Rev. Laurence Mancuso; began N.Y. monastery that breeds dogs

The Rev. Laurence Mancuso, whose love of German shepherds and ancient religious traditions gave birth to a new order of dog-training monks near Albany, N.Y., died Sunday after a fall at his home in Natick. He was 72.

In 1966, Father Mancuso began a new monastery called New Skete in the Taconic Mountains, where the brothers began raising puppies to support a vision of renewed Eastern Christian monasticism.

The brothers wrote the 1978 best-seller "How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend" and currently star in the Animal Planet series "Divine Canine."

"He galvanized a group of us," said Brother Marc Labish, one of the founding monks. "Over 35 years ago, we went out into the wilderness and began New Skete. I think God was on our side, and so was Father Laurence."

Born Gabriel Richard Mancuso, the eldest child of Antoinette (Basilio) and Joseph Mancuso's five children, he knew he wanted to become a priest as a child, according to his brother, Norman Mancuso.

At 12, he led his siblings in a pretend Mass down in the basement of their childhood home in Utica, N.Y., placing Necco wafers on a makeshift altar.

"My brothers and sisters were his congregation," said Norman Mancuso, who shared his Natick home with his brother for the past seven years. "For us, it was just a game, but for him it was more than that."

As a teenager, Father Mancuso was deeply influenced by "young and charismatic priests" at school and dropped out in his junior year to enter the seminary, his brother said. "I can remember my father trying to talk him out of it. He felt he was too young to make that kind of decision. Obviously, he wasn't too young. He knew what he wanted to be."

Father Mancuso attended seminaries in Rochester, N.Y., and Ferndale, Conn. He became a Franciscan monk in 1957 and was ordained a priest in the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church in 1960.

He served as provincial councilor and master of students for the priesthood and became spiritual director at the Ukrainian Catholic Seminary of St. Basil in Stamford, Conn., as well as confessor to the Italian Byzantine Sisters in Glenbrook, Conn.

After the Second Vatican Council, Father Mancuso and a dozen monks devoted themselves to a new vision. "In 1966, nobody had any idea what we were doing," Labish said. "We were constantly talking to people about it. Nobody knew what a monastery was. We always wore our habit, a tunic with a leather belt. And we had our beards, so we would be recognized for what we were supposed to be."

While the Franciscans worked in the cities, the monks of New Skete envisioned a spiritual life based on texts, music, and nature. Working as the abbot at New Skete until 2000, Father Laurence translated more than 30 religious texts from Greek and Slavonic into modern English and set the words to music performed in rousing harmonies by the monks and later by the nuns who came to New Skete.

The first monks at New Skete had a beloved male German shepherd they named Kyr after the Greek word for Lord.

"Father Laurence would sing a little ditty with Kyr's name in it. He would give him treats when Father Thomas wasn't looking, and they would go on long walks together," Labish said.

Kyr disappeared one day with a pack of wild dogs. The heartbroken monks searched for the dog for more than a year until their leader encouraged them to seek another German shepherd. They adopted a pair of females from a breeder in Stockbridge, Mass.

Breeding puppies became another way to support the monastery, along with smoking meats and making sausages using a labor- intensive recipe from Father Mancuso's uncle. Demand for the dogs became so great that the monks recently stopped taking orders. They now run three-week training retreats for dogs and owners.

"Father Laurence supported this and encouraged all of us to participate," Labish said.

He recalled their leader as a "dynamic, charismatic person who could be intensely serious" but loved storytelling and jokes.

In 1979, New Skete joined the Orthodox Church in America. Father Laurence was elevated to the rank of archimandrite in 1986. He retired from New Skete in 2000 and wrote three more books, including a new translation of the Psalms and a collection of sermons, "Notes From a Poor Monk."

He suffered from kidney disease in recent years and felt too ill to accompany his brother to church on Sunday, his family said. His brother later discovered Father Mancuso on the floor of their Natick home after a fall. He died that afternoon at MetroWest Medical Center.

He is survived by another brother, Rocco of Cheyenne, Wyo.; two sisters, Theresa and Carolina of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and several nieces and nephews.

The funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Weston. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery in Utica, N.Y.