Gruber, Mark

PERSONAL:

Born near Pittsburgh, PA. Education: St. Vincent College, B.A.; St. Vincent Seminary, M.Div.; University of New York at Stony Brook, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Anthropology and Sociology, St. Vincent College, 300 Fraser Purchase Rd., Latrobe, PA 15650-2690. E-mail—mark.gruber@email.stvincent.edu.

CAREER:

St. Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA, Roman Catholic monk of Order of St. Benedict (O.S.B.); St. Vincent College, Latrobe, professor of anthropology; presenter of spiritual retreats. Conducted archaeological field work in Egypt.

WRITINGS:

Exalted in Glory: Encountering the Risen Christ (meditations), St. Vincent Spirituality Publications (Latrobe, PA), 1994.

Waiting for Dawn: Portents of His Coming (meditations), St. Vincent Spirituality Publications (Latrobe, PA), 1997.

Wounded by Love: Intimations of an Outpouring Heart (meditations), St. Vincent Spirituality Publications (Latrobe, PA), 2000.

Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times among the Desert Fathers, transcribed and edited by M. Michele Ransil, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY), 2002.

Sacrifice in the Desert: A Study of an Egyptian Minority through the Prism of Coptic Monasticism, edited by M. Michele Ransil, foreword by William Arens, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 2003.

Contributor to Between Desert and City: The Coptic Orthodox Church Today, Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo, Norway), 1997. Contributor to periodicals, including Our Sunday Visitor, Pittsburgh Chronicle, Lay Witness, New Covenant, and Pittsburgh Catholic.

SIDELIGHTS:

Father Mark Gruber spent a year in Egypt in the mid-1980s studying the life of the Copts as part of his doctoral work. He later turned his experiences into the book Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times among the Desert Fathers, a work that a Publishers Weekly reviewer described as "part spiritual journal, part travelogue." Although the critic noted that Gruber's work is somewhat dated and that the monk does not relate the spiritual struggles he must have endured in what he himself describes as a transformative experience, the reviewer still reported that Journey Back to Eden "tells good stories" about this minority group in Egypt whose ancestors can be traced back to the Pharaohs. A reviewer for the British Orthodox Church Web site made special note of the book's "vignettes of Coptic Church life," and concluded that this "is a very personal and edifying spiritual journal and offers some excellent insights into contemporary Coptic monastic life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Publishers Weekly, July 22, 2002, review of Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times among the Desert Fathers, p. 173.

ONLINE

British Orthodox Church Web site,http://www.uk-christian.net/boc/ (October 17, 2002), review of Journey Back to Eden.

Mark Gruber Home Pagehttp://www.frmark.net (March 30, 2007).

Order of St. Benedict Web site,http://www.osb.org/ (March 30, 2007), profile of author.