Biography of Mother Alexandra

Biography of Mother Alexandra

Mother Alexandra was born on October 11, 1965 in New Bedford, MA and is oldest of two surviving children.  She was baptized in Saint James Roman Catholic Church and confirmed at the age of 13 at Our Lady of Fatima Parish. She attended public schools in her home town, graduating from New Bedford High School in 1983.  After a short attendance at the University of Massachusetts in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, she left the world and entered a Cistercian or Trappistine Convent where her introduction to Orthodoxy occurred.  In 1990, she left primarily to pursue her education, working at several jobs to finance her education and attending Orthodox parishes.  In 1994, she was granted a Bachelor of Arts equivalency from Saint Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado.  When that school closed, she moved and restarted her theological education at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.  In 1997, she was awarded Masters of Arts Degrees in Systematic Theology and Church History.  While in graduate school, she served as the Assistant Director at the Episcopal House of Prayer in Collegeville.  After graduating, she accepted a position at Montini Catholic High School in Lombard, Illinois, where she served as Campus Minister, retreat director, instructor of Theology and Chairperson of the Theology Department for eight of her nine years at the school.  After her move to Illinois, she attended Holy Transfiguration Antiochian Church in Wheaton, Illinois where she was formally received into the Orthodox faith and chrismated on Theophany 1998.  When the parish moved, she attended Saint Joseph Church in Wheaton, Illinois.  Having paid her school loans, she resigned her position at the high school in 2006 to return to a normative monastic life at Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery in Otego, New York.  In May of 2008 Bishop Tikhon of the Diocese of Eastern Pennsylvania received Mother Alexandra as a schemanun.

Mother Alexandra is named after Alexander, one of the Holy 40 Martyrs of Sebaste and her name’s day is March 9.

She can also be reached by email at motheralexandra at gmail.com.