2011 Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in North and Central America
In the last few years we have seen many diocese in the American orthodox church undertake a search for a new bishop to lead them. This is a matter that should be done with all diligence and prayer. We hope that all leaders are chosen for their spiritual as well as administrative ability and that these are done in that spirit of prayer and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Two such diocese, the Diocese of the South (OCA) and the American Carpatho Russian Diocese are in the final stages of their selection process. In both cases the man chosen to lead will be filling some rather large shoes. In the case of the Diocese of the South, the man chosen will be filling the shoes of the only man they have ever had as their bishop. Very large shoes indeed.
The church here in 21st century America is very different than it was even 20 years ago. We are in a fast paced world that is continually changing. How do we keep the young people in the church? How do attract converts or do we continue to rely on immigration to keep the doors of our church open? How do we take the Ancient Faith that we all hold so dear, and that so many sacrificed for, and make it and keep it relevant in this world that we live in? These are all questions the leaders of our churches are going to have to face in the future.
Fr. Jonathan Tobias of the American Carpatho Russian diocese has assembled a list of question on his wonderful blog. The questions are, in some ways, specific to his diocese but I think these are questions we all should be asking of candidates for the episcopacy. The character of each particular diocese need to be taken into account especially if they are looking outside of their diocese for candidates. Like me, the Carpatho Russian Church came out of the Greek Catholic Church (Byzantines United with the Bishop of Rome). This is a unique history that needs to be understood and respected as this is what makes them who they are.
As we move to what I hope is a united American Orthodox Church, these are the questions that will need to be asked of all present and future candidates for the episcopacy as well as how are men chosen and who is choosing them.
Thank you Fr. Jonathan for your questions and I would ask my readers to check out those questions he has so thoughtfully and prayerfully placed on his blog. My hope is that he posts the answers to those questions.
Archbishop Dimitri, of Blessed Memory, prepares to ordain a man to the priesthood
This is the first of what I hope to be a series of essays on the topic of priestly formation. This is a topic that I believe needs some serious study in the Orthodox Church in the 21st century.
Recently, a priest in the Antiochian Archdiocese, was convicted of one count of assault and battery on a woman with whom he had a counseling relationship. Last week a story appeared in the National Herald of a 50 year old married seminarian at Holy Cross Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts who is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with a teenage girl. In the same edition of the National Herald appeared a story of the New Dean of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in new York suggesting that the priest had anger issues that have existed for most of his ministry. These are just a few, very recent, examples of why I believe we need a discussion about how we are forming our clergy.
Back in the early 90’s I applied for admission to Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts. As part of the acceptance process I was required to undergo a battery of psychological and personality tests. Over a period of two days the tests were administered followed by an interview with a psychologist. The final report was given both to me and to the monastery. Since I was accepted for entrance I will assume there were no “red flags.”
Now fast forward to 2000 when I applied for admission to St. John’s Seminary of the Archdiocese of Boston. The psychological evaluation I had previously taken was used as well and another battery of tests to fill in the gaps since the test was first administered. Again no “red flags” as I was accepted to the seminary.
On March 25, 1992, Pope John Paul II released a Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis – I Will Give You Shepherds. This exhortation covered all aspects of priestly formation and changed the way candidates for the priesthood are formed. It laid out a plan of four pillars of formation, Academic, Pastoral, Spiritual, and Human. Each area was fully explained and I will leave it to you to read the document if you wish. I submit that at the present time, for the most part, our seminary formation consists of academic and little less on the others.
As part of the seminary formation at St. John’s, each seminarian was required to have a faculty advisor and spiritual father. The seminarian would meet with both of these men once each month. Part of the spiritual father relationship was the sacrament of confession. I will suggest that a priest that does not receive the sacrament of confession on a regular, and by that I mean monthly, needs to reexamine their relationship to the Church. I say that to myself as much as to others. Confession for the priest is extremely important. If you do not have a spiritual father, GET ONE AND SOON!
Also, as part of the formation process, was the weekly meeting for human formation. During these times we had discussions about sexuality and, as it was the Roman Catholic Seminary, celibacy. Another topic was appropriate boundaries in pastoral relationships with children, people of the same sex, and people of the opposite sex. I found these sessions extremely helpful in my own formation and use the things I learned every day in pastoral ministry. I would also suggest that candidates for ordination who are married need to undergo some sort of marriage counseling. Realizing that marriage is challenging during the best of times, add the stress of pastoral ministry to it and it is a recipe for disaster. If the married couple is not properly formed in their married life, they need to learn skills that will assist them in ministry. I would add that in my belief couples should be married for several years after seminary prior to their ordination. I have seen many couples meet in seminary and start having children, graduate, get ordained, and head to their first parish all before they have really experienced married life.
