I found your writings tonight for the first time. I read your quotes of
“At the Walls of the Church” by
Segei Iosifovitch Fudel (1900 – 1977)
Monasticism, Church and Sanctity. I liked they searching for truth. I grow tired of the double speak and read less these days.
My background was a manager of The Orthodox Book Center in Miami, Floirda in the 1970’s. Before the internet, the priest the I worked for carried the largest selection of printed books in America about Russia and orthodoxy. This was Father George Gladky. Father George started the first bookstore at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New york and later at St. Tikhon’s Seminary/ Monastery in Pennsyvania. Father George helped to print the writings of the blessed Father Nikolai Velimirovich while a student at St. Tikhon’s and St. Nikolai was rector. These were printed on the first printing press.
I used to be more of a reader and bibliophile and now I want to write more. I want to listen for God and gaze at nature. I have been to Russia and visited Ivanovka. You can see me at http://www.rachmaninovsocietyusa.org (Ivanovka). In trying to finish my graduate degree in a school with little interest in research I sent my thesis statement to Moscow and met Yuri Didenko of Moscow Conservatory.
Yuri has been here to America with the last time being September of this year when he stayed at my house. I helped introduce Yuri here and to be on the jury for the first ever Florida International Piano Competition.
My history:
I am like a half nun. I was notone of few women, but the only woman at the time of my graduation from high school and with 3 semesters in college in Pennsylvania, in Russian studies, music and education, I left to go to Miami to be a missionary for the Russian Orthodox Church. This is when I worked in the Orthodox Book Center.
In this time period of working with the Orthodox Book Center and Father George I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a conference of young college people and I met for the first time Mother Alexandra. At that time Mother Alexandra the abbess of the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. She is known also as Princess Ileana of Romania. We became friends and I went back and stayed at the monastery and trained with her.
Mother Alexandra I grew together and bonded on writing her book “The Holy Angels”. I was not a writer but a good listener for her. I could also help her with her spelling. This was all before computers and spell check. Mother Alexandra had lived in Queen Victoria’s court in England but never graduated High School.
My dear Mother did not give up on me when I left the monastery. Mother Alexandra traveled to where I was and I went back to the moanstery on extended stays to help her write more things. In my first round of domestic violence I went back to the monastery with my young child named for her Alexandra, and who was not quite 2 years at the time.
In 1989 I was already married to man who had been ordained a priest. This was the end of our marriage for good when he locked me out of the house. It was very difficult because I had so much abuse from him andthe Bishop continued to guard him from prosecution in the civil courts.
The Bishop organized a forgiveness service for us when I was told by counselors to stay away stay safe and leave. This forgiveness last only long enough to keep my clergy husband from jail and then bam.
The week Father George Gladky in Miami my mentor and friend and maybe even my real father died, this was the lock out. It was also the time for the Romanian Children’s Revolution in Moldavia. In this week before the lock out, I had organized a special “cross planting’ and planted a Romanian Orthodox style cross with the little roof over the cross so all who could come near the little house church had a place of rest.
People took up the idea of a place of rest for those who had no place for burial and memories sent dirt from all over the country and asked for prayers. I was trying to do what my dear Mother Alexandra had done in organizing a cemetary with a cross for those with no one to pray for them. We hoped we would build a larger church and a Montesori style Day Care and Primary School.
So on one day I was standing next to the Mayor of the town, the bishop was there and visiting priests ..and in the next two days I went to quietly pray in the early morning at the newly planted cross, which was in my back yard, from the house ot the church and my clergy husband had me picked up by the police and locked up.
then it was more of amess..
After that I had cancer, which was easier to speak about than divorce. The cancer was wrapped around my vocal chords. The day I got out of surgery, I had no money and no ability to get the medicine I needed to stay alive since the parathyroid glands were also cut out with the cancer and thyroid. 48 hours later I was scheduled to be back in court for the final days of the divorce and instead I was in the hospital.
Well I am teloling too much of my story when I want to ask you and not sure when these words may be limited here to consdier working with me at Christmas Monastery. If this works well you might even visit America in July of 2009 when we are working with a special collaboration of SENG.org withthe Rachmaninov Society.
I am asking God for a chaplain. We want to before all people. I am very mixed and part Jewish. There may be students coming from China as well and we must be open to ideas collaboration and the spirit of God moving among us.
So I will write to you more about this.
In the meantime thank you for sharing the words of
Sergei Iosifovitch.
