Father Stan Gumula is the Abbot of Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Moncks Corner, South Carolina. He is a native of Philadelphia, PA, having been born there in 1941. He attended Melrose Academy for grade school and LaSalle High School. After graduating in 1959, he entered the monastic community at Mepkin and has been there ever since. He did philosophical and theological studies at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky during the early 1960s, privileged to study under Dan Walsh, Thomas Merton, and John Eudes Bamberger. He has been Junior Director, Novice Director, and Business Manager at Mepkin and at present is the Abbot.