Academics are important to the life of the priest, and yes the church needs theologians, but a priest is called to lead a local community first. He is called to be the spiritual head of that community, and although he needs a sound academic formation what I have found in close to eight years in ministry, is that I needed far more practical pastoral formation rather than the excellent academic formation I received.
We are living in a crazy world and what we need more than anything at this point are true pastors that understand that the role of the pastor is to love the people that God has put them in care of and to lead them to salvation. We need confessors and spiritual fathers who understand not only the sacrament of confession but also understand humanity in all its craziness and we need pastors who know their limitations and are not afraid to ask for help. I would also suggest that what is need is true Orthodox Monasticism here in America. We have some but we need many more. Authentic, stable monastic communities that can be examples of spirituality for the Church.
I have no credentials to suggest these things other than I am struggling in the fields and see where the church is going and only wish to help. I have made mistakes and learned from them. What I hope is that we can have a discussion on this topic, a true discussion and see where it leads.
Priest Tudor Marin (69), the father-in-law of trade union leader Vasile Marica, was mortally stabbed Saturday morning, after the Divine Liturgy, inside the ‘Sfantul Ioan Botezatorul’ Church of the Piata Unirii Square of Focsani. The only witness was a woman that was selling candles.
Shortly after the murder, police apprehended the main suspect, a man aged 30, who was initially detained for 24 hours under the accusation of murder. Later, a judge put him in preventive arrest for 29 days.
The suspect was caught by police in his apartment of Focsani, based on the description provided by the witness. While searching the apartment, officers found a Bible and several sheets of paper covered with biblical fragments.
The man confessed the murder and said he has no regret, because he only fulfilled God’s will, because the priest had to die.
According to prosecutor Gheorghe Mihaila of the Focsani Tribunal, the assassin entered the church carrying several pages with biblical fragments, talked with the priest and then suddenly stabbed him and ran away.
“He came with the intention to kill. The woman who was there – the only person that witnessed the murder – did not have time to react. She thought that he had slapped the priest with his hand. The attacker left in a hurry and disappeared behind a block of flats. Some witnesses said he ran towards the train station,” the prosecutor said, quoted byMediafax. He described the suspect as “a psychopath with exacerbated ideas.”
According to the source, the attacker entered the church with the knife in a bag and hit the priest first time near the temple, then in the heart, with the second blow also being fatal. The Romanian Patriarchate deplores the murder, especially as it was committed in a church, “where priests preach peace and love of neighbor, and now a peaceful and venerable prelate was brutally murdered in a horrible crime that shows the alarming state of degradation, violence and insecurity which characterizes society today.”
The murderer told the police: “Today I definitely wanted to kill a priest! I went to three churches, but there were too many people there.”
I usually post just the text of my homily on the blog if I have one or I write something close to what I said if I do not have a text, but today I am experimenting with posting audio on the blog.
I post the audio from my homilies on the Church webpage but I was not always able to post them here on the blog. Now with the new format I hope to be able to post more sermon audio on the blog, who knows maybe video one day as well!
The second Sunday After Pentecost is reserved for the remembrance of the saints of the particular church or location where the church is located. For us here in North America we will be commemorating two groups of saints today. All Saints of North America and All Saints of Romania.
I could not find a description of All Saints of Romania in English, but below I have a description of All Saints of North America that come from the pages of Orthodox Church of America.
All Saints of North America and Romania Pray for us!
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All Saints of North America
On the second Sunday after Pentecost, each local Orthodox Church commemorates all the saints, known and unknown, who have shone forth in its territory. Accordingly, the Orthodox Church in America remembers the saints of North America on this day.
Saints of all times, and in every country are seen as the fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem fallen humanity. Their example encourages us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us” and to “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). The saints of North America also teach us how we should live, and what we must expect to endure as Christians
Although it is a relatively young church, the Orthodox Church in America has produced saints in nearly all of the six major categories of saints: Apostles (and Equals of the Apostles); Martyrs (and Confessors); Prophets; Hierarchs; Monastic Saints; and the Righteous. Prophets, of course, lived in Old Testament times and predicted the coming of Christ.
