History

The story behind the location of the Monastery began with a lengthy three year search that had yielded no perfect place. With no promising leads in sight, a decision was made to continue the search while simultaneously looking for a sign from God . That sign came when the then Archbishop of New Zealand visited a vast and beautiful plot of land with a house, native bush and a stream for sale near the town of Levin; it seemed just right. The Archbishop looked about him and spoke these words ‘This is the place.’ And indeed it was, for shortly after came the surprise, the seal of approval, the sign of Divine providence. It was discovered that decades before, there had been two monks, New Zealanders, who had become Orthodox and subsequently taken monastic vows. They had tried to establish a Monastery in New Zealand but their efforts had ultimately failed. Subsequently one of the monks, Nicolas, died. Nicolas had been born in Levin - not only in Levin, but in fact on the very land that had been purchased as the site for the Monastery. In a beautiful weaving together of past and present, the builder chosen to construct the small Monastery church on the land where Nicolas had been born turned out to be his brother-in-law, Peter. Fittingly, the monk Nicolas’ final resting place is also in the small town of Levin - the town that houses the only Orthodox Monastery in New Zealand.
The Church of three chapels was built in 2010.