Son of a baker, Julius Lelóczky was supposed to continue the family business, the French style patisserie. He instead felt he was called to be a monk and priest, during a time when in communist Hungary all religious orders had been suppressed. By God’s grace, he was able to join the Cistercian Order which continued to operate underground. After living as an underground monk for three years until the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the mighty Soviet Union, since at that time the western border was open, he (with other young Cistercians) was sent to Rome to study, then to Texas at the Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey, founded by refugee Hungarian monks during the 1950s. Fr. Julius has been living at this monastery and teaching at the Abbey’s prep school for nearly fifty years. Read about the exciting and perilous young life of this Hungarian American priest and the interesting transformation of a refugee ethnic religious community into a flourishing American monastery.
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Born and raised in Hungary, in 1953 Fr. Julius clandestinely entered the Cistercian abbey of Zirc, which had been suppressed by the communist government. After three years of formation conducted underground and in hiding, he left Hungary in 1956 to study theology in Rome. After earning his doctorate in theology in 1964, he joined fellow Hungarian refugees at Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey, which had been founded just a few years earlier. In 2011 Fr. Julius retired from the Abbey’s prep school, where he taught for 46 years, including serving as librarian for 20 years. He translated and published The Auschwitz Journal, the chronicle of Klára Kardos, a Hungarian Catholic of Jewish background, who survived the Nazi concentration camps.
Joni J. Seith is a convert to Catholicism from a culturally Jewish background whose conversion story has been published in Envoy Magazine and shared on EWTN’s Journey Home program. Joni is the author and illustrator of Cloud of Witnesses I and II, and was the Founder and President of Biblically Correct, Inc from 1995 – 2010 and a member of the Catholic Marketing Network. As a speaker on the subjects of Redemptive Suffering, prayer, the saints, miracles and her own conversion story, Joni enjoys sharing her love for the Catholic Church and Her teachings to people of all ages and faiths. Joni has given Lenten Retreat talks both to Catholic and non-Catholics alike and has taught Theology of the Body to teens. She has also taught RCIA classes as well as CCD. Although Joni suffers with a chronic debilitating pain and deteriorating condition, it hasn’t stopped her from spreading the joy of the Gospel which Jesus has handed down through His Suffering Bride, the Church. Joni’s candid and unique joy-filled way of seeing God in and through the sufferings in her life is both inspirational and contagious.
Mr. Francis Etheredge is married with eight children, plus three in heaven.
Dr. Kristina Olsen has a Ph.D. in Theology/Spirituality from Catholic University of America, a D.B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Maryland, and an M.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University. She also has certifications in Project Management (PMP) and Change Management (PCP). She is retired from Bell Laboratories, where she was a Member of the Technical Staff. Currently she works in the Office of Innovation and Technology at the City of Philadelphia. She also teaches courses in Theology, Business and Information Technology at several universities. She is a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS).