The first Divine Liturgy in what is now American territory (northern latitude 58 degrees, 14 minutes, western longitude 141 degrees) was celebrated on July 20, 1741, the Feast of the Prophet Elias, aboard the ship Peter under the command of Vitus Bering. Hieromonk Hilarion Trusov and the priest Ignatius Kozirevsky served together on that occasion. Several years later, the Russian merchant Gregory I. Shelikov visited Valaam monastery, suggesting to the abbot that it would be desirable to send missionaries to Russian America.
On September 24, 1794, after a journey of 7,327 miles (the longest missionary journey in Orthodox history) and 293 days, a group of monks from Valaam arrived on Kodiak Island in Alaska. The mission was headed by Archimandrite Joasaph, and included Hieromonks Juvenal, Macarius, and Athanasius, the Hierodeacons Nectarius and Stephen, and the monks Herman and Joasaph. St Herman of Alaska (December 13, August 9), the last surviving member of the mission, fell asleep in the Lord in 1837.
Throughout the Church’s history, the seeds of faith have always been watered by the blood of the martyrs. The Protomartyr Juvenal was killed near Lake Iliamna by natives in 1799, thus becoming the first Orthodox Christian to shed his blood for Christ in the New World. In 1816, St Peter the Aleut was put to death by Spanish missionaries in California when he refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Missionary efforts continued in the nineteenth century, with outreach to the native peoples of Alaska. Two of the most prominent laborers in Christ’s Vineyard were St Innocent Veniaminov (March 31 and October 6) and St Jacob Netsvetov (July 26), who translated Orthodox services and books into the native languages. Father Jacob Netsvetev died in Sitka in 1864 after a life of devoted service to the Church. Father John Veniaminov, after his wife’s death, received monastic tonsure with the name Innocent. He died in 1879 as the Metropolitan of Moscow.
As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, an event of enormous significance for the North American Church took place. On March 25, 1891, Bishop Vladimir went to Minneapolis to receive St Alexis Toth (May 7) and 361 of his parishioners into the Orthodox Church. This was the beginning of the return of many Uniates to Orthodoxy.
St Tikhon (Belavin), the future Patriarch of Moscow (April 7, October 9), came to America as bishop of the diocese of the Aleutians and Alaska in September 1898. As the only Orthodox bishop on the continent, St Tikhon traveled extensively throughout North America in order to minister to his widely scattered and diverse flock. He realized that the local church here could not be a permanent extension of the Russian Church. Therefore, he focused his efforts on giving the American Church a diocesan and parish structure which would help it mature and grow.
St Tikhon returned to Russia in 1907, and was elected as Patriarch of Moscow ten years later. He died in 1925, and for many years his exact burial place remained unknown. St Tikhon’s grave was discovered on February 22, 1992 in the smaller cathedral of Our Lady of the Don in the Don Monastery when a fire made renovation of the church necessary.
St Raphael of Brooklyn (February 27) was the first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated in North America. Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny was consecrated by Bishop Tikhon and Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky) at St Nicholas Cathedral in New York on March 13, 1904. As Bishop of Brooklyn, St Raphael was a trusted and capable assistant to St Tikhon in his archpastoral ministry. St Raphael reposed on February 27, 1915.
The first All American Council took place March 5-7, 1907 at Mayfield, PA, and the main topic was “How to expand the mission.” Guidelines and directions for missionary activity, and statutes for the administrative structure of parishes were also set forth.
In the twentieth century, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, countless men, women, and children received the crown of martyrdom rather than renounce Christ. Sts John Kochurov (October 31) and Alexander Hotovitzky (December 4 and August 7) both served the Church in North America before going back to Russia. St John became the first clergyman to be martyred in Russia on October 31, 1917 in St Petersburg. St Alexander Hotovitzky, who served in America until 1914, was killed in 1937.
In addition to the saints listed above, we also honor those saints who are known only to God, and have not been recognized officially by the Church. As we contemplate the lives of these saints, let us remember that we are also called by God to a life of holiness.
Today was the fourth and final day of the Acton Institute it has been an amazing experience. If you follow my Twitter feed or Facebook then you have been an eye witness to what I have been hearing. I know of at least one follower who muted me for the duration of the conference. He told me that what I was Tweeting was neo-con and he did not like it. (I think it’s a bonus when the libs get mad at me.) My response was that it was pure Orthodox Theology and I believe that.
