Saturday, October 1, 2011 • Annual Orthodox Education Day

When you come to our annual Orthodox Education Day (OED) this year, look for some surprises: bagpipes, a military honor guard, icon displaying soldiers and peacemakers, folk dancers wielding swords, special workshops to help our service men and women and the church communities ministering to them, and a campaign to send care packages to those deployed in the armed forces—all in conjunction with this year's theme: "For God and Country."

Throughour the day, we will be honoring (and especially praying for, as our liturgy bids us to do), all our men and women "in the armed forces everywhere," and especially our Orthodox military chaplains.

Our keynote speaker will be The Rev. Dr. Philip LeMasters, a member of the seminary's Board of Trustees; Professor of Religion, Director of the Honors Program, and Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Religion at McMurry University; and rector of St. Luke Orthodox Church, Abilene, Texas, under the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (AOCANA).  Fr. Philip is the author of an article titled "Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War and Violence," published recently in The Ecumenical Review (Vol. 63:1, 54–61, March 2011).

Our primary workshop leader will be Dr. Stephen Muse, director of the Counselor Training Program at the Pastoral Institute, Inc. in Columbus, Georgia, who also teaches and supervises with the U.S. Army Family Life Chaplain Training program at Fort Benning. Dr. Muse has taught and led workshops throughout the U.S. and internationally, both in the civilian sector and also for the U.S. Army Chaplains, in areas such as special problems of clergy and helping professionals, marriage, and the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

We are inviting clergy, with their parishioners, from all area churches to attend the keynote lecture by Fr. Philip, which will be based upon his aforementioned article, and the workshop by Dr. Muse, which will explore the potential support that churches can offer veterans and their families in the mission of returning home—psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually—as well as what civilians have to learn from those have gone to “hell for us” (in the words of Dr. Muse) and returned. We also are planning to have a panel of Orthodox Christian military chaplains, who will be discussing various aspects of service in the Armed Forces; and a panel relating to military family life "states-side," while loved ones are deployed.

St. Tikhon's Monastery Museum houses a good collection of military chaplains uniforms and kits from WWII to current U.S. wars, and the entire display will be on loan to SVOTS for OED 2011. Archpriest John Perich, museum curator, and Igumen Sergius, abbot of the Monastery, who are graciously lending our school this memorabilia, note that each item in this exceptional display is annotated with a specific chaplain's name.

Master iconographer Vladislav Andreyev will be displaying his beautiful illustrations from our new children's book, St. George and the Dragon, a timeless account of the brave saint who conquored demons through martyrdom, written by author Jim Forest.

We'd like to have your voice included in this lively day of discussion and prayer. Please join us for our annual campus open house, and bring your family, parish family, and friends. We'll warmly welcome you to St. Vladimir's!

If you or your parish would like to help with donations to the ethnic food booths, or for further information on the event, please e-mail our Events Coordinator, Tanya Penkrat, or call her at 914-961-8313 x351. 

Download a flyer of Orthodox Education Day 2011 as a PDF  here.

Download a flyer of Orthodox Education Day 2011 in JPG format here.

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Download a full schedule of Orthodox Education Day here.

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