Page 12 - Priorities #35 2006-October

Our founding fathers:
The seven monks who founded Woodside Priory School
By Lindsay Farino
Ora et Labora. Prayer and Work. The seven founding monks of Woodside Priory School lived by the Benedictine motto.
“The most important thing to remember,” said Father Maurus of the founding monks of Woodside Priory, “is that the first couple of decades (of the
life of our school) were extremely hard in every sense of the word.” The Priory was founded with the “blood and sweat” of seven Benedictine monks who believed in God’s providence to lead them to
a new, monastic home in the United States. Father Maurus remembers pictures of the monks physically leveling the first soccer field. The monks brought high school soccer to the area.
After years in exile -- first, from their mother abbey in Hungary, and second, from each other for years in the United States -- they would succeed in coming together in community to found and build Woodside Priory School. As prescribed in the Benedictine order of individual responsibility for each abbey, they were on their own. Though poor, theywouldcultivatethesupportofacommunityand start the first Benedictine School in California.
Until the Russian occupation of Hungary in 1945,
Father Christopher (left) shares a victory cup and big smile with Priory athletes.
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Father Egon Javor, Father Emod Brunner, Father Leopold Hoffer, Father Benignus Barat, Father Christopher Hites, Father Stanley Jaki, and Father Achilles Horvath were members of St. Martin’s Archabbey of Pannonhalma, Hungary. St. Martins’ had been in existence for over 900 years. Founded by Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary, the monastery was a stronghold of St. Benedict’s Holy Rules. These monks were the missionaries of Hungary, with, at one time, 80 abbeys in existence
in Hungary. As educators, their schools had a strong influence on the religious and the intellectual life of their country. But in 1948, the Benedictine properties and schools were nationalized and then closed by the communist government, and the seven founding Benedictine monks were forced into exile.
They left with only bare necessities and their strongfaithinGod. DispersedfirstinEurope
and eventually in the United States, they worked and waited for a chance to meet and plan their futuretogether. Duringtheirfirstreunioninthe United States in 1951, the monks decided they each needed time to get to know the United States, the languageandtheAmericanwayoflife. Whilethey waited, the monks dispersed again each to earn
a living by teaching or by pastoral work, and to study for additional advanced degrees in American Universities. Even before they began these endeavors, as part of a scholarly unit of the Benedictine Order,
Father Egon (at right) supervised study in the library. The card files by the book stacks were the height of organizational technology at the time.
Father Egon circa 1960
Father Christopher’s colleagues playfully advised him that applicants for US citizenship had to sing the national anthem. Then, they gleefully listened to him diligently practice for weeks, Father Pius recalls.