It is late on the last night as I write this and I have a long drive a head of me tomorrow to return home so I am going to keep this short. Besides the aforementioned reasons there is much to process and make sense of. I did not agree with everything and some of it I did not understand (all the stuff on economics) but it was a good conference. I think a good conference is one that challenges you to open your mind, and your heart, and really think about things a different way. Acton has done that for me.
With that said I just want to mention a few things from the last session I had today. The title of the session was “Hope for the Inner City.” Now Southbridge is not exactly the inner city but it is pretty close and so I thought I might be able to learn a few things.
The presenter was Ismael Hernandez who I wrote about yesterday. He is from Puerto Rico and grew up poor and a Communist so his “Street Cred” as they say, is spot on.
He spoke about our philosophy of working with the poor and how at the heart of it we just need to love people. We need to accept them where they are, we need to walk with them and help them, not do the work for them, but them to help themselves. Although he is not a big fan of large social programs and believes that the government needs to get out of the way, he sees a need for now, for what we have. It’s not a matter of a new program or even a reform of the older one but really a reform of how we think about what we do. Some of these ideas are cross over from his talk yesterday.
Everyone is a unique and unrepeatable person created in the image and likeness of God. We need to work one person at a time. We are not going to solve world poverty or end hunger around the world, but we can make a difference in one person at a time right outside our door, our neighbor. Now where have I heard that before, oh yea the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
We need to help the poor resist the lure of victimhood and help them to break the cycle of poverty. Not everything is a crisis and until we learn this we will just keep enabling people to make the wrong decisions.
A few times during the talk he said, “do not treat the poor as pets.” Too often we set up a program, we invite the poor to come in, we take pictures, we pat them on the head (symbolically I hope) and we send them on their way. They exists and the program exists, to make us feel better about ourselves. It is not about us it is about them and their situation. If you do not really love the poor, you can have all the great ideas in your head, but you will never move a finger to make a difference.
Another saying, “The poor should not be the scenery in someone’s drama they should be the protagonist.” It’s not about us. It’s great that Bono and these other stars raise all this money and bring food and impoverished countries but are they really making a difference or are they just there for the photo op? That is the question we need to ask, what are we doing this? To make us feel better or to really make a change.
The whole idea here is to make real systemic change and not just window dressing. One person at a time, the person created in the image and likeness of God. We need to see Jesus in everyone we work with if we don’t we need to find another job!
Yesterday I wrote a rather long post about the previous days sessions that I attended. The sessions of day 3 were just as good but one really stood out and that was the one that centered on Subsidiarity and Serving the Poor.
The session was led by Ismael Hernandez whose father was the founder of the Communist Party in Puerto Rico. Ismael himself had been part of the Party and he joked about the size of his FBI file. But he came to the US of A and had an awakening and eventually became part of an organization in Florida that works to break the cycle of poverty.
Mr. Hernandez spoke to us from his experience about his 20 plus years working with the poor here in America. He had some very hard words to say and for some in the room, including yours truly, they were hard to hear.
“We need to help the poor help themselves.” Okay not real radical but still it sort of flies in the face of what we do. We provide meals, clothing, food stamps, etc. but do we do anything that will break the cycle of poverty? Do we provide anything that will help them pull themselves up? We have to allow them to do the work; we cannot do it for them.
“The poor do not need us to feel sorry for them they need us to walk side by side with them as they help themselves.” He added to this by saying, “We need to have respect for the poor. So much respect that we will let them fail.” We cannot force them to do anything, we can only be there to help. Tough love in other words.
But what about subsidiarity? I mention this a bit in yesterday post as well and I admit I am not an expert on this concept and I need to do more reading but I will leave you with some of the information from handout from the class.
Michael Novack, in his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism defines subsidiarity this way;
“Human life proceeds most intelligently and creatively when decisions are made at the level closest to the concrete reality, and when next-higher levels of decision making are invoked only as a last resort.”
This sounds to me like one of the principals of Classical Liberalism or perhaps even Libertarianism. Allow decisions to be made at the lowest level. The Federal Government cannot solve all problems and it is not a one size fits all situation. This needs more thought I think.
The largest problem, as I see it, is that we have moved from a sense of the group or the community if you will, to a sense of individualism. Its all about me, it cannot be about you because it is all about me. We saw some of this in the occupy Wall Street movement. College Students wanted their college loans forgiven so they could start fresh. All about me, entitlement.
