New Skete Monasteries News

  Najmah, Bishop Howard’s (The Episcopal Diocese of Florida) constant companion and pet, died on Tuesday, June 1, 2021.  Najmah was bred by the New Skete Monks of Cambridge, NY, and was ten and half years old. A letter from Bishop Howard to New Skete: You may recall that Najmah was fifteen months old or so when Marie and I visited New Skete and she came home with us.  We were told that she had spent many of her days at New Skete in the gift shop, and I’m sure that the socialization and exposure to strangers there helped lay the foundation for her ministry with me.  She never met a stranger (except for a few cats and an occasional squirrel!).   The warmth and attachment between us was immediate, and it only grew over the years of our life together.  The unhappiest moments of her life were when I would have to break the news to her that, for some reason, she could not accompany me to my office or to church on Sunday.  The happiest moments...

  By Brother Stavros   I had a dream some months ago. It began when I viewed the scene from some heights. A bit like the opening of American Beauty , or more like riding a drone. I saw an immense crowd of refugees slowly trudging towards a distant town along a serpentine road. After a few minutes I found myself among them in the same wretched state: my clothes in tatters, my feet black from mud and feces that constituted the boulevard of misery. People of every race and state were moving against the human current, begging for food or a sip of water. A welling sigh turned into a crescendo of a pitiless moan as people looked up and saw thick, writhing bands of locusts provoking a premature dusk. They descended, leaving no place to run. They crawled over the human tide, small enough to search every inch of flesh, every fold of tunic or dress, every veil and turban. Someone pulled me by the arm off the road and up the rise of a hill. It was a farmer. He wanted me to witnes...