Carol Bacha said
Dear Father Yakov,
I found your writings tonight for the first time. I read your quotes of
“At the Walls of the Church” by
Segei Iosifovitch Fudel (1900 – 1977)
Monasticism, Church and Sanctity. I liked they searching for truth. I grow tired of the double speak and read less these days.
My background was a manager of The Orthodox Book Center in Miami, Floirda in the 1970’s. Before the internet, the priest the I worked for carried the largest selection of printed books in America about Russia and orthodoxy. This was Father George Gladky. Father George started the first bookstore at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New york and later at St. Tikhon’s Seminary/ Monastery in Pennsyvania. Father George helped to print the writings of the blessed Father Nikolai Velimirovich while a student at St. Tikhon’s and St. Nikolai was rector. These were printed on the first printing press.
I used to be more of a reader and bibliophile and now I want to write more. I want to listen for God and gaze at nature. I have been to Russia and visited Ivanovka. You can see me at http://www.rachmaninovsocietyusa.org (Ivanovka). In trying to finish my graduate degree in a school with little interest in research I sent my thesis statement to Moscow and met Yuri Didenko of Moscow Conservatory.
Yuri has been here to America with the last time being September of this year when he stayed at my house. I helped introduce Yuri here and to be on the jury for the first ever Florida International Piano Competition.
My history:
I am like a half nun. I was notone of few women, but the only woman at the time of my graduation from high school and with 3 semesters in college in Pennsylvania, in Russian studies, music and education, I left to go to Miami to be a missionary for the Russian Orthodox Church. This is when I worked in the Orthodox Book Center.
In this time period of working with the Orthodox Book Center and Father George I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a conference of young college people and I met for the first time Mother Alexandra. At that time Mother Alexandra the abbess of the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. She is known also as Princess Ileana of Romania. We became friends and I went back and stayed at the monastery and trained with her.
Mother Alexandra I grew together and bonded on writing her book “The Holy Angels”. I was not a writer but a good listener for her. I could also help her with her spelling. This was all before computers and spell check. Mother Alexandra had lived in Queen Victoria’s court in England but never graduated High School.
My dear Mother did not give up on me when I left the monastery. Mother Alexandra traveled to where I was and I went back to the moanstery on extended stays to help her write more things. In my first round of domestic violence I went back to the monastery with my young child named for her Alexandra, and who was not quite 2 years at the time.
In 1989 I was already married to man who had been ordained a priest. This was the end of our marriage for good when he locked me out of the house. It was very difficult because I had so much abuse from him andthe Bishop continued to guard him from prosecution in the civil courts.
The Bishop organized a forgiveness service for us when I was told by counselors to stay away stay safe and leave. This forgiveness last only long enough to keep my clergy husband from jail and then bam.
The week Father George Gladky in Miami my mentor and friend and maybe even my real father died, this was the lock out. It was also the time for the Romanian Children’s Revolution in Moldavia. In this week before the lock out, I had organized a special “cross planting’ and planted a Romanian Orthodox style cross with the little roof over the cross so all who could come near the little house church had a place of rest.
People took up the idea of a place of rest for those who had no place for burial and memories sent dirt from all over the country and asked for prayers. I was trying to do what my dear Mother Alexandra had done in organizing a cemetary with a cross for those with no one to pray for them. We hoped we would build a larger church and a Montesori style Day Care and Primary School.
So on one day I was standing next to the Mayor of the town, the bishop was there and visiting priests ..and in the next two days I went to quietly pray in the early morning at the newly planted cross, which was in my back yard, from the house ot the church and my clergy husband had me picked up by the police and locked up.
then it was more of amess..
After that I had cancer, which was easier to speak about than divorce. The cancer was wrapped around my vocal chords. The day I got out of surgery, I had no money and no ability to get the medicine I needed to stay alive since the parathyroid glands were also cut out with the cancer and thyroid. 48 hours later I was scheduled to be back in court for the final days of the divorce and instead I was in the hospital.
Well I am teloling too much of my story when I want to ask you and not sure when these words may be limited here to consdier working with me at Christmas Monastery. If this works well you might even visit America in July of 2009 when we are working with a special collaboration of SENG.org withthe Rachmaninov Society.
I am asking God for a chaplain. We want to before all people. I am very mixed and part Jewish. There may be students coming from China as well and we must be open to ideas collaboration and the spirit of God moving among us.
So I will write to you more about this.
In the meantime thank you for sharing the words of
Sergei Iosifovitch.
Matushka Carol
Christmas Monastery
P.O. Box 381
Christmas, Floirda 32709
christmasmonasteryonline@yahoo.com