The North American Thebaid Photographic Pilgrimage Project was inspired in no small degree by the example of seminarian Gleb Podmoshensky, whose 1961 pilgrimage to monastic sketes and settlements across the United States, Canada and Alaska, and his photographic slide show from these visits, had a pivotal impact on a young Orthodox convert in San Francisco, a certain Eugene Rose.

Gleb titled his presentation, “Holy Places in America,” and described his encounter with Eugene as follows:

Before Eugene’s amazed expression, Gleb recalls, “a new world of Apostolic Orthodoxy revealed itself. Color icons and portraits of saints and righteous ones of America; scenes of Blessed Fr. Herman’s Spruce Island in Alaska; renewed miracle-working icons that had been brought to America from Shanghai; abbesses and schemamonks in America; Canadian sketes; Holy Trinity Monastery and New Diveyevo Convent in New York, which brought the tradition of the Optina Elders to America, and so on. I gave a brief explanation of the slides, and of the phenomenon of the martyrdom of Holy Russia. Finally I told of the martyric fate of my father and its consequences, which had brought about my conversion to Christ and had eventually brought me here…

“The lecture was finished. My host, Eugene Rose, the future Fr. Seraphim, drawing in his breath, said, ‘What a revelation!’”

— Excerpt From: Hieromonk Damascene, “Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works,” Chapter 22, St. Herman of Alaska Press, Platina CA, 2012-01-01, iBooks edition.

As is well known, Eugene and Gleb co-founded, with the blessing of St. John Maximovitch, Archbishop of San Francisco, a missionary brotherhood, bookstore and printing press under the heavenly patronage of Elder Herman of Alaska. This led to the founding of the St Herman of Alaska Monastery in the tiny hamlet of Platina, in the rugged mountain wilderness of Northern California, with Eugene and Gleb tonsured as monks Seraphim and Herman.

Not all Orthodox Christians are so immediately inspired by their first exposure to monasticism. Everyone has his or her own path in life, known to God alone; so it is with monastics and how they are drawn to their calling.

I think of my friend, Mother Paula, at the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, in the beautiful hills of Western Pennsylvania, who came to embrace the monastic life only after a fruitful career as a school teacher, and later as a missionary to orphans in Guatemala at the Hogar Rafael Ayau.

I call to mind also Hieromonk Seraphim, who traveled to Russia and elsewhere tasting of the Orthodox monastic life at some of the great centers like Optina and Valaam, before finding that place within which his heart resonated, at St Anthony’s Monastery in Arizona.

And I think of the new monasteries being founded, such as St. Peter’s Monastery being formed in Montana, the fruits of the faithful perseverance of Fr. Innocent and the brotherhood at the Monastery of St John of San Francisco in Manton, CA and devout lay benefactors and donors in Harrison MT.

Or of the new Monastery of St. Catherine in Sonora, California, recently established on the grounds of the St. Silouan Monastery, the last of whose faithful brotherhood, Monk Ignatius (deputy abbot) and Monk Maximos, passed on to their heavenly reward in late 2022.

And of the new Monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity, founded in 2025 on the site of St. Paul Skete outside Memphis, Tennessee, which closed in 2023 following the repose in the Lord of its founder, Mother Nectaria.

These departed monastics are now like seeds planted in the soil of North America, and we have every hope that their faithful and tireless labors and prayers — literally unto their last breath — will help bring forth much fruit in the years to come. Good Resurrection!

These are just some of the ones whose examples will inspire the next generation of American Orthodox monastics, who expend their lives “in the breach” (cf. Ps 106:23 NKJV), pointing the way for others, sparking and kindling the flame of divine zeal for ascetic labors undertaken out of love for Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother, the Church and the saints.

(Adapted from the original page, posted in July 2016)