‘The Coffin Before the Mule’

On May 7, the Daviess County Commission approved the establishment of St. Gabriel Cemetery for a Serbian Orthodox monastery which was recently established in Daviess County.

This was a necessary step for the Holy Archangel Michael and All Angels Skete Monastery, in order to get things squared away for a burial that had already been completed on monastery land on April 30.

Fr. Alexii is pictured with two nuns from the on-site Sisterhood.

The application for the cemetery was made by Father David Alexii, who is one of the monks who resides at the monastery. St. Gabriel Cemetery is a one-acre plot with spots for 26 graves.

Father Alexii said the burial became necessary when a former church member and his own stepson passed away in Kansas City. Burial in such cases usually takes place in Ash Grove, but the priest there was out of town.

His stepson had been indigent and the church does not embalm. He had to be buried in one day, and so the decision was made to bury him on the newly acquired property in Daviess County.

Father Alexii already had a certificate of death and a medical examiner’s report from Kansas City.

“When I came in to file at the courthouse, I found I had the cart before the horse,” he said. “Or the coffin before the mule, if you’d rather have an old-time image.”

Father Alexii admitted that he was not too experienced with the administrative requirement. “It was the first time ever with the cemetery rules,” he said.

The establishment of the family plot has the issue squared away.

Father Alexii also has taken care of administrative necessities involved in a marriage which recently occurred at the monastery. He said that a couple of refugees from Eritrea who had become US citizens had asked to be married at the monastery. The bride had been part of St. Mary of Egypt parish in Kansas City. After the spiritual wedding, a Holy Sacrament in the Orthodox Church, he found that they didn’t have the marriage license from the county with them. “So I asked Jane McKinsey, the County Recorder of Deeds, for advice,” he said. She explained that the couple would need to come and appear before her in person for the license to be issued in Daviess County. The problem was they had relocated to Oakland, Calif., the home of the groom, two days after the wedding.

Father Alexii has informed the couple that the easiest thing to do is to have a civil ceremony in California for the wedding to be official.

How the monastery came to be:

Father David Alexii (Fr. Paisius) Altschul of the Serbian Archdiocese of the Midwest, under the guidance of Bishop Longin, is founding a men’s Skete on an 80-acre piece of property near Weatherby. This will be the only Orthodox Christian men’s monastic community in Missouri. It is called the Holy Archangel Michael and All Angels Skete Monastery.

Father Alexii clarifies that the monastery in Clyde/Conception is Roman Catholic. “While similar,” he says, “We are Orthodox Christians (another story in itself!). So, the only Orthodox Christian men’s monastic community would be more exact.”

Father Alexii has been a parish priest with St. Mary of Egypt and had helped to start Reconciliation Services in Kansas City. He received the blessing of Bishop Longin to spend nearly a year on Mt. Athos. The Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mount is located in Northern Greece. It is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries. The monks live an ascetic life in Athos and are isolated from the rest of the world. Father Alexii returned from his pilgrimage with the purpose of founding a men’s monastery.

“Since I was from Kansas City we wanted to create the monastery within range,” he said. “And a monastery needs to be built in a peaceful setting close to nature.”

After he returned from Athos, in the fall of last year, Father Alexii spent some time with the deacon of his church, Terry Frazier, who lives in Osborn.

“We prayed and started looking for land,” he said.

They visited the Clyde convent and asked the saints to pray for them about the land.

“We had real estate listings and looked at the first two and they were nothing special,” he said. “But when we went to the third piece of land near Weatherby it felt like Easter. We had this radiant sense of joy.”

The land was owned by Mike Abel and came with buildings, ponds, trails, and seven furnished buildings. One of the buildings is called a Trapeza building with a sod roof.

“Mike didn’t know it at the time, but it felt like he was building a monastery,” Father Alexii said.

Bishop Longin of Grayslake, Ill, near Chicago, gave the blessing to raise money for the monastery. They closed the transaction for the land and took occupancy Oct. 14, 2014.

Right now, there are three nuns living at the monastery. The St. Xenia Sisterhood has been transferred from downtown Kansas City to this piece of property. St. Xenia Sisterhood is the second Orthodox Christian women’s monastery in Missouri, the other being in Mansfield in southern Missouri.

In the near future, they hope to have around 10 people living at the monastery.

The north 40 acres is designated for the nuns; the south 40 is for the monks; the middle is an area in common. The two monastic communities will co-exist on the property, but will remain separate communities, sharing feast days and other functions. They hold chapel three times a day. The round building is where they eat and receive guests. They have around 60-75 guests each month who come to meditate, pray, and enjoy the serenity of the countryside.

Father Alexii said that due to their greenhouse the raised beds are exploding with spinach, lettuce and peas. Their plan is to be self-sufficient eventually. Ninety-five percent of their funding is from donations.

Father Alexii said they have experienced one disaster so far. That is when a pair of geese made an annual landing on the pond. They had seven goslings in March.

“One day we heard turbulence and went down to the pond and the baby geese were gone,” said Father Alexii. “We were told by a farmer that a large mouth bass got them. So now we are fishing out the bass as quickly as we can.”

He added monastics in the church don’t eat meat, except fish, and they are enjoying the bass very much.

Father Alexii said they welcome visitors. Give them a call first at 660-749-5325, so they can have some food to share when you get there.

Father Alexii’s Story:

Between the two of us, my wife and I had six children. (The person who reposed was my stepson). We were married for 26 years. I was a Protestant pastor from 1973 until 1993.

The history of Reconciliation Services is very interesting but also a story in itself. It started in 1987 as Reconciliation Ministries, an interdenominational outreach to those in need in midtown Kansas City, and an attempt to be the “hands and feet of Jesus.”

At that time I and my wife Thelma were joined by other dedicated Christian workers from both the urban core and suburbs to do the work. In 1993, thirteen of us became Orthodox Christians.

Reconciliation Ministries eventually became a local parish under the Serbian Orthodox Church called “St. Mary of Egypt.”

Upon conversion, we received new names (I, David, received Paisius, and Thelma received Michaila).

I was ordained a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2001. Then in 2005, Reconciliation Services was formed to continue the outreach to those in need, as an expression of all of the Orthodox Churches in the region of Kansas City, aided by the help of people of good will in the area.

In 2012, my wife Michaila passed from long-standing illness. Then, after prayer and reflection I became an Orthodox hieromonk (i.e. priest-monk) in 2013, with the name Alexii.