Start Date
Seminary friends are welcome to join the Three Hierarchs Chapel community on Saturday, November 1, 6:30 p.m. for a Festal Vigil, and Sunday, November 2 at 9 a.m. for the Festal Divine Liturgy.
An autumnal feast of St. Vladimir will be celebrated this weekend, beginning a new tradition at the Seminary. "We are doing so to mark the arrival of the saint's relics to our community, which took place last year roughly at this time," notes Ecclesiarch The Very Rev. Dr. Alexander Rentel. "This celebration will also allow us the opportunity to honor our patron in the school year, since his regular feast falls during the summer break."
A year ago on the eve of the November 7, 2013 75th Anniversary Gala Banquet, a delegation from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, led by His Eminence, The Most Rev. Metropolitan Philip, archbishop of Poltava and Myrhorod, presented the community with the relics of St. Vladimir and a rare Book of Gospels. Instead of Daily Vespers, all of the Seminary's clergy gathered to receive the relics, process around the Chapel, and serve an Akathistos Hymn to St. Vladimir.
The relics, along with a rare Gospel Book, were gifts from His Beatitude Vladimir (Volodymyr), metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). St. Vladimir's Chancellor/CEO The Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield travelled to Ukraine last June, where he and the Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary, Metropolitan Antony (Borispolsky), reached a cooperative agreement calling for student and teacher exchanges, the development and execution of joint research projects, the co-sponsoring of conferences, and co-publication of scholarly materials.
When receiving the relics and Gospel, Fr. Chad noted that "these gracious gifts remind us that from our founding, the decision was made to give our seminary a missionary saint as its patron. The rare Gospel Book, commemorating the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of the Rus', will inspire us to remember our first charge to be a missionary school."