The bottom line in all of this is a new way of thinking. We have tried it a certain way for a long time and it is not working. There are more poor people today than there has been in the past so the system is not working.
We need to continue what we are doing to help but we also need to look at alternatives and we cannot be afraid to change. The poor need our help, a hand up if you will, but we need to let them do the hard work.
It’s almost 9:00 p.m. and the end of a very long day here at the Acton Institute. Long day but a great day.
The day began with a wonderful discussion over breakfast with a couple of Orthodox priests, a Roman Catholic Priest, and a Methodist minister. I am always amazed at the sessions between the sessions that happen at these types of gatherings. We spoke about the need for us to get back to basics and talk about personhood. We tend to gravitate to the end of the issue and look at things backward, from the problem to the solution. If we start from the definition of personhood, the rest will simply take care of itself.
When a person comes to Acton for the first time, it is suggested that the participants take four foundational courses before all of the others. Christian Anthropology, Christian Vision of Government, Economic Way of Thinking, and the Biblical Foundations of Freedom. The idea being that these foundation courses will assist in understanding the others that follow.
Christian Anthropology
Start with an understanding of what an embodied person is. The human person, from the moment of conception until natural death, is a seamless amalgam of materiality and moral-spiritual qualities.
Any discussion of anthropology has to include a discussion about the fallen nature of humanity. There is a radical disorder that runs through the core of every persons human existence and this has immense implications for the social order. It rules out utopianism and produces the attitude of Christian realism.
We ended the discussion with the individual and the social. Humans are social by nature. We are individuals, in the sense that we are unique and unrepeatable, but we are also social beings in the way that no other animal is.
The Christian Vision of Government
There are nine truths to the Christian Vision of Government
1. The State is not Divine – Christians regard the state as custodian of social order.
2. Human Freedom – God made us free and the ordering of the state should recognize this reality.
3. Reality of Sin – Humans are good but fallen
4. Family – The family is the fundamental unit of society. The family is a natural community and a pre-political unit. It is not merely a construct of society but reflects the social nature of the human person and is a reflection of the Holy Trinity.
5. Justice and Natural Law – Natural law makes it evident that some things are intrinsically evil.
6. Private Property – Private property is not an absolute right like the right to life. Property is deeply connected to the family because it helps create the space and opportunity for families to live out their freedom and responsibilities. The right to own private property is in many ways the material foundation of freedom.
7. Free Association – The right to free association derives from the social nature of man.
8. Free Exchange – People should have the right to buy and sell without undue burden or confiscation of profits.
9. Anti-Utopian – It is not the task of the state to create mankind’s happiness, nor is it the task of the state to create new men.
This part of the lecture ended with a discussion about solidarity and subsidiarity but that needs more thought before I attempt to write about it.
As the day progressed I was a little more tired and so was really not paying real close attention to the last two lectures of the day.
The Economic Way of Thinking
Economics has never really been my thing. I have an undergraduate degree in business and economics was part of the program. This brought back all those bad times I had studying it all those years ago. I admit I need to get over that and do a little more reading in this area. The lecture was very well planned and thought out just not my thing.
Biblical Foundations of Freedom
The last lecture of the day was on the Biblical Foundations of Freedom. Acton was founded by a Roman Catholic priest mainly to teach economic principals to Catholic priests. This lecture was given by the Associate Professor of Church History at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.
He walked us through a few Scripture passages that deal with freedom:
Genesis 1-2
Ephesians 2:10
Genesis 3-11
Psalms 90-105
Three keys to the future
Trinity Life and a free and virtuous society
1. Love: Agape, rooted in Divine Self-donation that is sacrificial, substantive and wise.
2. Holiness: Living for the glory of God and the good of others.
3. Unity: finding the deepest values that unite thoughtful and virtuous people of all faiths or none.
All in all it was a good day. My head hurts and I need to process all of it, and I have two more days just as full!
I am glad I will have 12 hours in the car on the way home to really think about all of this.
I am on my way to spend a few days at a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I decided that I would stop in New York for the night and chose Niagara Falls as the place I would stop. I have not been here for years so I figured this was a good spot. As I Tweeted, the American side leave much to be desired and quite frankly the Niagara Falls, New York officials should be ashamed of themselves for the condition of the city. This is the gate way to the United States and it is not a very nice looking place.
But I digress. I took this photo this my phone of the falls from the Canadian side and as you can see it is an awesome site to behold.
