The buildings and the immediate natural surroundings of the monastery are sanctified space, where human beings, angels, and the many creatures of God's creation live in harmony with God.

For an Orthodox sanctuary, however modest it may be, sacred symbolism and beauty are important. In everything, the heavenly prototype should be reflected. Beauty, like love, goodness, omnipotence, and so on, belongs to the attributes of God, or, as one also says, to the names of God. Therefore beauty is a spiritual necessity.

The monastery buildings are comparatively delicate. Yet their arrangement and proportional articulation convey the impression of a harmonious whole. The sanctuary fits naturally into the mountain landscape of the Vogler range. The building volumes adapt themselves to the natural conditions of the terrain in a polygonal arrangement and are enclosed by walls and hedges. This is a characteristic feature of Orthodox monasteries, as can be seen on the Holy Mountain of Athos, in older Orthodox monastic complexes of the Balkans, and in other parts of the world.

For both ideal and economic reasons, all building forms and techniques were meant to be simple enough to be carried out by the community itself. Simple wooden beam ceilings rest upon sturdy walls and round arches.

The building proportions are determined by harmonious whole-number ratios, which also recur in sacred chant and in the modal system of the German Choral.

Artistically designed architectural elements, for example in the capitals, draw on the formal language of the early Romanesque of the Weser region and develop it further. The early, pre-Romanesque architecture and art of our region are astonishingly close to their contemporary Byzantine counterparts. It was the age of a great European cultural and spiritual unity stretching from Ireland to Georgia.

As in most Orthodox monasteries, the church is oriented toward the east. So far only the crypt has been completed; it was built in 1994 and consecrated in 1996. The two principal daily services currently take place there. The planned monastery church in the cross-in-square domed type corresponds to the main churches (katholika) of the Athonite monasteries. In its outward appearance it draws on the pre-Romanesque and early Romanesque church buildings of Germany, especially those of the Weserbergland.

Church guide – (pdf file)

On the mountain side to the southeast lies the monastery garden, which ensures self-sufficiency in vegetables. Above it, an orchard has been planted.

The particular features of the mountain landscape require considerable design effort. In some areas, terraces with sandstone walls were created. In 1992 alone, 2,000 native shrubs were planted along paths, as crowning elements or continuations of the sandstone terraces, and as enclosures. In this way the water balance is harmonised and a habitat is created for a wide variety of small animals and plants. Snakes and small lizards have settled in the garden walls. The diversity of birdlife is overwhelming. In autumn, flocks of migratory birds rest on the monastery grounds.

Before Father Johannes began painting the cloister chapel, he studied, among other things, the oldest surviving frescoes in Germany on the monastery island of Reichenau. Remarkable is the bright, translucent colouring, which also characterises the early Russian frescoes in Kiev and in the Golden Ring around Moscow, but above all Late Antique Christian painting.