Who We Are
By the Grace of God, Martha and Mary House - an Orthodox Christian Maternity Home for pregnant women in crisis - was established as an institution in the Orthodox Church in America, in November 2001. Our Pan-Orthodox Board of Directors is headed by His Grace Bishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West with members from the Greek Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, and the OCA (Orthodox Church in America).
Our Purpose:
To be a witness of the historic Orthodox Christian faith - in obedience to the command of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to worship God and to love and serve Him in our neighbor, according to the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Holy Orthodox Church.
Whom We Serve:As an Orthodox Christian Maternity Home we provide housing, with privacy and confidentiality, for pregnant women in crisis. We acknowledge the sanctity of life and are grateful that the expectant Mom who comes to us chose life for her unborn child. Both she and her child are unique and precious, created in the image of God and loved by Him. At Martha and Mary House we offer practical, emotional and spiritual support during this crucial period of her life as she faces difficult choices in planning for her own future and the future of the child God has entrusted to her.
We teach about decision-making, choices and consequences, courtship, purity and abstinence before marriage, the sacrament and holiness of marriage, and God’s design for the nurture of children in two parent families with father and mother who belong to God, to one another and to their children. The pregnant Mom carefully considers and chooses what is best for herself and her child. Birth mothers who choose a loving family for her baby through open adoption may return to Martha and Mary House for six weeks after giving birth. If she needs further housing assistance, we seek to provide a Christian host family where she can receive nurture and direction as she pursues her vocational or educational goals. We pray that each pregnant woman who comes to us may discover her God given personal resources and how to develop them. Working with local agencies and volunteers we help facilitate a healthy birth for the babies and a healthy spiritual re-birth for the new mothers.
Our birth mothers who choose to place their child in open adoption may be eligible for educational assistance through the Martha and Mary House Scholarship Fund, established in 2006 with a grant from The Order of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a Charitable order in the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America.
Expectant moms who have suffered pregnancy loss by choice in the past, are provided post- abortion grief and reconciliation counseling in Abortion Survivors Anonymous, a 12 Step support group meeting at the house.
Living at Martha and Mary House:
We welcome pregnant women in crisis of all ethnic, cultural, religious and social backgrounds. While at Martha and Mary House, they will pursue a program of study or vocational training, be actively seeking employment or be employed. They will share responsibility for housekeeping duties, live by the House Rules which include morning and evening prayer, Bible study and Church attendance, pre-natal and childbirth classes, career and adoption counseling.
The House:
Our comfortable five bedroom 3 bath house sits on a third acre in a quiet, older residential neighborhood in North San Diego County. We have room for up to four pregnant women and House Mother and Assistant. The bedrooms have been furnished and named by Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant friends. Each room has a unique character. An Abortion Survivors Anonymous group meets around a table donated by one of them in our library - prayer room. It is named the Saint Mary room. The kitchen - dining room is named for Saint Martha. Volunteers help take care of our yard. The large fenced back yard invites a vegetable garden and fruit trees and gives romping room to our two dogs and cat!
Why Name Our House for Martha and Mary?Martha and Mary were the sisters of Lazarus of Bethany whom Jesus raised from the dead. Theirs was a house of prayer, hospitality and charity where Jesus often was guest. We pray that He will be our guest as we seek to love Him in those who come to Martha and Mary House. We are also inspired by the life and work of Holy New Martyr, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia who founded the Martha and Mary Convent of Love and Mercy in Moscow in 1909 to minister to the sick, the suffering and the poor. She was martyred by the communists in 1918. Abbess Elizabeth wrote: “We realize that it is necessary to base all doing of spiritual works on gratitude to the Lord in so far as He permits us to serve Him through our neighbor... We should not count how many souls we have saved, or how many people we have helped. We must ... rejoice with the angels over one soul that is saved, over one cup of water given in the name of Christ.... who said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto me’” (Matt. 25; 40) We ask the prayers of Saint Elizabeth New Martyr and those of Saints Martha and Mary for the work of Martha and Mary House and all who come here.
