New Skete Monasteries News

Tasting Heaven on Earth: Worship in Sixth-Century Constantinople, by Walter D. Ray. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William Eerdmans, 2012. The Divine Liturgy of the Great Church, by Paul N. Harrilchak. Reston, Virgina: 2013. Byzantine Liturgical Reform, by Thomas Pott. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010. I have been scrounging and scrutinizing texts and resources on the Byzantine Liturgy since the days when a Jesuit in my high school lent me Isabel Florence Hapgood’s Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic (Greco-Russian) Church (1921) and later procured an old paperback set of the Benedictine Monastery of Chevetogne’s La Prière Des Églises De Rite Byzantine in three volumes (1937). These were practically the sole tools for enabling a reader to appreciate the texts in a modern language. The exponential increase in the resources now readily at hand is characterized by the published works cited above in just the past couple of years. The shortest and most accessib...

  By Karen Gladstone, Director of Advancement and Stewardship During the busy day-to-day tasks of Advancement and Stewardship and coordinating volunteers for New Skete, some days it’s easy for me to forget to stop and smell the roses, or more specifically to stop and experience everything. When I first started working with the Monks and Nuns almost three years ago, I was amazed at how intimidating yet awe-inspiring nature is up here. Driving up New Skete Lane each morning, I always felt compelled to turn off my radio, fearful the noise would disturb the harmonious sounds of nature already in existence. Just that one mile from the bottom of the mountain to the top was my daily opportunity to switch gears from the world of multi-medium assaults on my senses to a place that peacefully welcomed those senses. It is a place where calm and focus exist, alongside a sense of excitement and possibility. The ever-changing seasons at New Skete offer countless experiences: the sigh...