SAN FRANCISCO — For the young Sister Ariadna, the monastery of Our Lady of Vladimir in Russia’s Ural Mountains was her chosen home. Here she had come in
1917, just out of high school, as a novitiate (a beginner), to live the contemplative, yet rigorous life of a Russian Orthodox nun. Such a life is not for everyone. Her decision surprised her parents. But like the other nuns of Our Lady of Vladimir, Sister Ariadna knew she had been called to it by God.
Set among pastures and gardens the monastery itself, which had been founded by one Abbess Rufina in 1911, flourished. Recollections vary, but it seems the monastery was home to between 20 and 40 women. Their days were filled with prayer, contemplation, and work. But their peaceful existence came to an abrupt end in 1919 when the Communist revolution — which had seemed far away — reached their province and they were forced to flee. Taking with them their religious books, vestments and icons, they traveled east on boxcars ahead of the Red Army. Their lands and buildings were seized by the government in the name of the people.
The sisters journeyed over a thousand miles, hoping at every stop that they had found a place to re-establish their monastery. A typhus epidemic decimated the group at one point, but they continued eastward, eventually arriving at the city of Vladivostok on the shores of the Pacific Ocean where they thought they’d be safe. They built a new monastery on land they were given. Surely the Revolution would not come this far, but it did. Again the gentle sisters had to flee, this time to China where the Nationalist government welcomed them.
When Abbess Rufina died in 1937, Sister Ariadna took her place, a position she held until she retired in 1990 at the age of 90. The nuns lived in China from 1923 through World War II, only to have their lives uprooted again by Communist forces. Again their properties were seized by the government in the name of the people. Again they had to flee for their lives.
In 1950 — having been scattered to different parts of the world — they reassembled in San Francisco. Since then their home has been an old Victorian building, with an adjacent church, in the Mission District. The name was changed to conform to American usage which specifies monasteries as religious residences for men, convents for women. It’s now the Russian Convent of Our Lady of Vladimir. There are at present eight nuns, ages 40 to 87.
But Abbess Ariadna and her assistant Sister Eugenia, who had joined the monastery in 1930 while they were still in China, knew this was not an area conducive to a contemplative way of life. If the monastery were to flourish it should be relocated in a rural setting as it had been in Russia.
A few years before her retirement, the abbess asked a friend — Michael Klestoff, who is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church and a real estate broker — to help. Two years ago he found what they were looking for — 284 acres of beautiful wooded hillside property in the mountains of south of San Francisco, a spectacular site in San Mateo County overlooking Half Moon Bay. Here the sisters could build a new home: a
small chapel, a building for retreats, living quarters for the eight women — to be eventually joined, it was hoped, by 10 others. There was plenty of space for gardening, something impossible in San Francisco.
“We found this property by chance,” Kestoff recalled for WorldNetDaily. “It had everything the sisters needed — correct density credits, privacy, water — all the things we were looking for.” He and the Abbess Ariadna and her successor Abbess Eugenia had looked at many properties in the San Francisco Bay area, particularly in Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and even further north. Unfortunately, Abbess Ariadna died a year before the property was located. Nonetheless, her the long-deferred dream could now be realized.
But that dream was dashed last week, when at 1:30 am, Thursday, during an
emotional six-hour hearing in a packed meeting room, the board of the Mid-peninsula Regional Open Space District (a multi-jurisdictional authority) in a 6-1 vote, passed a “resolution of necessity” to condemn the property, the first step in the eminent domain process. In the name of the people, for the public good. Of course. Just like in Russia and China.
Within hours, attorneys for the open space district filed papers in the San Mateo County Superior Court against the convent and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco that sold them the parcel for $700,000.
The move was blasted by county supervisor Mike Nevin, who has taken on the fight for the nuns.
“It’s the worst land action, the most unjust, and the most unnecessary taking of land I’ve ever witnessed in 16 years as a public official,” he told WorldNetDaily. Nevin is a former mayor of Daly City near San Francisco, and for five years was on the Daly City council.
The irony of the situation isn’t lost on Nevin. “These nuns came here from Russia. They went first to China. They came here for freedom and we’re not allowing them the American right to own property,” he said.
