UPDATE (March 12, 2020): Due to ongoing concerns over the new coronavirus (COVID-19), this event has been postponed until further notice. We are so sorry for any inconvenience but appreciate your understanding at this time. Please contact us at events@svots.edu if you have any questions. Donations are still being accepted through this page, however (please see the note below).
Support a team of St. Vladimir’s seminarians traveling to Uganda this summer!
Three seminarians will be part of a missions team through the Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) May 18-30: Priest Giorgi Tskitishvili, Cornelius Schuster, and Aaron Rutz. The trip is also part of the efforts of one of the Seminary’s student interest groups, the St. Innocent Mission Society.
St. Vladimir’s Seminary will host a fundraising dinner for the team on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. The dinner will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the Seminary’s Germack Refectory. You may donate at the event or through this page at any time (see donation form below).
This will be the second time in as many years a team from St. Vladimir’s has taken part in a missions trip to Uganda. In 2018, a team of nine seminarians, including Cornelius, traveled to the country as part of a teaching missions trip also sponsored by OCMC. During this trip, the team will spend most of its time in the newly formed diocese in Northern Uganda, where St. Vladimir’s Alumnus Priest Simon Menya (’18) currently serves. Father Simon will accompany the team.
*In the event the trip is postponed due to Coronavirus concerns, any money donated will be still go toward the missions trip whenever it is rescheduled. If the trip must be cancelled entirely, funds raised will be given to the Orthodox faithful in Uganda.
St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) is pleased to announce the hiring of Rev. Dr. Bogdan Bucur as Professor of Patristics and Dr. Vitaly Permiakov as Professor of Liturgical Theology.
The hires come after an extensive search process to fill these two important faculty positions. The new Seminary professors will follow in the footsteps of some of the most famous academics in the history of SVOTS, including Fathers Georges Florovsky (Patristics), John Meyendorff (Patristics), and Alexander Schmemann (Liturgical Theology).
“The Seminary has worked hard to bring in the best Orthodox scholars when faculty positions have come open,” said SVOTS Academic Dean Dr. Ionut-Alexandru Tudorie. “That is why we searched not only in North America but internationally, and made use of external reviewers to assist our in-house Search Committees in the process. We are all very pleased with the results of these academic searches.”
“I am thankful to everyone who worked hard to fill these incredibly important positions, including the Seminary’s Academic Affairs Committee and Board of Trustees,” added SVOTS President Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield. “I’d also like to thank Dr. Tudorie, especially, for his excellent leadership in guiding this complex process. We are excited to add the great scholarship of these two new professors to the ranks of our academic team.”
The new professor of Patristics, Rev. Dr. Bogdan Bucur, comes to SVOTS from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, where he has been teaching as a tenured Associate Professor of Theology. Father Bogdan studied Theology at the University of Bucharest in his native country of Romania. He left for the United States in 2000 as he and his wife pursued further graduate studies. Father Bogdan completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at Marquette University, under the academic guidance and mentorship of now-Archbishop Alexander (Golitzin). At Duquesne, where Father Bogdan has been since 2007, he has worked in the areas of biblical reception history and early Christianity. He has also taught a yearly course in Patristics at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA, and a Scripture course each semester (alternating Old and New Testaments) for the M.Th. program at the Antiochian House of Studies. Father Bogdan is a priest in the Antiochian Archdiocese and has been serving as parish priest at St. Anthony Orthodox Church in Butler, PA.
“Although I've spent thirteen good and, as they say, ‘productive’ years at Duquesne University, and although I am heartbroken to leave my parish family of St. Anthony's, I count it as a privilege to come to St. Vladimir's, where a conscious attempt is made to overcome the compartmentalization of academic instruction, liturgical formation, and preparation for social ministry,” said Father Bogdan. “My intention is not simply to be added to the Faculty roster, but to join a team of Orthodox scholars and teachers invested in mentoring the preachers and pastors of tomorrow, and to participate in the development of the Seminary.”
Dr. Vitaly Permiakov is already familiar to St. Vladimir’s seminarians. He began the current academic year teaching as an Assistant Professor at the Seminary. Born to a Russian family in Riga, Latvia, Dr. Permiakov relocated to the United States in 1999 after completing his undergraduate studies. He entered SVOTS in 2001 with the blessing of the late Archbishop Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas. After graduating with an M.Div. in 2004, he enrolled in a doctoral program in Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where in 2012 he defended his dissertation on the history and origins of the Byzantine rite for the consecration of churches. In addition to Dr. Permiakov’s M.Div. from SVOTS and Ph.D. in Theology/Liturgical Studies from Notre Dame, he holds an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas (2001). Dr. Permiakov has been teaching Liturgical Theology, Dogmatics, and Comparative Theology at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary (Jordanville, NY), the seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), since 2011. He was tonsured to the ecclesiastical rank of Reader in the Orthodox Church in America at Three Hierarchs Chapel, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, in 2002.
