Bad Brotherly Love
Five of the brothers at the Russian Orthodox Christ of the Hills Monastery in Texas have been charged with sexual assault of a child. The person who came forward to accuse the monks says that he had been assaulted at the monastery beginning in 1993, when he was a teenager. Since then, another man has come forward saying the same thing, and the DA says there could be more.
It sounds like the young man in question was a novice, living at the monastery and preparing to become a brother via some questionable induction ceremonies with the elders. I suspect this is the case, considering that one of the five indicted monks, Jonathan Hitt, 45, was convicted in 1999 of indecency with a 14-year-old novice monk at the Eastern Orthodox Christian monastery, and is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence.
The other monks are William Hughes, 55, known as Father Vasilli; Walter Christley, 44, known as Father Pangratios; Hugh Fallon, 40, known as Father Tihkon; and monastery founder Samuel Greene, 61, known as Father Benedict. Greene also pleaded guilty six years ago to indecency with the same novice monk from the 1999 case and was sentenced to 10 years' probation. In this case, they are pleading not guilty.
Check out this scary picture of Greene from the earlier case.
It looks like this monastery has been involved with sexual abuse of children frequently enough to warrant an entire page about it on a website that monitors abuse in the Orthodox community.
As if novice molestation wasn't enough reason to visit the Christ of the Hills monastery, visitors also come to see a painting of the Virgin Mary who allegedly cries tears of myrrh. Locals are dubious. The sheriff said, "The whole thing is going to be exposed as a sham. They just put the tear drops on there themselves and then got all these people making donations trying to get some kind of miracle cure."