Sister Agnes Knapik marks 50th jubilee

Staff report

warren

Sister Agnes Knapik, a Byzantine Benedictine Sister of Queen of Heaven Monastery, celebrated her golden jubilee of monastic profession May 5.

The Divine Liturgy for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman was celebrated for her intention at Sts. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church by the pastor, Very Rev. Andrew J. Deskevich. Concelebrant was Abbot Leo R. Schlosser of Holy Trinity Monastery in Butler, Pa., who gave the homily.

Special guests were Sister Mary Bratrsovsky, prioress of Sacred Heart Monastery in Lisle, Ill.; Sister Helen Jilek, a classmate of Sister Agnes, of Queen of Heaven Monastery; and nuns from several local religious communities. Attending from Ontario, Canada, were Mary Douglas, Sister Agnes’s sister; Joanne McGowan, her niece; Dianne and Gary Lamb, her niece and her husband; Melissa McGowan, Lindsay McGowan and Jordan Lamb, grandnieces; and Alex Lamb, grandnephew. Members of St. Benedict’s Auxiliary and Benedictine Oblates attended.

A dinner was at Enzo’s Restaurant.

Sister Agnes was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Steve and Mary Knapik, both deceased. She attended elementary and high schools in Toronto and St. Mary’s Nativity Slovak Greek Catholic Church in Toronto.

Sister Agnes worked for the Ontario Department of Education before entering Sacred Heart Convent in Lisle on Sept. 8, 1960. She made first monastic profession Aug. 4, 1962. She attended St. Procopius College in Lisle and taught at St. Mary of Celle School in Berwyn, Ill., and St. Mary’s Assumption Byzantine Catholic School in Joliet, Ill.

In 1965, she came with other Byzantine sisters to Warren and taught at Sts. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic School until it closed in 2005.

She made her final monastic profession Aug. 20, 1967, and was a charter member of Queen of Heaven Monastery when it was established in 1969.

Sister Agnes graduated from Youngstown State University and the John XXIII Center in New York, where she earned a master’s degree in Eastern Christian Studies in 1978.

From 1981-89, Sister Agnes served as prioress of Queen of Heaven Monastery and sub-prioress from 2001-10. Currently, she is vocation director, Oblate director and community secretary.

In 2006, she began volunteering as a patient visitor for Hospice of the Valley and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Warren. That year, Metropolitan Archbishop Basil, now deceased, appointed her safe-environment coordinator for Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. She continues to teach Eastern Christian Formation classes at Sts. Peter and Paul Church and cantors for the Divine Liturgy.