Episcopalians to sell Calif. monastery after fire

(RNS) A hilltop Episcopal monastery in Santa Barbara, Calif., will be sold after more than 60 years of housing monks and thousands of visitors. The Order of the Holy Cross, an Anglican Benedictine community in the Episcopal tradition, decided in early June that the 20,000-square-foot Mount Calvary Monastery would go on the market. “Everyone, including […]

(RNS) A hilltop Episcopal monastery in Santa Barbara, Calif., will be sold after more than 60 years of housing monks and thousands of visitors.

The Order of the Holy Cross, an Anglican Benedictine community in the Episcopal tradition, decided in early June that the 20,000-square-foot Mount Calvary Monastery would go on the market.

“Everyone, including ourselves, has got a lot of emotional history with the property and it’s very hard to let it go,” Prior Nicholas Radelmiller told Episcopal News Service.


After 2008 wildfires caused millions of dollars in damage, the five monks from Mount Calvary have lived in St. Mary’s Retreat House in Santa Barbara, run by the Episcopal Order of Sisters of the Holy Nativity.

The costs to rebuild the burned-out monastery, along with the order’s slow growth, were factors in the final decision.

“We ask your prayers as we continue to move into an uncertain future, aware that our faithfulness to God and the monastic life are all that is needed to sustain us,” Radelmiller said.

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