“I have come to profoundly enjoy the working environment at St. Vladimir’s and the dedication and intellectual level of its students,” said Dr. Permiakov. “It is my hope to bring to them an understanding of Liturgical Theology informed by a thorough knowledge of Scriptures, Church Fathers, and theological reflection. This approach will not only tell us what Liturgy meant in the past, but will give future pastors an understanding of how the Liturgy, the Church’s lex orandi, is the foundation of the Church’s mission and apologetics in the modern, changing world.”
Professors Bucur and Permiakov will begin their new appointments at the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year.
UPDATE (30 March 2020): For the sake of safety, stability, and continuity, the Seminary's Faculty Council has decided that classes will continue to be held online until the end of the spring semester.
UPDATE (17 March 2020): To further keep the campus and surrounding community as safe as possible, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary has enacted the following safety measures in addition to the actions taken last week:
All chapel services, including Sunday Divine Liturgy, have been suspended until further notice.
The St. Vladimir's Seminary (SVS) Press Bookstore is open for online and phone orders ONLY. The brick-and-mortar store is closed to all walk-in business until further notice.
The process to move all Seminary classes online for current seminarians has begun this week.
The Seminary has contracted with professional cleaning companies to sanitize public spaces on campus and clean ducts in the main administrative building.
UPDATE (12 March 2020): Due to ongoing concerns over the new coronavirus (COVID-19), all Seminary events scheduled for the Month of March have been postponed until further notice. We are so sorry for any inconvenience but appreciate your understanding at this time. Please contact us at events@svots.edu if you have any questions. Seminary offices remain open and classes are still being held for now. Any further updates will be posted to this page.
St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) remains open amid global concerns regarding Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), but is closely monitoring developments to take appropriate action as needed.
As of this week, the Seminary is maintaining disinfecting procedures as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other state offices. If further measures are called for, such as suspending classes and/or conducting class and work remotely, the Seminary will take appropriate action. But for now, Seminary classes and events over the coming days and weeks will take place as previously scheduled.
Thus far, no one living on or commuting to the Seminary’s campus has been compromised by exposure to Coronavirus. The Seminary, however, strongly urges individuals and families to remain vigilant, follow good hygiene practices, and to stay home if feeling unwell.
SVOTS will continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds daily and will communicate any changes that result.
Saint Vladimir’s President Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield visited multiple Orthodox communities in the “land down under” this winter, teaching, speaking, and strengthening the Seminary’s relationships there.
Father Chad traveled to Australia in February for two weeks primarily to teach at St. Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary in Sydney. He was invited by St. Cyril’s dean, Rev. Dr. Daniel Fanous, the author of the recently published SVS Press title A Silent Patriarch. Over the two weeks, Fr. Chad taught intensive seminars on missiology to thirty students from around the world including New Zealand and Zaire. He also spoke to a young adult group at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church, Sydney, and visited two other Coptic Churches in the area.
Fr. Chad then visited His Eminence Metropolitan Basilios at the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese Residency in Illawong. At the Archdiocese Residency, His Eminence and Fr. Chad discussed various Church matters, including the enhancement of relationships and future cooperation between the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese and St. Vladimir’s Seminary.
Finally, Fr. Chad traveled to St. Malkeh Syriac Orthodox Church just outside Sydney. The Syriac Orthodox community there is working on establishing a scholarship for the first Syriac Orthodox seminarian from Australia to attend St. Vladimir’s.
“What struck me the most about my time in Australia was the hunger for Orthodox teaching and resources and the love so many people have for the Seminary and SVS Press,” said Fr. Chad. “Orthodox bookstores there are filled with SVS Press books. I heard stories from people who were impacted by the visits of Seminary teachers dating all the way back to Fr. Thomas Hopko in the 1990s! It was also good to build on the good relationships forged there by Fr. John Behr in recent years.”
“Australia is hungry for Orthodoxy, and I think St. Vladimir’s can play an even stronger role in helping fill that need.”
