The charitable foundation — Deutsches Orthodoxes Dreifaltigkeitskloster

The charitable foundation “Deutsches Orthodoxes Dreifaltigkeitskloster” serves the re-establishment of the Christian spirit and Christian culture of Germany from the inheritance of the ancient undivided Church, as it has always been preserved in Orthodox Christendom (quoted from the foundation statute). Its hallmark is the primacy of mystical theology of experience, which is necessarily bound to the human person and draws from the inexhaustible wellspring of eternity.

Many people do not know that Germany was entirely Orthodox until AD 815, and up to the 13th century still largely so, something that continues to have an effect in the popular piety of some regions of the German-speaking lands and beyond to this day. Early Christian culture in our regions was by no means only Latin, but especially in the beginning also German-speaking and essentially shaped by Byzantium. Orthodox Christianity, as the fathers of Buchhagen live and teach it, is nothing foreign, but rather the recovery of our own deepest spiritual roots. The foundation makes possible the life and work of the German Orthodox monastic community, which, as bearer of this spiritual culture, sets up the axis of eternity in our land beyond the spirit of the age and ever anew draws holy culture from there. The German Orthodox Holy Trinity Monastery is indeed not “of the world”, but nevertheless it must exist “in this world” as an image of the primordial eternal kingdom and a paradigm of true life in Christ.

The work of the foundation is borne by trust in the eternal triune God and by the certainty that an authentically lived and inculturated primordial Christianity corresponds most deeply to the German soul and will, to a high degree, lead to the healing and sanctification also of our people and country. The foundation is operationally active. It supports and finances the building up, preservation, life and work of the German Orthodox sanctuary in Buchhagen in the Weser Uplands. This includes several areas:

The sanctuary is carried by a young and excellently coordinated monastic community. Whoever attends the divine service here experiences the spiritual power and beauty of a Christianity that unites time and eternity - presence of the holy. Through orientation to the oldest sources and attachment to living tradition, Buchhagen is a place of spirit and culture in the very best sense. Valuable and life-giving impulses proceed from here for the necessary renewal of Christianity in our land. In this, the preservation and cultivation of the German language as a sacred language plays an important role - something which by itself already constitutes a worthy object of support of the first order. Regarding religious orientation, the separation into "East" and "West" is overcome in exemplary fashion and the original spiritual unity of ancient, whole Europe is regained. What is lived and taught in the monastery radiates outward and acts as a spiritual impulse into society as a whole.