What Are Monks?

They are Christians who dedicate themselves exclusively to seeking God in a life of repentance apart from the world. Their life-style strives to be solitary and hidden from human eyes. Monastic life is in itself an evangelical witness. Following in this ancient tradition, we do not engage in missionary work neither do we work outside the monastery. Monastic life is before all a school for the service of God where everything is ordered to Life in Christ.

In renouncing the world, monks avoid distractions in their quest for God. Far from being shut on themselves, monks pray for the world. Their work is one of constant repentance. Emulating the figures of the Prophet Elias, St John the Baptist, St Anthony the Great and all our God bearing Fathers in the ascetic life, our work is repentance: changing oneself (metanoia) and in so doing, helping to change the world. Monastic life is Christian life in its purest, apostolic form.

The monk is the one whose eyes are set only on God, who longs only for God and loves God only, who by serving God alone and being at peace with Him becomes a source of peace for others (St Theodore Studite).

Monastic life strives to be a life of watchfulness, and the monks to be like the wise Virgins. The angelic character of monastic life has often been emphasized; monastic life being considered as an anticipation of the Kingdom.

Hermitage of the Annunciation

There are several types of monastic communities, from the larger monasteries to the small cell of a hermit. Our hermitage is a small monastery of monks gathered together for a simple life of prayer and work in silence and solitude. Our rule is based on inner quietude and solitude, seeking to celebrate unceasing prayer in the heart by assiduous reading and study of the Holy Fathers and Scriptures (lectio divina), Psalmody, and the Jesus prayer.

Some of the daily services are celebrated in common in the church, others are recited in the cell. In the holy ground of our desert that is the monastery we wage a difficult warfare against the passions, seeking the likeness of Christ.

Our life offers a balance between solitude and community life. The birth of our hermitage is very closely linked to a few spiritual fathers which are our constant guides in the ascetic life: Abba Barsanuphius, the ascetic fathers of Gaza, and St Paissius Velichkovsky.

The whole life of the monk is confessing that God is greater than all. Like the Most-holy Theotokos sitting at the feet of the Lord, the monk learns how to guard his mind, his heart and his imagination in silence and peace to listen to God. His prayer, fed by the Word of God and Holy Communion, identifies itself with Christ’s Prayer to His Father.

After years of living the monastic life in an urban environment which became less and less friendly for monastic life, the monks settled on the present property in rural Nova Scotia (2003). A church has been built and much effort has been spent to make the farm house and property appropriate for the monastic way of life. However, the monks are still working hard to get everything fixed up. There we live a simple life according to the teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church. Days begin before dawn by glorifying God, offering up prayers and thanksgiving to God, and are spent doing work within the monastic grounds, interrupted by prayers, studies and spiritual readings. After the evening prayer, the monks retire to the cells.