Monk who asked lawmakers for special burial dies
Abbot Theodor Micka, whose dying wish to be buried at his Castro Valley monastery was granted by California lawmakers, died Tuesday in the arms of his longtime friend Father Stephen Scott. “I was with him feeding him breakfast just five minutes after the hospice nurse left,” Scott said in a message to friends of the monastery. “Suddenly his eyes rolled back and he sighed. Then he breathed no more. It was a peaceful, painless, and blessed passing.” Micka said in March that building a monastery was a decades-old dream. Micka and Scott opened the Holy Cross Monastery in 1979. Monks provide weekly religious services for Orthodox Christians, along with baptisms, [...]