Religion: Cigaret Monastery

North Carolina has a university (Duke ) built by smoking tobacco. Last week it acquired a monastery founded on cigarets.

There are in the U. S. some 500,000 Greeks, colonized chiefly in New York and Chicago. In the county and town of Gastonia. N. C. (pop. 17,000), famed for its gory mill strike three years ago, are some 2,000 Greeks. Gastonia has also a Karyae Park, assembly grounds for the National Karyae (social and athletic organization). Last week 3,000 Greeks, including many prominent churchmen, editors and businessmen, gathered near Karyae Park to see dedicated Monastery St. Stephanos, first of its kind in the U. S.

Monastery St. Stephanos is named for an early martyr and also for the family that gave it to the Greek Orthodox Church: the family of Constantine and Stefano Stephano, makers of Rameses, Stephana and Smiles cigarets. Emigrating from Epirus some 40 years ago, the Stephano brothers sold cigarets in the streets of New York, worked in tobacco shops, settled in Philadelphia to build their own business.

For $12,500 the Stephano brothers bought from Gastonia bondholders 416 acres of land and five buildings (present assessments: $65,000) of abandoned Linwood College for Girls. These they gave to Archbishop Athenogoras, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in North & South America. Monastery St. Stephanos will get a new chapel, will serve as a haven for aged Greek Orthodox priests and an orphanage where instruction will be given in Greek and English.