On-Campus • Three Hierarchs Chapel
Metropolitan Tikhon presiding at the Great Canon of St. Andrew of CreteOur campus community began Great Lent with Forgiveness Vespers, followed by a two-day retreat that included daylong lenten liturgical services punctuated by focused meditations.
Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff, associate professor in Systematic Theology, presented this year's meditations for the retreat. His theme was “How to be a Sinner.”
Bouteneff said, “I was always struck by the challenge of understanding myself as ‘the chief among sinners’ [I Tim 1:15], but doing so without becoming either prideful or neurotic.
“What are the implications of giving myself that title of ‘sinner’? Is there still a part of me that is good and worthy of care?” he questioned in his exploration. “Why do the fathers experience such liberty, and even joy, in their self-condemnation — something we glimpse in the beauty of the penitential services of the first week of Lent?”
His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), presided at the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, during the retreat. Chapel clergy, including ordained seminarians, had the privilege of serving with him.
