St. Paisius Orthodox Monastery is a women’s coenobitic community which follows the traditional rule of monastic life. The monastery was founded in 1993, and is dedicated to St. Paisius Velichkovsky, who labored his whole life to collect and translate the texts of the Philokalia as a means of preserving the teachings of the Holy Fathers on the authentic Christian way of life.

The sisterhood is currently comprised of eighteen sisters. The Holy Liturgy is served daily in the monastery, and the daily cycle of services is conducted primarily in English.

 To support themselves, the sisters publish spiritual texts, make prayer ropes, and offer to over 1000 guests who visit the monastery each year a fully stocked bookstore. They also labor in cultivating the earth and tending the monastery’s flock of purebred milk goats and other animals in order to be as self-sufficient as possible.

Since 1995, the sisterhood has welcomed teenage girls who wish to live at the monastery while continuing their studies through a home-school curriculum. The Monastery Home School is dedicated to the Protection of the Theotokos.

Situated in the High Sonoran Desert at the base of Mount Graham, the monastery is in the process of building to meet the growing needs of the monastic community and the faithful who visit. The remodeling of the main house was recently completed and a new church, seen here, is in progress.

For those interested in reading more about monasticism, Decani Monastery in Kosovo has an excellent article on their website.