Founded as a Benedictine monastic community in 1910, Mount Royal's mission and work continued as an independent body until 1962. In that year the community was received into the patriarchal Russian Orthodox Church by its American exarch, Bishop Dositheus (Ivanchenko) of New York. For several years, the monks of Mount Royal staffed a western-rite chapel in the Russian Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Manhattan, later moving to Woodstock, New York. Bishop Dositheus' successor, Archbishop John (Wendland), blessed and confirmed the western-rite observance and mission of Mount Royal and the leadership of its Abbot, the Rt. Rev. Dom Augustine (Whitfield).

In 1975, under Abbot Augustine, Mt. Royal was received into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia by His Eminence, Archbishop Nikon (Rklitzsky), who again authorized and blessed its mission and observances. In 1993, the former Prior of Mount Royal, Dom James (Deschene) founded Christminster in Rhode Island with the blessing of His Grace Bishop Hilarion of Manhattan to carry on the work of western-rite Orthodoxy in ROCOR.

From its beginnings, this work and mission have been guided by the spirit of Saint Benedict and his Holy Rule- the sixth-century foundation document of Orthodox monasticism in the west. It was the vision of Mount Royal's founders — a vision firmly adhered to under Abbot Augustine and lovingly maintained at Christminster — to preserve the contemplative and eremitical dimensions of the monastic life as much as possible.