As Nevin sees it, “This isn’t about open space — This is NIMBYism. (for ‘not-in-my-back-yard’). It’s basically that the rich folks that live near the property have influenced the open space district. They claim the nuns are going to do commercial businesses and have a bakery. In fact, they make unleavened bread for religious purposes,” he said.
But opposition didn’t come only from the neighbors. The Sierra Club and the Committee for Green Foothills actively urged the district to take the entire property to prevent any development whatsoever.
The board’s decision was a bitter blow to the nuns and those who had worked with them for over four months of negotiations with the open space district. It’s not as though the nuns weren’t willing to compromise. They offered suggestion after suggestion. At the same time they were moving the project through the standard planning process with the regular county agencies. The county supervisors had approved the concept, the Planning Commission was generally favorable to their proposals, the environmental impact report was being prepared.
“The convent had come up with a proposal that would satisfy almost everything the district had wanted,” said attorney Colleen Doherty, who represents the nuns. The developed area would cover about 6 acres, just 3 percent of the site.
According to Doherty, “They [the nuns] promised to put 90 percent of the property into open space. The property is a rectangular shape, with one end of the rectangle up along Skyline Boulevard where there are homes and existing development. They proposed to put the convent, chapel and the retreat in that area — that would leave 90 percent in permanent open space. They offered over half of the property — 60 percent (165 acres) — to be sold to the open space district for $300,000 so they could put trails in. That includes all the most spectacular view points, what they consider the most environmentally sensitive areas — all of that they offered to the district.”
The nuns also agreed not to build a duplex to house a priest and housekeeper.
“Where is the public necessity when we’ve offered them so much?” Doherty asks.
The Mid-peninsula Open Space District — which owns 43,000 acres in two adjacent counties of which 15,000 is in San Mateo County — exists primarily to acquire land for its system of nature preserves and wildlife corridors. Its $14 million annual budget is funded through a surcharge on property taxes within its jurisdiction which covers not only unincorporated land but 16 cities.
Founded in 1972, the district has seldom found it necessary to resort to a threat of eminent domain, according to Malcolm Smith, public affairs manager for the district. Smith recalled the district’s board passed resolutions of necessity only 15 times in 25 years and 400 transactions. Of those 15 times, the district filed a lawsuit 12 times — 13 times with this one — and these were settled out of court.
“It’s not the preferred way to buy land,” said Smith. “It’s the most contentious, difficult, and expensive way to acquire it.”
Indeed.
Said Doherty, “If they do nothing but let the situation be, the county would get 90 percent of the property in permanent open space at no cost to anybody. Or they could decide to accept our proposal and buy 60 percent of the land for $300,000. We’d prefer to sell it since we won’t be using it. The district appraises the land at $962,000, which is low, so it’ll cost the taxpayers of the district over $1 million to compensate the nuns — and they could have 90 percent of it for nothing.”
Supervisor Nevin says the battle is far from over. On March 24, the five-member board of supervisors unanimously approved a resolution he authored strongly urging the directors of the open space district to rescind their resolution of necessity for seizing the property.
However, the supervisors have no formal control over independent authorities like the district. These have their own powers — including eminent domain — and are accountable to no other government entity or to the public.
This strikes the nuns as very strange. “I thought there was some kind of check on government agencies,” said one sister who requested her name not be given. “But the district seems to be able to do whatever it wants and doesn’t answer to anybody — not to the supervisors, not even to the state (of California).”
Nevin agrees, and realizing this he is prepared to carry the fight to the state legislature if the district does not rescind the resolution. As a contingency the Democratic Assemblyman Lewis Papan from the area has agreed to introduce legislation that would make decisions by special districts to invoke the use of eminent domain dependent for final approval on county supervisors. The legislation would be made retroactive in order to save the nuns’ land.
“The district would have to develop a complete EIR (environmental impact report) and prove there is a true public necessity. That is not the case here,” said Nevin.
“Can you think of any more wonderful neighbors than a group of religious women who spend their lives praying for everyone else?” he asked. “We talk about nature and open space and the environment bringing us closer to God, then they don’t allow those who could lead us in religion to be part of that atmosphere. I just don’t get it. It’s incredible what we’re doing to those women.”
The nuns remain stoic despite their disappointment. It is “the way of the Cross,” explained one sister. “There will always be temptations and trials, that’s how we’re strengthened — but we must always trust God and the good of the people.”
The sisters shun computers, but a friend has established a
website for them.
