Our Beginning
Father Christ Ministries Trust was born quietly in February of 2020, during a time of spiritual awakening and personal conviction. My wife, Arsenia, and I—Vasili—had already begun reshaping our lives around what it truly meant to live as Orthodox Christians in the world without becoming of the world. We didn’t want to merely “believe” or “attend”—we wanted to conform our entire life to Christ and His Church in everything: our home, our labor, our prayer, our decisions, and even our legal structure.
As a student of law, finance, and theology, I felt a growing burden to build something that would reflect my inner spiritual reality—something canonical, lawful, sacrificial, and free from worldly compromise. In our search for integrity and alignment between heaven and earth, we were drawn to the trust structure—not as a tax tool, but as a sacred expression of Orthodox stewardship.
We did not want to form a corporation, nonprofit board, or commercial entity. We wanted to create something private, irrevocable, and consecrated—a vessel for quiet ministry, lawful support of monasteries, and hospitality for fellow Orthodox pilgrims. After much prayer, study, and spiritual counsel, we formed Father Christ Ministries Trust as a 508(c)(1)(A) religious trust, patterned after Orthodox ecclesiology, monastic discipline, and contract law rooted in natural and divine order.
About Us
While Father Christ Ministries Trust is not a parish church, we fully belong to and confess the Orthodox Christian faith in its fullness—handed down by the Holy Apostles, safeguarded by the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and preserved in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We function as a private Orthodox ministry, operating under the blessing and guidance of spiritual fathers, and in alignment with the canonical structure of the Church, with deep reverence for Orthodox monastic tradition, elderhood, and episcopal oversight.
We do not perform sacraments or serve as a liturgical parish, nor do we create parallel rites. Instead, we exist as an extension of Orthodox phronema—supporting the Church’s mission through charitable works, spiritual formation, and quiet obedience. Our role is to uphold the teachings of the Church and to serve those who have dedicated their lives to Christ, particularly through hospitality, labor, and private devotional life.
With the blessing of our spiritual father, Father Paul, we assist nearby monastic communities including Panagia Prousiotissa Monastery in Troy, NC, under Gerondissa Agni, and Panagia Pammakaristos Monastery in Lawsonville, NC, under Geronda Nektarios. We provide free or low-cost housing and meals to pilgrims who travel to these monasteries seeking spiritual guidance, quiet retreat, or simply a place to rest and pray near sacred ground. In a spirit of discretion and compassion, we offer shelter, nourishment, and a peaceful environment rooted in prayer.
We also volunteer our time and labor to meet the practical needs of these monastic communities—through donations, food preparation, cleaning, manual work, transportation, and groundskeeping, or anything requested of us in humble obedience. All we offer is given in love and without recognition, as part of our quiet commitment to Orthodox diakonia.
Our internal rhythm is shaped by the liturgical calendar of the Orthodox Church and the Athonite typikon, including the strict observances of the Great Fast, Dormition Fast, and Nativity Fast. Each day is anchored in Orthodox prayer, spiritual reading, and reflection drawn from the lives of the saints, the writings of the Holy Fathers, and the hymnography of the Church.
Though we do not serve as a parish community, we live as a small ecclesial brotherhood, modeling our daily life on the monastic houses we support. In our own way, we offer a living liturgy—a life of repentance, obedience, and Orthodox witness—quietly lived for the glory of God, the service of His Church, and the salvation of souls.
Living the Orthodox Life — And Structuring It Accordingly
For us, living an Orthodox life is not merely a matter of external conformity, rubrics, or cultural preservation. It is a total reordering of life around Christ—a commitment to align every part of our existence with the mind of the Church, the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, and the witness of the Holy Fathers.
It means ordering our home as a domestic church, where prayer is not occasional, but foundational—where candles are lit, icons are venerated, and the Psalter is heard. It means sanctifying our income through lawful reinvestment, avoiding compromise with unethical systems, and offering our increase in almsgiving to the monasteries and the poor. It means fasting quietly and faithfully, even when no one sees, in obedience to the Typikon and the spirit of repentance.
To live an Orthodox life is to discipline our time, our talents, and our resources, conforming even our work and planning to the teachings of the Church. It is to live without spectacle, in quiet fidelity to Christ, in obedience to spiritual fathers, and in deep reverence for the hiddenness of the monastic life. It is to labor not for appearances, but for the unseen things: for repentance, for humility, for the sanctification of the heart.
This spiritual conviction demanded a legal and material structure that could carry the same weight. And so, after much study, counsel, and prayer, we chose to form a private irrevocable trust as the vessel through which this Orthodox life could be lived out—lawfully, responsibly, and in harmony with both spiritual and earthly stewardship.
A private religious trust gave us what no nonprofit corporation, board-driven charity, or limited liability structure ever could:
Permanence in purpose, immune from dissolution by shifting policies or personalities
Canonical and legal separation from secular influence, allowing us to remain fully devoted to Orthodox witness without compromise
Operation under natural law and private contract, in keeping with both our ecclesial identity and our lawful responsibilities
And most importantly, protection of our spiritual intent—ensuring that everything we build remains faithful to Christ, His Church, and our monastic commitments even beyond our lifetimes
This was not a financial strategy. It was, and remains, a spiritual boundary—a sacred hedge around a way of life we believe must be protected, preserved, and handed down.
Through the trust, we are able to structure our offerings, our land, our income, and our labor in a way that is legally durable, spiritually obedient, and functionally effective—supporting monasteries, housing pilgrims, and living quietly in the shadow of the Cross.
Everything we do, we do with the blessing of our spiritual father, in alignment with monastic elders, and with the ever-deepening desire to live the Orthodox life not only in word and outward ritual, but in form, structure, and inward truth.