ANGEL QUEST: In Search of St. Michael's Sword

SUMMARY: Dr. Stan Williams, filmmaker, historian, and author, takes us along on his pilgrimage to each of the monasteries and a few other historic places along the way, including interviews with local archeologists and historians. Stan's friend, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Catholic priest, world traveler, and prolific author who introduced Stan to the St. Michael alignment, adds noteworthy comments and insights throughout this inspiring program suitable for all audiences.

Stretching 2,600 miles across Europe to Israel is a straight line of ancient monasteries all dedicated or closely related to St. Michael the Archangel. The alignment has come to be known as the Sword of St. Michael. Although some of the monasteries were built as far back as the 5th century, only recently has this unique alignment been discovered. Archaeologists wonder how and why the monasteries came to be built in a perfectly straight line, as well as in extremely inaccessible locations on isolated islands and on the side of mountains. Although seemingly built by a diverse collection of monks and friars with little knowledge of each other, the constructed edifices share similar stories of how St. Michael showed up in times of great need.

FROM STAN WILLLIAMS: Originally, this documentary was planned, with PBS interest, as a documentary with Fr. Dwight Longenecker as host. We wanted to document his pilgrimage to the seven monasteries of St. Michael's Sword.

In preparation for that effort planned for the summer of 2023, I (Stan Williams) took money from my retirement savings and scouted the locations in the summer of 2022. I made contacts, surveyed logistics, and recorded reference video, interviews, and stills.

But we never received anything close to the budget required. Of the two dozen foundations we contacted, we received no response.

Early in 2024 I decided to edit a documentary of my 2022 trip with the footage I recorded on two iPhone 13 Pros, supplemented with archival material.

The documentary we have produced was released 18 May 2024 worldwide on-line for free streaming and downloading on Vimeo, and later to YouTube, and perhaps to other platforms. It is 2 hours 12 minutes in length, divided into 11 Episodes.

If you've watched the documentary and liked it, you an donate a little to help defray the production cost at https://stanwilliams.com/ANGELQUEST/ where there is additional information and pictures about the project.