Holy Cross Murder Victim Hadn’t Taken Vows As A Nun

The black habit she wore and the religious life she led inside Holy Cross Academy led some to believe that Sister Michelle Lewis was a full-fledged nun, but she had not taken her final vows and was not officially recognized as a nun in the eyes of any church.

”Technically, she was not a nun,” confirmed Miami attorney Mel Black, who represents Father Abbot Gregory Wendt, spiritual leader of the school in West Kendall.

Lewis, 39, a divorced woman who was murdered in her quarters at the school last month, was still in the process of becoming a nun, almost a decade after moving into the Holy Cross compound.

”She was a sister and she had not yet professed her perpetual faith,” Black said. ”The reason for the delay in making her a nun is that a nun is affiliated with a convent. At this point, the woman’s order had not been fully formed at Holy Cross.”

A Vatican source said the credentials of other church officials have also come into question and an investigation is underway. While not acknowledging the nature of the investigation, a spokesman for Holy Cross said the church expects a ”favorable” report soon.

To become a nun in the Byzantine Catholic Church, a woman who feels ”the calling” must complete her religious studies and make her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. She is finally made a nun by a ritual called ”tonsure,” the clipping of hair from her head. The ritual is performed by either a bishop, an abbot or a high-ranking Catholic priest.

Lewis had not yet undergone that final initiation into the Byzantine rite, Black said.

In recent years, Holy Cross has not been under the jurisdiction of a regional bishop, who usually approves the ordaining of nuns.

Eastern Catholic churches in Miami fall under the jurisdiction of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, in West Paterson, N.J.

But about five years ago, Holy Cross became embroiled in a dispute with present bishop Andrew Pataki.

A source close to the Congregation for Eastern Churches in Rome said the disagreement came after Pataki questioned the religious credentials of the leadership at Holy Cross. The congregation in Rome eventually sent an investigator to Holy Cross in August.

The investigator told the Holy Cross priests ”unambiguously that his report would be favorable,” according to a statement released by Holy Cross. ”We are at present awaiting a statement from Rome which will permanently end this dispute.”

A Ukranian monk trainee at the school, Mykhaylo Kofel,18, is charged with murdering Lewis.

Lewis became interested in religious life in the 1990s when she started reading about convents and talking to friends about becoming a nun. She eventually approached Wendt at Holy Cross and told him she wanted to lead the life of a nun at the school.

Lewis gave up her $60,000-a-year job as an actuary for American Bankers Insurance Group, sold her car and other belongings and moved to Holy Cross. She soon took over the school’s finances.

Last month, her friend Martha Dawson said: ”She thought she would meditate, pray and sing all day,” Dawson said. ”She thought she would escape the rat race. . . . ”

Others who knew Lewis said her entry into religious life seemed sudden. Childhood friend Ann Fry said Lewis called her out of the blue and announced matter of factly: ”By the way, I’m a nun.”

Herald staff writer Amy Driscoll contributed to this report.