Christ of the Hills Monastery, in the Texas Hill Country outside Blanco, was affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) from 1991. In 1999, allegations surfaced that founder Samuel Greene had abused an eleven year old novice monk. ROCOR severed its ties to the monastery amid the allegations, and Texas prosecutors moved quickly: Greene and a second monk, Jonathan Hitt, were arrested that year on charges connected to abuse of minors at the monastery.
The criminal cases concluded within a year of each other. Hitt was convicted in 1999 of indecency with a 14 year old novice monk and sentenced to ten years in prison. Greene pleaded guilty in 2000 to indecency and received ten years probation. In 2006, three further monastery figures were reported charged with sexual assault of a child and organized criminal activity in a separate investigation; all three entered not-guilty pleas at arraignment, and no confirmed final disposition was located for any of them.
A separate civil track ran alongside the criminal one. James Wright Jr., who alleged he was abused at the monastery as a teenager between April 1998 and February 1999, sued ROCOR, Greene, and a monastery monk; in December 2006 the parties settled for roughly $500,000, without an admission of wrongdoing. A second monk and a monastery corporate entity, named separately in the suit, did not settle.
The case sits in this atlas's record as the clearest example of an Orthodox institution's abuse record reaching the same documentary standard, criminal conviction plus a civil settlement, that anchors most of this axis's Catholic material.