Volunteers helping us weed and mulch a garden. The world is beginning to turn green again, and you know what that means! It's time to invite you all to our Spring Work Day!  We hope you can join us for a day of outdoor and indoor work projects, prayer, food and fun at the monastery and the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch on Saturday, May 18. Volunteers of all ages and abilities are welcome! The day begins at 1:30 p.m. and closes with Vespers at 5:00 p.m., followed by a cookout. Come whenever available, and please bring a side dish to share. The monastery is located at 1748 ..read more

  We hope you all are having a blessed Great Fast. It's really flying by, and as we approach its final days and Great and Holy Week, we wanted to take the opportunity to invite you to pray with us.  We invite you to join us for Bridegroom Matins, our patronal commemoration, on Wednesday, March 27, at 9:00 a.m. in our monastery chapel. We are looking forward to praying this service, which is so important to our monastery, with Bishop Robert for the first time. The readings and hymns of this service help us embrace a spirit of watchfulness and vigilance as we enter into the commemora ..read more

  As we begin this Fast, we'd like to share some upcoming opportunities for you to join us in prayer.  Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: We have this liturgy in our monastery chapel each Wednesday and Friday during the Great Fast at 3:00. Please check our Liturgy Schedule tab to be sure. We'd love to have you join us.  Daily Prayer: All are welcome to join us for any of our prayer. Please see our Great Fast Schedule 2024 for the times of each service, and please note that you may want to call ahead just to be sure we haven't had to change our schedule that day.&nbs ..read more

  On Sunday, December 31st, 2023, Mother Cecilia was officially instituted as our hegumena. Below are some of her reflections on the day of the institution as well as the meaning behind the design of her staff.  May God grant Mother Cecilia many blessed years as our shepherdess!  About the Significance of Today’s Date I suggested today’s date to Bishop Robert as a possibility for my institution as hegumena because it is both the leave-taking of the feast of the Nativity (the Nativity having a lot of significance to me in my spiritual life) and because today, the Sunda ..read more

Christ is Born! Glorify Him! Wishing you all a merry and blessed Christmas from all of us at Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. May we all find a place around the cave in Bethlehem and meet Christ there in this festive period.  "I see a strange and marvelous mystery: heaven is a cave, the cherubic throne a virgin; the manger has become the place in which Christ the incomprehensible God lies down. Let us praise him and extol him." -Irmos of the Nativity  ..read more

Recently, Mother Iliana was interviewed by Matt Fradd on his show "Pints with Aquinas." Among other things in this long-form interview, she talks about her new book, The Light of His Eyes. You can find the video of the interview here.  To read more about her book, you can check out this article in the National Catholic Register, "Never Forget: God Is Your Loving Father, and He Thinks You're Worth Dying For." We have been really blessed to hear how Mother Iliana's book is touching so many people's lives!  ..read more

 We'd like to share with you the story of the life of our very own, Mother Iliana's, great-grandfather, Father Vasyl Lonchyna, who was martyred for the faith on November 21st, 1946. Recently, his story was translated into English by Christine Gilbert, and so we are blessed to be able to share his story with you. He was born on February 1, 1886, in the family of a wojt* in the village of Derniv in the Lviv region. He finished German gymnasium and Theological faculty of the Lviv University. In 1912, he got married (in marriage he had three children) and was ordained a priest. Until 1915 ..read more

Dear friends and benefactors, Thank you for your incredible support of our monastic life! At our Bridegroom's Banquet on Saturday, November 4 (and in donations given remotely), we raised over $135,000, $100,000 of which will be matched! These funds will allow us to continue our monastic life and to save for our next building project, which may be more poustinias or an addition to the monastery building. We continue to discern the next step. As I shared at the end of the banquet, your support is incredibly important to us, because there are few things that we do that actually bring in any inc ..read more

  Without further ado, we are very excited to share with you our newest video, "'Be It Done unto Me': Reflections on Obedience." We encourage you to watch and pray with what you hear and see. We also would like to express our gratitude to David Bratnick, our filmmaker friend who did an incredible job putting this together for us. We hope that this video will bear much fruit ..read more

The day of the Bridegroom's Banquet has finally arrived, and we're busy getting ready to welcome everyone! The funds we raise tonight, as well as the donations that have already been sent in, will be matched by a generous donor, up to $100,000. If you'd still like to donate and have your generosity doubled, you can donate online by this evening. Please visit this link to make a pledge or donate by credit card or EFT.  We are so grateful for your generous support of our monastic life. We're amazed by the magnitude of the generosity we receive each year at Banquet time. We could ..read more