I taught medieval history at Wichita State University, KS, and I am a translator. When I get stuck in a stubborn paragraph, I say a short Latin prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Veni, Sancte Spiritus; et emitte coelitus lucis tuae radium. Veni, pater pauperum; veni, dator munerum; veni, lumen cordium.” “Come, Holy Spirit, and send a ray of your heavenly light. Come, Father of the poor. Come, Giver of gifts, Come, Light of the hearts.”

In this article, I will first deal briefly with my own life, and then with one key aspect of patristic theology that continues to attract me. After discussing the practice of translation, I will answer questions that may arise. I was a tenured member of the faculty, but my life lacked a sense of direction. And then, mindful of the words of Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.E.) in Plato’s Apology that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” I concluded that I had not really used the gift God had given me, that of languages. I had studied ten. Instead of going to church on Sundays, I listened to classical music, or read poetry by the German poets Rilke or Hölderlin. Then, unexpectedly, a former student invited me to Pascha at St George Orthodox Church. I converted to Orthodoxy in 1981.

I translate books out of a deep respect for Tradition. I know that various definitions may be given of that venerable word “Tradition,” but the one I like best is offered by the fifth-century French monk Vincent of Lérins in his renowned Commonitorium (c. 434). Using Latin, the language of his day, Vincent writes: “Id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.” In translation, “We use the greatest care to hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” (Documents of the Christian Church, ed. by H. Bettenson [1963] 84).

A concept that is essential in understanding Orthodoxy is that of “the heart.” Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-394) wrote: “God is promised to the vision of those whose heart has been purified. But No man hath seen God at any time, as says the great John…[God] is the slippery, steep rock that affords no basis for our thoughts” (Ancient Christian Writers 18 [1954] 143, translated by Hilda Graef). And thus, God cannot be “understood” by the mind, though He can be understood by the heart, and be loved. In the text, On the Soul and the Resurrection, Macrina, Gregory’s sister, states admirably, “hé de gnósis agapé ginetai,” “knowledge becomes love” (The Fathers of the Church [1967] 240, translated by Virginia W. Callahan). Another possible translation might be “Love itself becomes knowledge”— “Amor ipse fit cognitio,” as was said in the Latin Middle Ages. There is an intellectual knowledge, and there is also knowledge as an experience of God in the heart, by grace.

Eastern spirituality appeals to the heart. We learn about “guarding of the heart” (in Greek, phulaké kardias; in Latin, custodia cordis), vigilance or watchfulness of the heart (népsis), purity of the heart (in Latin, puritas cordis), and kardiognésis (Greek for knowledge of the heart). In Scripture, the heart (lev, in Hebrew) is the point of contact between God and the human being. It gives stability to the successive, fleeting moments of life. In Orthodox Spirituality (1994), Bishop Hierotheos succinctly states that “the heart is the place . . . wherein God is revealed” (35). And to repeat what Tomaš Špidlík says in volume two of The Spirituality of the Christian East (2005, Cistercian Studies Series 206), while commenting on Theophan the Recluse’s view of the degree of kinship between the human being and God (srodstvo, as Theophan says), “To be attentive to the voice of this ‘connaturality’ is to perceive the divine mysteries . . . as they enter our lives. The heart then becomes a wellspring of revelation” (258).

Moving away from the heart, let us now deal with “the head,” and the more technical aspects of translation. And thus, we ask, “exactly, what is translation?” It is not a mechanical act, like pouring wine from one bottle into another; nor is it a “reproduction” (in French, un calque). Rather, it is the process by which the original text, conventionally called “the Source Text,” is rewritten into its “dynamic equivalent” (the “Target Text”). This means that the crux of the translation process consists in writing a new version that shows fidelity (in German, Sinntreue) to the original. A good translator, then, does not render word for word (in Latin, verbum de verbo) but always meaning for meaning (sensus pro sensu), as St Jerome (c. 340­420), the patron saint of translators, stated. Finding the correct meaning is a major task performed by the human translator, not by a machine. The unit of translation is always the paragraph, not the individual line.

One may ask, “What, then, is a translator?” Someone who rewrites “a book-in-itself” as “a book-for-others. Translators provide an important service to the reader—that of removing barriers. Translators make bridges. Translators work in the spaces between languages, and in so doing, provide a new perspective, a new way of thinking across language barriers.

