This last picture of the skete did not seemingly appear consistently on every computer.
Here is another closer up view :
However, before this peaceful church scene was to be achieved, Fr Tryphon suffered a much earlier devil-inspired violent attack causing the hieromonk to be knocked flat on the ground. Perhaps a warning signal for the 2019 Burien incident, this shocking scene approximately 27 years earlier in 1992 also revolved around hatred for the Holy Cross.
Abbot Tryphon tells the story on his blog, beginning with his meeting the Vashon Island skete property's next door neighbor :
"As I continued my walk, I was surprised to meet the couple for the first time, as they were exploring their newly acquired land. I saw this chance encounter as providential, and a good omen. I was to be proven wrong.
The young man was manager of an American owned factory in South Korea, and they planned to begin construction of their new home following his one year stint. I invited them to join us for coffee in our old farm house, where we were still living, and shared our vision for the future of the monastery. I told them that we would be interested in purchasing their property, should they ever decide not to live there.
Upon their return a year later, the young man was stunned to see our temple had been built. I met him, again quite by accident, as I walked up the road to the newly constructed church. He made it clear that he was unhappy to see we’d actually built a church larger than he’d expected, and that we had a bell...
The Assault
...Meanwhile, a woman made an offer on the property, and stopped by the old farm house with a request that we remove the gate, sign, and the cross that marked the entrance to the monastery. We responded that the gate was necessary for security, since we were not as yet living on the property, and we had a church that would be vulnerable to burglars. She proceeded to tell us of her intention to cut down most of the forest on the property so she could raise llamas and rottweilers.
Furthermore, she was not a Christian, and did “not want to offend her friends and family by having them forced to drive past a large cross, when coming to visit (her)”. The thought of having such a neighbor sickened me, for the sound of the barking dogs, the loss of the privacy once the forest was cut down, and a neighbor hostile towards the image of the holy cross, seemed to doom the future of the monastery.
Believing we were within our rights to keep the gate for security, we offered she and her contractor [ correct English : her contractor and her ] the combination for the lock, and explained that, without the cross and sign, our visitors could not find our monastery. Within a short few weeks, she was informed by the State of Washington that she could not clear the forest of trees. When she withdrew her offer, the owner blamed us, and the hostility towards us began in full.
One afternoon, looking out from the kitchen window of the old farm house, I spotted an SUV parked in front of our gate. Grabbing the binoculars, I was shocked to see a gate post being pulled down. Arriving in our monastery’s van, I found the property owner placing a chain around the remaining post.
He had already taken the monastery’s sign, and thrown it into the public street. I lifted the chain from the post, only to have him ram the post with his SUV, leaving me only a second to jump out of the way. Enraged, he headed for the six foot cross that had stood for years at the entrance. I placed myself in front of the holy cross, and begged him to let me get a shovel and remove it. Instead, he knocked me to the ground and slammed himself into the cross, breaking it off at the base. This all took place on the Feast of Saint Seraphim of Sarov.
The Desecration
Father Paul arrived in our old pickup truck just in time to see me being knocked to the ground. Dialing 911, he described the assault taking place, and two King County Sheriff’s patrol cars were dispatched to the monastery. The owner of the property, after desecrating the holy cross, sped up the hill to remove any other “offending” symbols of our Orthodox faith. When I asked him why he would break the holy cross, he responded by saying, “Big deal, it’s only worth about fifteen dollars in lumber.” Since I’d parked the large van behind his rented SUV, he was forced to drive off the road as he sped away from the monastery.
He was long gone by the time the two deputies arrived, finding me sitting next to the broken cross, weeping. I had never, in all my years as a monk, experienced such violence. That this young man harbored such hatred towards the monastery that he would actually attack a man old enough to be his grandfather, saddened me to the core. That he would do violence to the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, broke my heart.
One of the deputies immediately drove to the headquarters of the island company, in pursuit of the young man, while the remaining deputy made the decision to refer the whole matter to the main precinct off island. Physically attacking a priest, and destroying private property belonging to a religious community [ was serious ]."