His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. Thus He has given us, through these things, His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.
2 Peter 1:3-4
In a small, Christian community in the north of New Zealand, brought together by the Holy Trinity, a monastery is dedicated to the living and teaching of union with God – theosis.
Prior Rob and Sister Irini, as they are known locally, have established a property solely given over to a life of theosis. Drawing from their Coptic Orthodox baptism, their worldwide Christian ministries and time in Egypt among the desert monks and nuns, these contemplatives live a life of prayer and worship, liturgy, teaching, ministry, writing, creativity and garden works.
St Enoch and St Elijah Monastery (SEASEM) harks back to the ancient tradition of Culdee Christianity, before cenobitic communities were brought into the institutional Church. It bridges the Egyptian desert tradition of monasticism in the 4th and 5th centuries and the influence of monks in Ireland and the British Isles on monasticism. It is neither priestly nor currently under a bishop (prayerfully awaiting God’s timing for this), yet the monastery is wholly eucharistic, alive in the liturgical life, and faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Life revolves around the Divine Office, Holy Scripture, the Prayer of the Heart, and teachings from the Philokalia and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and the writings of early Church Fathers and Mothers.
Delighting in God’s creation, we abstain from eating meat, live in harmony with the land, grow much of our own food, home chickens, ducks, fish and cats, with many other animals passing through, as guests. Prior and Sister Irini are keen apiarists understanding the value of bees to a healthy ecosystem and life in general. Bee keeping is a natural part of SEASEM’s monastic life, environmental consciousness, and contribution to the local flora and agricultural growth of the area.
The monastery is a Holy Spirit given plant in New Zealand in service to persons of Aeteroa and globally in a troubled world, hungry for spiritual depth, Christ’s witness and hope.
We value the encounter with God in each person, knowing that true encounter leads to loving and knowing, and revealing God more intimately; and that this intimacy, as Christ shows us with God the Father in his meeting of persons on the way, advances ours and others’ spiritual life. To this end, SEASEM is evangelistic, taking the gospel of Christ to the world through monastic retreats locally and internationally, as missionaries for theosis.
So too, each year, pilgrims from among the global family of believers who are friends and partners with the monastery, visit, retreat with and engage with God’s place in Aotearoa for the purposes of drawing closer to the indwelling Spirit of God, towards their life of theosis.
May you be welcome and may God bless you in every way.
Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’
John 14:23