If someone were to say, “I recently read that ‘a translation is an interpretation’”—would you agree? I might add that before making the translation, the translator performs an interpretive reading of the original text. Like everything we do, including the gestures we make, reading, almost by definition, involves “interpretation.” The translator does a great deal of research into the significance of certain words at a given historical period and in a certain cultural or religious ambiance (the German word is Umwelt, “the surrounding world”). What we should remember, then, is that a theological translation must always be faithful to the original. As stated earlier, this is the requirement of fidelity, of Sinntreue (Zingetrouwheid, in Dutch). A translator interacts with words, but he must always follow the road traveled by the author, just as the latter should follow the direction indicated by Scripture, the Church Fathers, and by Christ. The direction is always to the East: “Ex Oriente lux. Light comes from the East.” To conclude, then, a translator is not free to “recreate the original,” or distort the basic text by his own interpretation. If he does, he deserves the reproach of the Italian play on words, Traddutore-Traditore (“Translator-Traitor”).

The reader may wonder, “Are you working on something currently?” At present, in view of a translation, I am rereading a key work by the French Jesuit Jean Cardinal Daniélou (1905-1974), who defended his doctoral dissertation on Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-394) at the Sorbonne, Paris, in 1943. Together with Völker, the German scholar, Daniélou launched a Gregory of Nyssa renaissance in Europe in the 1950s, with the publication of a series of articles in scholarly Journals. He views Gregory as the real founder of mystical theology, defined as “a sensing of God in the soul.” The title of Daniélou’s study is Platonisme et théologie mystique. La doctrine spirituelle de saint Grégoire de Nysse (Aubier [1944] 326 pages). In translation, Platonism and Mystical Theology. The Spiritual Doctrine of Saint Gregory of Nyssa. This is an important work. In Ancient Christian Writers number 18 (New York [l954]), Hilda C. Graef, the translator, states that “It is only in recent times that Gregory of Nyssa has been rediscovered as an ascetical and mystical writer of the highest importance, witness the brilliant study which Père Daniélou devoted to this side of his work” (6). My translation will hopefully be the only truly comprehensive work available in English on all aspects of Gregory’s mystical theology. Is this arrogance? No, because of the warning given by Bernardus Silvestris (eleventh century) that the translator is only “a dwarf sitting on the shoulder of the giant.”

Someone may ask, “Is there a certain author’s work that you particularly enjoyed translating?” I would reply by mentioning, if I may, not one but two authors, the first being Tomaš Špidlik (1919-2010), a Jesuit Cardinal of the Roman Church, and professor of Eastern Patristics in Rome. I never met him, though I briefly corresponded with him. He knew Eastern theology superbly well; he was the star student of his professor, Irénée Hausherr, from Brussels, Belgium, a pioneer in the teaching of Eastern spirituality at the Pontifical Institute of Oriental studies in Rome. I translated two of Špidlik’s works: The Spirituality of the Christian East, Volume One (1986) and Volume Two (2005). We remember that an excerpt from Špidlik’s book, The Art of Purifying the Heart is found on pages 26-27 of the Spring 2011 issue of Jacob’s Well. Špidlik viewed the Church, not in terms of a historically false Roman triumphalism (“We are the true church”), but as part of the tradition of the universal, undivided Church, the mystical body, an extension of the body of Christ. He liked the word tserkovnost’, a word that is hard to translate, “a sense of Church, the desire and the will to live with and in her” (The Spirituality, vol. one, 157). Every author has his favorite vocabulary. Špidlik was very fond of using the term mysticism. There is, he stated, “the mysticism of the Church,” “the mysticism of light,” “the mysticism of events,” and the “mysticism of the heart.” (Index, The Spirituality, vol. two, 500).

