The Trappist monks at Conyers last week celebrated the formal dedication of their church. The liturgical ceremony took place on October 3 at the Abbey Church of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit.

Archbishop Donnellan and Dom Augustine Moore were joined by representatives of other Trappist houses and by monks of the Conyers community for the rite of dedication or consecration.

The church building was completed in 1962, having been built entirely by the monks themselves. The Holy Spirit Community was founded in 1944 as a daughter house of Gethsemane, the Trappist house in Kentucky.

Visitors included Dom Bernard Johnson, assistant general of the Cistercian Order; Dom James Fox, first abbot of the Conyers monastery; Dom Adrian Carr, Superior of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina and Father Chrysogonous of Gethsemane.

The present abbot, Dom Augustine Moore, was a parish priest in Kentucky before becoming a monk. He succeeded Abbot McGann in 1957 and supervised the construction on the church which is one of the largest in Georgia.

The dedication ceremonies centered around the blessing of the Church walls with holy water, the placing of relics in the altar while the litany of the saints is sung, the anointing of the altar and walls, the burning of holy oil and the five crosses carved in the surface of the altar and the incensation of the altar and the building.

Among the relics sealed in the altar stone were those of Saint Elizabeth Seton and Saints Bernard and Benedict.