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===Building of the monastery===
In 1934, Hmk. [[Ilya (Gavriliuk)]], a carpenter, joined the monastery, and assisted in preparing the materials for, and then actually building a house-[[church]] and a 16 [[cell]] monastic residence. In the same year, Bp. [[Vitaly (Maximenko) of Jersey City |Vitaly (Maximenko)]] of Detroit was offered the abbacy, but declined. In the Spring of 1935, a church is set up in the small monastic house, and dedicated to the Life-Giving Trinity. On the day after [[Pentecost]] of that year, the [[consecration of a church|consecration]] of the [[church]] and the monastery was held, led by Bp. Vitaly (Maximenko). However, tragedy struck. At the end of the [[Divine liturgyLiturgy|Liturgy]], smoke was seen at the second floor of the monastic house and, within a few hours, everything had burnt to the ground. Regardless, on the next day, Ivan Kolos was [[tonsure]]d a monk and given the name Joseph. Accepting their fate, the brethren of the monastery lived under the open sky and, relying on the help of God, undertook to rebuild the monastery. In Autumn, the brotherhood bought a two-story house, which was larger, more comfortable, and of better quality than the original.
By the mid-1940s, Holy Trinity Monastery was able to repay the mortgage for the house, finish a barn for 80 cattle, expand the dairy, gain another 200 acres of land, acquire all their needed farming equipment, and buy a linotype machine with a large, 16-station printing press, including Church Slavonic type, for the monastery press. Their labors completed allowed them, in 1946, the freedom to begin building a grand, golden-cupola'd stone [[cathedral]]. A key benefactor of the building of the cathedral, Professor Nikolai Nikolaevich Alexandrov, later joined the brotherhood.