The second author I enjoyed translating is Paul Evdokimov (1901-1970), a Russian lay theologian, who may be viewed as the real bridge between East and West. Born in 1901, in St Petersburg, Evdokimov first went to military school, and in 1918, attended the Academy of theology in Kiev. After the Revolution, his family settled in Paris in 1923, where he studied at the Sorbonne. In 1942, he completed his doctorate at the University of Aix­en-Provence with a dissertation on Dostoevsky. He obtained a second Doctorate in theology from the St Sergius Institute, in Paris, in 1965. Together with figures such as Nicholas Afanasiev, Sergius Bulgakov, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, and others, Evdokimov belongs to the group of émigré scholars in Paris who created what is often called “the Russian theological Renaissance.” Today, this important movement is being studied more and more, as is evidenced by the Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (2008). I translated three of Evdokimov’s books: Le sacrament de l’amour. The Sacrament of Love (SVS Press, 1985), La femme et le salut du monde. Woman and the Salvation of the World. A Christian Anthropology of the Charisms of Women  (SVS Press, 1994), and his almost monumental Orthodoxie. Orthodoxy: the Transformed Cosmos, which is in press by Eighth Day Books in Wichita, KS.

Finally, one may wonder, “Why write translations at all?” Here is the answer: we translate because translations help raise the level of historical literacy among the readers. Also, we translate because of our love of words and of rhetoric or structure. As the heirs of Plato and Homer, most Church Fathers, educated in the classical tradition, wrote well. That is, they said simple things simply and complex things clearly.

God’s grace was revealed to me in the form of two presses for which I would translate books: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press in Crestwood, NY, and Cistercian Publications, then at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, MI. I am deeply aware that God’s grace has been at work in my life as a professor and translator, and for this I bow my head in gratitude. I also know that my life does not yet form a complete unity, and that this will be an ongoing struggle until my death.

The thirteen books I have translated were written in French or German by great scholars: Irénée Hausherr and his Czech student, Tomaš Špidlík, both of whom taught Eastern spirituality in Rome; the Russians Boris Bobrinskoy, Paul Evdokimov, Bishop Krivochéine, and Leonid Ouspensky; Placide Deseille, a French Cistercian monk first at Bellefontaine and later at Aubazine in south-central France. In l977, he and his community joined the Orthodox Church on Mount Athos; and Gabriel Bunge, the Benedictine specialist on Evagrius of Pontus (343-399), who has recently been received into the Orthodox Church, in Russia. I worked with Fr John Meyendorff, the renowned Orthodox Church historian, in the sense that I translated several books which Fr Meyendorff had recommended to the Board of Publications at St Vladimir’s Seminary. Also, together with Professor and now Fr John Erickson, I edited Meyendorff’s book, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. (SVS Press [1989]), a work which Jaroslav Pelikan, then at Yale University, described as “a remarkable achievement.”

Why, then, are the books written by these giants of learning and holiness so important? Because they clarify the Tradition of the Fathers, and in this context, we can never emphasize too strongly that Western or Latin-speaking Christendom originated from the Greek Tradition, as a branch grows from a tree. The tree came first. Also, translators are very conscious of the fact that what they do is part of the always needed “return to the sources” (in French, ressourcement). We know what these sources of grace are: Scripture and the Patristic Testimony. The main virtue a translator should cultivate is that of obedience: to Christ (2 Cor 10:5), to the mind (in Greek, nous) is illumined by the Holy Tradition, and especially the mind of the Fathers. Spirit. Hence the crucial importance of the words of It cannot be denied that translators help to make prayer from the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: patristic theology relevant to our modern world.

As second author (in Latin, auctor secundus),the translator is an earthly channel of God’s grace, ­linking one culture, religious or social, to another. The discipline required by translation, and the grace linked to the transmission of texts have created a certain unity in my life. And I know that some of my translations have helped certain readers find the grace of God in the center of the soul, their heart, where God meets the human being. It is well worth repeating that, while reading a text, one may become conscious of the grace of God.

Translators open new worlds of ideas, and yet,in the end, both the believer and the translator must, like Timothy (1 Tim 6:20), “guard the deposit.” This too is a work of grace, to be performed not only by the hierarchy—bishops, priests, deacons, monks and nuns—but by believers the world over.

The words the French author, Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), wrote in one of his novels, “Tout est grâce. Everything is grace,” apply in particular to the slow, painstaking work of translation. But we can perform this labor of love because our sluggish mind (in Greek, nous) is illumined by the Holy Spirit. Hence the crucial importance of the words of prayer from the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: “Enlighten the eyes of our hearts with your truth.”