In the short term, St. Vladimir’s is already working on making access to SVS Press books easier and more affordable in both Australia and New Zealand.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon led the St. Vladimir’s Seminary community into retreat Clean Monday and Tuesday, as Great Lent began. His Beatitude delivered four meditations at the Seminary’s annual two-day Lenten Retreat, presenting reflections loosely built around his own experience of life in community.
“Whether we are speaking of the monastery, the family, or the Seminary community, we are both alone and yet never alone—striving in our own hearts to meet God, but also struggling to figure out how my brother, my wife, my husband, my professor, my student have a part in this….," he said.
“Certainly, we are all weak, frail, lacking in faith, lonely, and despondent at times,” he continued, “and these states are not always pleasant. But it is often in the midst of these experiences, which are in turn aggravated by our having to deal with others in our life, that we are able to receive fruit in our ascetical endeavors. This fruit is manifested in our hearts...[and] they are received in the community that we are a part of."
Listen to each of Metropolitan Tikhon’s four Lenten meditations in their entirety below.
The Metropolitan was joined at the retreat by Orthodox Church in America (OCA) Chancellor Archpriest Alexander Rentel, Archdeacon and Secretary to the Metropolitan Joseph Matusiak, seminarians, faculty, staff, and members of the community. Classes were cancelled each day of the retreat and students were encouraged to practice silence. Each day, the Seminary community entered the chapel together several times for a fuller cycle of prayers in addition to His Beatitude’s meditations.
Saint Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press has released a special commemorative book celebrating the Orthodox Church in America (OCA)’s fifty years of autocephaly.
The Time Has Come, edited by St. Vladimir's Seminary Academic Dean Ionut-Alexandru Tudorie, contains a collection of debates over autocephaly initially published in the St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly. The various articles were written in the years leading up to and following the Russian Orthodox Church granting the Tomos of Autocephaly to the OCA (then known as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America) in 1970.
“The storm provoked by the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America is probably one of the most meaningful crises in several centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical history,” wrote Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann in his article, “A Meaningful Storm: Some Reflections on Autocephaly, Tradition, and Ecclesiology” (1971).
Along with Schmemann, other voices found in The Time Has Come include Metropolitan Leonty (Turkevich), Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, Archbishop Peter L’Huillier, Elizabeth Prodromou, Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis), Alexander Bogolepov, and several others.
The book is available exclusively in a hardcover edition. The Time Has Come may be purchased at SVSPress.com or by calling 1-800-204-BOOK (2665).
The community of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) will enter into its annual two-day retreat as Great Lent begins next week. Because of the two full days of retreat, the Seminary will be closed for business and classes will not be held on Clean Monday and Tuesday, March 2 and 3. The Seminary bookstore will be open from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. both days.
Over the two days students, faculty, and staff will enter Three Hierarchs Chapel together several times for a fuller cycle of prayers and a series of talks for meditation. This year, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, archbishop of Washington and metropolitan of All America and Canada, will deliver meditations during the Lenten retreat.
2020 Lenten Retreat Daily Schedule
8am – Matins
11:30am – First Talk (Monday); Third Talk (Tuesday)
12pm – Third and Sixth Hour
4pm – Second Talk (Monday); Fourth Talk (Tuesday)
4:30pm – Ninth Hour, Typika, Vespers
8pm – Great Compline
The Seminary’s Lenten Retreat is also open to members of the public. His Beatitude’s meditations will be recorded, and the audio will be posted on the Seminary and Ancient Faith Ministries websites following the retreat.
Members of the public are kindly asked to note that the Seminary holds this retreat in silence from Sunday evening to Wednesday morning.
Conferences aimed at forming and strengthening Orthodox Christian leaders are being held over the coming months in four cities across the U.S. These Servant Leadership Retreats are an initiative of The Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative (OCLI), in partnership with St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS). The OCLI is developing an Intensive Program in Servant Leadership for both laity and clergy who currently serve their local church body in a variety of roles or who are interested in serving the ministry of their parishes. The upcoming retreats will serve as pilots for the Servant Leadership curriculum.
The Servant Leadership Retreats are being held in the following cities:
Achieving a better understanding of Christian leadership as doing the will of God in personal, community, church, and secular environments;
Becoming better leaders at home, neighborhood, job, and the parish, witnessing to Christ in loving service to others and helping to bring about his Kingdom;
Learning to attract and inspire young adults to assume increased positions of responsibility in the Church;
Adopting a stewardship approach to life, receiving gifts from God, and giving generously to the needy;
Acquiring a better understanding of ministerial leadership and the co-leadership of laity and clergy;
Learning to work together strategically in a parish, seeking to be the "city on a hill" that witnesses to Christ and works in the Holy Spirit;
Mastering the everyday managerial aspects of community effort: meetings, councils, conflict, stewardship, ethics, and finances.
