A sad chapter in the history of Orthodoxy in this country and yet another reason why SCOBA or the forthcoming episcopal assembly must devise a cohesive and comprehensive set of regulations to protect its people - both the laity as well as the seminarians and novices - from sexual predators.
BLANCO (SANews) — For sale: 105-acre hilltop parcel southwest of town with great views for $785,500. Includes former monastery notorious for sexual abuse and phony weeping icon.
With the criminal cases resolved concerning the former Christ of the Hills Monastery, a judge on Friday authorized its sale, with the proceeds mainly to benefit a former novice monk who was molested there in the 1990s.
The novice, James B. Wright Jr., later won a $1 million judgment against Ecumenical Monks Inc., the owner.
“It's about as good an ending to a bad situation as he could have hoped for,” lawyer Mark Long said of his client after the hearing in Johnson City.
“When we started this, our intent was to see the monastery sold,” Long said. “It's finally on the block.”
State District Judge Dan Mills' order also calls for the Blanco County Sheriff's Department to get $250,000 from the sale for the cost of investigating the religious enclave founded in 1981 by the late Samuel A. Greene Jr.
The monastery gained national attention in 1985 over claims a picture of the Virgin Mary cried tears of myrrh, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors and more than $1 million in donations.
On Friday, the main chapel looked much as it did on July 25, 2006, when authorities swarmed in to arrest Greene and others, seize the icon and shut the monastery down.
The site went on the market three weeks ago, said Realtor Bill Hultquist of Spring Branch, who reports getting daily inquiries.
Despite the “spectacular view” and running creek, the price is marked down because a buyer must contend with roughly 20 structures, mostly mobile homes still filled with former occupants' belongings.
“You walk into a lot of the buildings and it looks like the people just left yesterday,” Hultquist said.
There's also a small graveyard whose occupants include Greene, widely known in South Texas as a land broker before he donned black robes and became “Father Benedict.”
“I wouldn't consider that a positive,” Hultquist said, noting the cemetery must be kept accessible to visitors.
Another marketing minus is the monastery's sordid history, which will linger even if the structures are razed. “Some people are a little squeamish about that,” he said.
Greene, 63, committed suicide in his trailer there days before a court hearing in 2007, charged with violating his probation for a 2000 indecency conviction. He was also facing new legal exposure after he admitted other misdeeds — and implicated fellow monks — in talks with his probation officer.
In the secretly recorded conversations, authorities say, Greene admitted molestations dating to the 1970s and confirmed suspicions the weeping icon was fake.
Authorities in 2006 brought sex-abuse charges against Greene and his longtime followers; William E. Hughes, Jonathan Hitt, Hugh B. Fallon and Walter P. Christley.
A month after Greene's death, Hughes, aka “Father Vasili,” was convicted at trial of four counts of sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 80 years. That outcome spawned guilty pleas by Christley, aka “Father Pangratios,” to sexual assault of a 16-year-old novice in 1994 and Fallon, aka “Father Tihkon,” to aggravated assault. Both were fined but avoided prison.
And, last February, Hitt admitted to sexual assault of a 16-year-old boy in 1993. His plea deal called for him to serve no additional time in prison beyond the 10-year sentence he was serving for a 1999 indecency conviction.
The order signed Friday was backed by the state, which had filed suit to seize the site after the 2006 raid.
Also on board was Ecumenical Monks Inc., said its attorney, Adam Kobs. “We're glad this is finally resolved and the victim in this matter is being compensated,” he said.
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