mr. Maddex: Once again, I have been speaking with Fr. Thomas Colyandro and Fr. Abbot Mark of the new Orthodox Monastery of the Mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow.