Guide for Pilgrims (Overnight Guests)
This page contains guidelines for staying one or more nights at the Monastery. Please also refer to the day visitor guidelines as they apply to overnight guests as well.
Making Your Plans
Pilgrims are asked to contact the Monastery to inquire about room availability before making travel arrangements.
You have a blessing to stay from one to five days. Any length of stay over five days must receive a blessing from our Monastery's abbot before any travel arrangements are made.
Pilgrims can arrange for the transportation from the airport to the monastery by calling in advance Arizona Value Shuttle at 1-800-548-6541 or Pinal Connections at 1-800-427-1271.
Your Arrival
We ask that you arrive at the Monastery between the hours of 8 AM and 5 PM. If this is not possible, please inform the Monastery Gatehouse so that someone will be available to greet you when you arrive and show you to your room.
Guest Houses
Pilgrims are welcome to partake of all the foods provided in the guesthouse.
Please also follow these rules:
- Label all personal food items.
- Do not bring food ordered from restaurants into the Monastery.
- Do not place personal items on unoccupied beds so as to keep them available for other pilgrims who may be coming to stay at the Monastery.
- Men are not allowed to enter the women’s guesthouse nor women to enter the men’s guesthouse.
- Do not gather around the area immediately in front of the monk’s cells and in front of the guesthouses, especially after the morning service and after Compline.
Quiet Hours
Although we kindly ask all visitors to be quiet and orderly while at the Monastery at all times, you are expected to be especially quiet during the Monastery’s Quiet Hours, which are:
- From 7:30 P.M. until 2:00 A.M.
- Three hours after the morning service
If you do not wish to rest in the morning after the service (after breakfast), we ask that you leave the guesthouse and the inner courtyard quietly. There are many areas on the grounds of the Monastery that can be used to sit or to talk quietly. We ask that you do not use the telephones nor the showers during the quiet hours.
Divine Services
All pilgrims staying at the Monastery are expected to attend all scheduled church services.
Holy Communion
Holy Communion is truly the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and just as it sanctifies and becomes for those prepared provision for eternal life, it may very well become “fire burning the unworthy” for those who are not. We therefore ask of all Orthodox Christians to prepare with confession and to have permission from their Spiritual Father before receiving Holy Communion, and also to prepare with the required fast as established by the Holy Fathers of the Church.
When the Holy Cup is brought forth from the Altar for Holy Communion, the veneration of icons should stop as the Lord is present in front of you in His Precious Body and Blood. We ask that you do not venerate the icons in the front of the Church as you proceed up to receive Holy Communion. Also we ask that you not venerate the icons after receiving the Precious Body and Blood of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
