It is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the death of one of the founders and benefactors of our parish, the Archimandrite Damian Hart, formerly of Ascension Monastery, who reposed in the Lord at 11:13 PM Pacific Time on the Eve of the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (and our daughter’s name-day whom he baptized). Fr Damian was instrumental in the formation and the direction of the early members of our church, having baptized, catechized, married, confessed, and offered spiritual direction to many of us.He was a man of nobility and goodness, and a master of the Southern idiom. Maybe in a few years I will try to gather all of his homemade phrases which made conversation with him so enjoyable and memorable.
Of the Monastery he led in Resaca, Georgia, he often said that it will not be completely built until those who founded it lie in its graves. When one of the other founders, Fr John Harwell, reposed in 2001, he restated this point in the eulogy after funeral service, adding glibly: “one more to go.”
May God bless and have mercy upon His good and faithful servant, and grant him life everlasting.
Dear Father, I will miss you.