More information and registration for each retreat are available on the OCLI website.
During the 2020-2021 academic year, OCLI and SVOTS will focus on extending the program at the Seminary to develop an “Organizational Leadership” emphasis for SVOTS’ existing Master of Arts (M.A.) program.
About OCLI
The Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative exists to nurture and empower Orthodox Christian servant leadership. It is a national initiative to increase generosity, servant leadership, and social outreach by clergy and laity of all jurisdictions working together nationally, regionally, and locally.
The Institute of Sacred Arts (ISA) at St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) is pleased to announce that three full scholarships are available to Orthodox Church musicians for the 2020 Pan-Orthodox Music Symposium co-hosted by SVOTS and the International Society for Orthodox Church Music (ISOCM), June 10-14, 2020.
In addition to keynote presentations by leading scholars, this event will include six workshops, eight masterclass options, specialized rehearsals, a concert by Cappella Romana in New York City, daily divine services, and many opportunities for meaningful conversation with other individuals interested in Orthodox music from across North America and around the globe.
The scholarship will cover the following expenses for the award recipients:
Round trip (air/ground) transportation to the Seminary campus in Yonkers, NY
2020 ISOCM/SVS Symposium registration fee
4 nights of hotel lodging Wednesday, June 10 to Sunday, June 14, 2020
All meals during the 4-day event
1 ticket to the Cappella Romana concert in New York City on Friday, June 12, 2020
Click here to download the application form. Applications must be postmarked or received electronically no later than Saturday, April 25, 2020.
Award recipients will be notified via email by Saturday, May 9, 2020, and those receiving the scholarship will be reimbursed for previously purchased airfare/ground transportation expenses.
A new CD by the renowned Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Octet, Arise! Music of the Psalms, sets ancient, sacred wisdom to classic and contemporary musical settings. The album is now available through St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press.
“This new recording presents music from a wide variety of times and places, but it all draws from the same ancient well: the Psalms," said Seminary Music Director Robin Freeman.
“Music for Christian worship has always centered on the Psalms,” said Harrison Russin, assistant director of Arise! and lecturer in liturgical music at St. Vladimir's. “The text articulates those cries, while the music situates us as hearers, forcing us into the role of ‘the coming generation’ (Ps 78:4), fusing ancient words and modern melodies.”
The first track on the album is Freeman’s new arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s Habitare fratres in unum for men’s voices, which she arranged specifically for this recording with the composer’s permission (The Seminary has a long-established relationship with Pärt, which began with the Arvo Pärt Project.). Other tracks on Arise! include the traditional Russian arrangements of Pavel Chesnokov’s Da ispravitsa (“Let My Prayer Arise”), Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov’s classic setting of Bless the Lord, O my Soul, A. Arkhangelsky’s O Lord of Hosts, and G. Lvovsky’s O Taste and See; the modern Russian stylings of Viktor Kallinikov’s Blazhen muzh (“Blessed is the man”); the Byzantine Arise, O God; an Alaskan setting of The Lord is My Shepherd; and American settings like Nicholas Reeves’ Wedding Hymn and Samuel Babcock’s Gratitude. Another track, James Budinich’s Peace, O Lord, was composed specially for the Octet.
Directed by Robin Freeman, the St. Vladimir’s Seminary Octet singers on the new album are Priests Christopher Moore, Gregory Potter, and Andrew Honoré, Harrison Russin, Brenden Link, Angelo Niqula, Zachariah Mandell, and Phillip Ritchey. Also featured are Seminary Lecturer in Liturgical Music Deacon John El Massih, who directed the two Byzantine pieces and is featured prominently as the soloist on By the Watersof Babylon; Seminarians John Thetford, Theodore Werthmuller, and Priest Herman Fields; and Khouria Mary Honoré.
The first St. Vladimir’s Seminary Octet was formed in the summer of 1962 and visited some 80 parishes throughout the United States that same year. Since then, Octets featuring seminarians and members of the Seminary community have continued to promote liturgical music in English—in a style conducive to worship—and brought sacred music to countless Orthodox and non-Orthodox people alike through live concerts and recordings. More albums featuring Seminary Octets through the years can be found at SVSPress.com.
To order a copy of Arise! Music of the Psalms, visit SVSPress.com or call 800-204-BOOK (2665).
