In the winter months when the ocean becomes rough, the nuns on St. Nilus Island can be left isolated from the rest of civilization for days and weeks at a time.
[7][8] It is called a “skete” because the nuns live in separate cabins in the forest, although in practice it functions as a traditional, Orthodox cenobitic monastery.
The nuns follow the monastic tradition of a small, self-sufficient skete, a model handed down by their patron St. Nilus of Sora and others.
They support themselves through making prayer ropes and greeting cards of Alaskan Saints, as well as by doing their own fishing and gardening.
They intentionally do not have enough electricity for most appliances so that they may enjoy the spiritual and physiological benefits of manual labor.