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About the Abbey
The Abbey of the Holy Name is a monastery subject to the Holy Rule of St.
Benedict of Nursia and is under the governance of the Autonomous Metropolitan
Orthodox Church of Milan and Aquileia, Western Europe and the Americas, a Synod
of the Orthodox Church which was granted autonomy by the Ukrainian and Greek Old
Calendar Churches to govern Churches of both the Eastern and the ancient Western
Rites for people in the Western world. It is one of the monasteries of the
American Congregation of the Primitive Observance of the Order of St. Benedict
that includes monasteries for men or women in the United States and Western
Europe under the governance of the same Metropolia. The Holy Rule, which was
written by St. Benedict about the year 540 A.D. is the oldest Rule that survives
for any Order of monks from the western lands of the Orthodox Church.
The Abbey is located on twenty-five acres of semi-mountainous land adjoining a
spring-fed lake in West Milford, New Jersey, USA, approximately ten miles
from the border of New York State. The monastery land is surrounded by some five
hundred acres of woodland and may only be reached by its one-third mile long
private access road. From the top of the monastery mountain, which is known as
Mt. Apshawa, the skyscrapers of New York City can be seen some forty miles away
in the distance.
The purpose of the Abbey is the observance of the monastic life of complete
dedication to God according to the earliest interpretation of the Holy Rule, as
well as the teachings of the Early Fathers of the Church, the conferences of St.
John Cassian and the Greater and Lesser Rules of St. Basil the Great, all of
which are enjoined upon monks by St. Benedict's Rule itself. The habit (monastic
clothing) of the monks is the Benedictine habit according to the style
manifested by an angel in the deserts of Egypt to St. Pachomius the Great, the
first Abbot of a monastic community. The Abbey is also dedicated to the Holy
Name of Jesus, and, therefore, great efforts are taken to promote the ancient
devotion of the continuous "Prayer of the Heart" that is more widely known as
the "Jesus Prayer."
The Abbey also serves as the Archdiocesan Chancery for the
Archdiocese of New
York and New Jersey for the same Metropolia (covering churches and Monasteries
throughout the Eastern United States and Canada), and serves therefore as a
center and stronghold for the genuine, unchanged Orthodox Catholic Faith which
is held by the Orthodox Church. This Faith, which differs from the strange
corruptions that have been added to the original Catholic Faith in the past nine
centuries by the "Roman Catholic Church," is in fact the very same Faith held by
the ancient Church, our founder St. Benedict, Pope St. Gregory the Great and all
faithful Orthodox and Catholic Christians before the influence of the erroneous
Papal claims and the Protestant "Reformation" began to make other Christians
begin their total submission to heretical teachings.
Our Abbot-Archbishop
Archbishop John is the
* Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York & New Jersey.
* Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern America.
* Exarch of Canada.
* A Senior Member of the Synod of Bishops (Milan, Italy)
* Abbot, Orthodox Abbey of the Holy Name & its dependencies.
* Publisher, St. Gregory's Orthodox Press.
* spiritual son of the blessed Elder and Schema-Bishop Theodore (Irtel) of Old
Valaam, Perchersky Caves Monastery, and America.
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