On a cool October evening, faculty, staff, students and their families gathered in the Germack building to participate in the annual campus Chili Cook-off & Kids Costume Party. Contestants brought crock pots featuring their special version of chili recipes, and the kids enjoyed showing off their costumes and participating in fun activities.
On Sunday, December 7, the Three Hierarchs Chapel community enjoyed a favorite St. Vladimir's tradition when they sang a collection of carols and then welcomed St. Nicholas to campus. The carol "All who love Nicholas the saintly" ushered in the good saint, whose identity was hidden under his flowing white "beard." During the celebration, grown ups and kids alike also enjoyed a potluck meal, and St. Nicholas presented each child with a gift.
On Tuesday evening, December 16, a group of about 25 members of St. Vladimir's community, from 15 months to 55, convened in the lobby of the Sunrise Senior Living facility for an evening of caroling. The group of musicians sang a repertoire of familiar carols for about an hour, and were well received by the residents. "We could all see the joy a little singing brought to the residents of Sunrise," noted SVOTS Lecturer in Choral Conducting Mat. Robin Freeman. "I so appreciated how our students and staff gave of their time in this very busy season."
View the photo gallery by Glen and Helen Mules
The St. Vladimir's community celebrated the Vigil and Feast of Theophany on January 5 and 6 with a full liturgical cycle. A longstanding tradition followed, with Dean The Very Rev. Dr. John Behr and family, Assistant Professor The Very Rev. Dr. Alexander Rentel and family, and Director of Alumni and Admissions Protodeacon Joseph Matusiak and family, opening their homes for hospitality and fellowship. Liturgist and octogenarian Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, a seminary guest for the week, joined in for all the liturgical and community events, and offered the homily for Theophany's Divine Liturgy.
The Sunday prior to Theophany, The Rev. Kyle Parrott (SVOTS '14) also presented a homily in Three Hierarchs Chapel, titled "A Flame of Love." He noted that "Even if we have neglected our Christian calling, or are burnt out from church life, if our energy is spent from keeping faith in a culture that sees us as strange and irrelevant, if our love for our neighbor has been quenched by conflict with friend and family, or if our devotion to God has been smothered by the thousand problems in our lives, even with all this, we are unable to completely extinguish this light which Christ keeps smoldering in our souls, waiting for us to return again to the high calling of our baptism."
Continued Fr. Kyle,"To tend that light we are called to 'prepare the way of the Lord' by preparing our hearts. The Apostle Paul gives us a few ways to do this in today's epistle: 'Be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry' (2 Tim. 4:5)."
Off-Campus • By third-year seminarian Ignatius Green
View the photo gallery by third-year seminarian Stephen Osburn
January 22, 2015 marked the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the historic Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion-on-demand in the United States. Every year hundreds of thousands of people gather for the March for Life in Washington D.C. for a peaceful protest that calls for an end to legalized abortion, and advocates for a culture of life. It has become a tradition each year for the St. Ambrose Society, St. Vladimir's pro-life student group, to rent a bus to transport seminarians, their families, and members of the wider Orthodox community, down to the March.
The March is the largest and the oldest annual civil rights protest in the world. Nearly half the people at the March for Life are under thirty, and most are there because of their faith. There are many Roman Catholics, many different Protestant groups, several rabbis and their congregations, and always a contingent of clergy and laity from the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Church does not see abortion as a merely "political" issue. For two millennia the Church has been uncompromising and clear in its teachingSeminary President Metropolitan Tikhon and Chancellor/CEO The Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield join the marchers on abortion. Life begins at conception. This means that taking the life of an unborn child through abortion is murder. We cannot keep this truth to ourselves. The Church is prophetic, calling all to repentance, calling us to "banish all evil from our hearts and wickedness from our laws." Every year at the March for Life, Orthodox Christians witness to our Church's teaching, and invite others to find healing in Christ and his Church. Instead of chanting slogans, we march through the streets of Washington D.C. chanting the hymns of the Church. We hold and venerate icons of the Mother of God, who carried our Lord in her womb. We remember that He has assumed and sanctified every part of our lives, including our days in the womb.
The March begins at the National Mall and ends at the Supreme Court building, but the Orthodox contingent always stops short of this final destination. We gather together as our hierarchs lead us in prayer for the innocent children who have been killed in abortion, and also for the repentance and healing of all who have made the tragic choice to have an abortion.
Seminarian Ignatius GreenThird-year seminarian Fr. Mark VairI have been to the March six times, this year as the St. Ambrose Society president. Two years ago I became a father, and this deepened my experience of the March more than I can say. God plants such fierce love in a parent's heart. As my wife and I raise our toddler son, and eagerly await the arrival of his sister this May, we intimately know the infinite value of every life. It is not an abstract assertion, but a lived truth.
