The Community of St. Mary, is the oldest indigenous
Religious Order in the Episcopal Church, founded in
1865 in New York City. Contemplative and
Benedictine in ethos, the sisters of the Eastern
Province center their life together in corporate worship, personal discipline and study, and simple work -- with mission flowing outward from this stable anchor.
St. Mary’s Convent is set on a hillside overlooking Christ the King Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, New York, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany. The sisters’ ongoing witness to a life of prayer make Christ the King unique among conference centers of its kind in the United States.
A Short History of the “Peekskill Sisters”
The Community of St. Mary has been in Greenwich less than a decade. The Sisterhood of St. Mary was founded in New York City in 1865, centered in several active ministries. Property was purchased in Peekskill, NY, in 1873 which the sisters called Mount St. Gabriel. The Mother Foundress moved her office there, intending that the site become a quiet place for the training of the community's novice sisters and a haven for aging sisters. Mother Harriet saw the completion of of a monastic church at Mount St. Gabriel in 1890, and at the turn of the century a convent was built which could hold up to 40 women. By 1900 the convent at Peekskill, NY, became the operational hub of an Order with multiple institutions throughout the greater New York area as well as missions in the Midwest and Tennessee. Soon thereafter the sisters in the Midwest and South formed independent Provinces to administer their local institutions.
In 1983 the Eastern, Western and Southern
Provinces became fully separate and
autonomous and began pursuit of their own
particular expressions of the ideals of the
founding sisters. The Eastern Province
remained established in the old convent and
were often referred to simply as “the Peekskill
sisters.”
A New Chapter for the Eastern Province
By the middle of the twentieth century the
sisters began to struggle with increasing
governmental requirements for
institutional charitable work versus the time
commitment of living the full religious life.
To
which was our principal call? Was our first
call to the corporal works of mercy which
clearly had established the legitimacy of
our
founding sisters' call in the eyes of the
Church? Or was our primary call to single-minded devotion to God first, with all else following?
Our sisters in the sixties and seventies concluded the latter and read the sign of the times that the next great need of Church and society would be, less the institutional works which had defined their founding ethos, and more Christian spirituality and the primary place of Jesus Christ in
both private and corporate lives. They believed that
the counter-
cultural monastic witness the
community
was being called to in the
next century,
would be caught
up in their willingness to
share
with
others the transformative relationship with
Christ
they knew as
women given wholly
to God.
As the village surrounding the convent in Peekskill
changed from its original rural character to a more
urban population of the greater New York City metropolitan area, the Motherhouse there was no longer the place of
quiet and devotion that Mother
Harriet had envisioned. With an
invitation for sisters to come to the Diocese of Albany in 2000, the
Peekskill sisters saw the hand of
God
beckoning them to return to the original vision of mission and ministry flowing out of a heart filled only with God.
Once more the
sisters are situated in a
rural environment, seeking renewal in the Benedictine way of balancing prayer,
manual labor,
and the study of God's ways.
At Christ the King Center in the Episcopal Diocese of Albany
The sisters have been in residence in their new
home since 2004,
with the new St. Mary’s Chapel
and convent dedicated in 2005. We
enjoy a close
relationship with the Episcopal Diocese of
Albany
through our Episcopal Visitor, the Rt. Rev.
William
Love, also diocesan bishop.
The new convent in Greenwich is a two-story building,with its main entrance on the lower floor, facing east toward Christ the King Center. CtK Center offers adult lodging and conference facilities, a nationally- known ministry offering healing prayer, a Theological Library, a Youth Camp and a nature preserve. The Convent is connected by a short drive by paved road or by a ten-minute walk by foot path across a covered bridge to most parts of the Center. The combined properties feature more than 600 acres of woodland, meadowland and working farmland, including a 36-acre lake and miles of trails. Every
season has its beauty, and the sisters delight
in the close proximity to wild creatures: river
otters,woodchucks, ruffled
grouse, wild turkeys,
deer(even a moose has
been sighted!),
and red-tailed hawks.
Our convent was built to house and provide
work
and study space for 12
to 16 women.
The
north wing on both floors houses the
sisters’ private
quarters. The south wing has
offices, a kitchen and refectory (dining
room)
on the first floor and guest rooms on the second floor. The Chapel
and Great Room, in the center of the first floor, are open to guests. A
small library, mainly for the sisters’
use, but available to guests in retreat
or to others who
need access to the collections, is located on the first
floor. St. Scholastica’s chapel, a smaller chapel for
recollection and
private prayer, is located on the second
floor.
Vision and Mission
The principal mission of the Community, out of which all
other
work
proceeds, remains the daily
offering of a
sacrifice of
praise
and glory to God.
The
Holy Eucharist
is celebrated every morning
in
St. Mary's Chapel, and
the Divine Office is also
chanted or
recited daily
according to our English
plainsong tradition. All
worship
at the convent is
open to the public, and
guests are
welcome to join
the sisters daily for afternoon Tea in the
convent
Great Room or outdoors and (seasonal) barn or
farm tours. Guest house facilities are available for
individual private retreats
and
small retreat groups can also be accommodated.Community
life in the
convent at Greenwich
provides a stable Benedictine
balance of worship,
study and work,
out of which the sisters can live the consecrated monastic
life. They raise sheep and cashmere goats, along with maintaining flower
and vegetable gardens, and developing lost skills of manual fiber crafts.
mission and ministry at the CtK Center and the Diocese of Albany, and then to the Anglican Church and the larger world.
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