30 January 2015 • On-Campus
Let us who love their words come together with hymns
and honor the three great torch–bearers of the triune Godhead:
Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom.
These men have enlightened the world with the rays of their divine
doctrines.
They are flowing rivers of wisdom,
and have filled all creation with springs of heavenly knowledge.
They ceaselessly intercede for us
before the holy Trinity!
Troparion, Feast of the Three Great Hierarchs
View the photo gallery by Helen Mules
On January 30, 2015, the members of St. Vladimir's chapel community, faculty, staff, and students, gathered to celebrate the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs—Ss. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom—patrons of Three Hierarchs Chapel. Metropolitan Tikhon, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), and the seminary's president and board chairman, presided over the festal Liturgy. Special guests The Very Rev. Dr. Steven Voytovich, dean of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, and The Very Rev. Eric Tosi, secretary of the OCA, joined the chapel clergy for the service.
During the Liturgy, Metropolitan Tikhon ordained seminarians Stephen Osburn and John Edward as Subdeacon and Reader, respectively. He also stayed for the evening's event, the 32nd Annual Father Alexander Schmemann Lecture.
"The liturgical superlatives ascribed to these pillars of the Church," said His Beatitude in his homily, "are almost overwhelming in their unrelenting reminder, to the rest of us mortal and fallen human beings, of the supreme perfection of life and brilliance of theology of these three exemplary saints...we might honestly look into our hearts and ask ourselves: are we so inspired?"
He answered his own question with an exhortation for his hearers, that they not "give in to despair when we uncover the passions within our own hearts, but to slowly weed them out one by one; not to be discouraged because we don’t seem to have control over our children and their behavior, but rather continually strive to love them and pray for them and not judge ourselves to be failures; not to be overwhelmed when we find it difficult to live in a community, whether it is our family, our seminary or our parish, but to find hope in the examples of the great saints who give expression to true community." (Read the full text of Metropolitan Tikhon's homily.)