As beautiful and joyful as this is, it also deepens my sorrow over the tragedy of abortion. We must allow the stark reality of the millions of aborted children to break our hearts, but we must also make it strengthen our resolve to act in obedience to our Church's teachings. Let us all pray earnestly that our judges, our lawmakers, and our president heed God's law, and put an end to all unjust and evil human laws.
For more information on the St. Ambrose Society, visit us on Facebook.
Hundreds of thousands of marchers participate every yearA Prayer for Sanctity of Life Sunday:
O Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, Who art in the bosom of the Father, True God, source of life and immortality, Light of Light, Who camest into the world to enlighten it: Thou wast pleased to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary for the salvation of our souls by the power of Thine All-Holy Spirit. O Master, Who camest that we might have life more abundantly, we ask Thee to enlighten the minds and hearts of those blinded to the truth that life begins at conception and that the unborn in the womb are already adorned with Thine image and likeness; enable us to guard, cherish, and protect the lives of all those who are unable to care for themselves. For Thou art the Giver of Life, bringing each person from non-being into being, sealing each person with divine and infinite love. Be merciful, O Lord, to those who, through ignorance or willfulness, affront Thy divine goodness and providence through the evil act of abortion. May they, and all of us, come to the life of Thy Truth and glorify Thee, the Giver of Life, together with Thy Father, and Thine All-Holy and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
(From the petitions the Orthodox Church in America has blessed for the Sunday preceding January 22nd.)
For an excellent summary of the Church's teaching throughout history, see the amicus curiae brief filed with the Supreme Court on behalf of the Orthodox Church, which corrects and refutes many of Roe v. Wade's spurious claims about Christian history and teaching. It can be found online, and in pamphlet form, published by Conciliar Press (now Ancient Faith Publishing).
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.)
Sporting team T-shirts, the St. Vladimir's Seminary Hierarchs traveled to sister school St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary (STOTS) to play in the traditional winter basketball contest, on February 6 at 6:30 p.m. Prior to the game, seminarians from both institutions joined together in prayer at evening vespers. After the ball was thrown up, the Hierarchs battled with STOTS through four intense quarters, ending up victorious with a final score of 42–30. The game concluded in an exchange of handshakes, a group photo, and a communal meal. (View the Facebook photo gallery by Sara Staff)
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.
By Martha Carlisle
On Bright Saturday, the student-run St. Herman Society for Orthodox Ecology sponsored a Campus Beautification Day, intending to make the entire campus reflect the luster of the festal season. With substantial help from Matushka Robyn Hatrak, wife of the Reverend Dn. Gregory Hatrak of SVS Press, the St. Herman Society was able to expand the event to involve seminary families, especially children. While adults planted flower bulbs and picked up trash, children played sports on the front lawn and practiced ballet and crafts in the Bashir Auditorium.
Seminary spouses were impressive multi-taskers; many parents patrolled the grounds with a child in one hand and a trash bag in the other! The beautiful weather added to the joy of the day, and the attendance dwarfed that of previous Campus Beautification events. Inspired by the success of the event, the St. Herman Society looks forward to more events in the same, family-friendly pattern. Christ is Risen! (Photos by John Nieuwsma, Mat. Robyn Hatrak, and Olga Kirilchenko)
On Thursday, October 1, 2015, on the feast of the Protection of the Theotokos, the Divine Liturgy in Three Hierarchs Chapel was celebrated according to the rubrics of the Romanian Orthodox Church for the first time in the Chapel's history. Father Eugen Pentiuc, St. Vladimir's professor of Scripture and Semitic Languages, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Hellenic College Holy Cross, presided at the celebration of the liturgy and offered the homily.
Father Eugen served in Romanian and English and was assisted by Fr. Adrian Budica, supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education and director of Field Education, together with two Romanian seminarians, Bogdan Neacsiu and Alexandru Popovici; Bogdan and Alexandru chanted the responses in Romanian and English, using Romanian melodies.
"With the occasion of this feast of the Mother of God, our community enjoyed a special moment: two of our professors, along with two of our students, celebrated the liturgy in Romanian for a historic first. The pan-Orthodox character of our institution was elevated today to a new level," noted the Very Reverend Dr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor/CEO.
The liturgy is another indication of St. Vladimir's growing relationship with the Romanian Orthodox community; in February of 2013, a cooperative agreement was signed between St. Vladimir's and the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Bucharest.
Read the article (in Romanian) by the Romanian Patriarchate's Basilica News Agency