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Professor Anthony Gythiel was born in Belgium, and lost part of his family (mother, grandmother) to Nazi bombardment as the War broke out. He lived in Flanders, almost on the French border, on the way to Dunkirk, in Northern France and then lost everything in the revolution of June 1960, in Zaire, Africa, the former Belgian Congo, now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he worked as a Catholic missionary. Coming to the United States he obtained the MA and then the PhD in 1971 in medieval comparative studies from the University of Detroit. He married, became an American citizen in 1968, and was tenured in the English department at Wichita State University, in KS; received various Teaching Awards (four altogether), and in 1993 became of Full Professor in the Department of History. He converted to Orthodoxy in 1981. On May 21, 2008, he received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from St Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, NY, for his translation work.   

Reprinted from Jacob’s Well, Winter 2012, with permission by the Editor.

On Sunday, June 2, 2019, St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) Alumnus Dn. Stefan Djoric was ordained to the holy priesthood. His Grace Bishop Irinej, a fellow SVOTS alumnus (’82), presided over Sunday’s Divine Liturgy and ordination at Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Church in Steubenville, Ohio.

“When I was in elementary school, I used to think that serving others is a kind of burden….,” said Fr. Stefan as he delivered the sermon Sunday.  “When I was in high school…I read an amazing work by Nikolaj Velimirović, called Prayers by the Lake….In one of those prayers, Nicholai wrote that God is always young because he serves others!”

“God’s joy is to serve others, and we all recall the words of the gospel that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve others!”

Father Stefan, who was born and raised in Serbia, obtained a B.A. in Theology at the University of Belgrade before coming to study at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. At SVOTS, he obtained an M.A. in 2018 and a Th.M. in 2019.

Fr. Stefan is also connected to the Seminary’s history through his wife, Popadija Marina (née Thetford). Popadija Marina is the granddaughter of Fr. Thomas Hopko and the great granddaughter of Fr. Alexander Schmemann. Her father, Gregory Thetford, is an alumnus of the Seminary ('85), and her brother, John Thetford, is currently a seminarian at St. Vladimir’s.

After the ordination Sunday, yet another connection to the Seminary made for a touching moment for Fr. Stefan. 

"At the lunch that followed the ordination, His Grace gave me a pair of cuff links that belonged to our beloved Protodeacon Gregory Hatrak [+2017],” he shared. “I was incredibly happy, especially because I wore Protodeacon’s vestments during Lent every time I served as a deacon at St. Vlad’s."

Father Stefan has been assigned to serve Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Church, Steubenville, succeeding Fr. Rade Merick, another Seminary alumnus ('79), who recently retired.

The St. Vladimir’s Seminary community wishes Fr. Stefan and Popadija Marina many years!

Some information for this article and photos have been reprinted from the website of the Eastern American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Pascha approaches: we should reflect once again on this crux of our faith, orient ourselves anew by the perspective that it offers, and enter afresh into its mystery.

By his death, his voluntary self-offering in love for us, Christ has destroyed death and granted us life. We say such words so often, that we frequently become immune to the stumbling-block and scandal that they present, and so overlook their implications for us. By dying, as a human being, Christ has shown us what it is to be truly divine: Lordship manifest in service, strength in weakness, wisdom in folly. If he had shown us what it is to be divine in any other way (acting, for instance, as a superhuman god), we could have had no share in him and his work. The fact is that we are all going to die, whether we like it or not. The only question is how we are going to die? Clinging to all that we think is ours, our own life and possessions, our own status or merit? Or following him on his path to Golgotha, laying down our life in love for him and our neighbors? Living, yet still dying, or dying to live.

The Witnessing Body

By his action, by his shed blood and broken body, Christ has called us to be his Church. We like to use the language of the Church triumphant, the glorious body with a mission to bring the whole world within its fold and so manifest the Kingdom of God upon this earth. And indeed this is our mission: Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit . But we must never forget that the glory of this body is one that is only seen by those whose sight has been trained to look upon the cross and see the Lord of glory. As St Athanasius put it, the more that the Lord is persecuted and humiliated, the more his glory and divinity is manifest … to those that have eyes to see.

And this continues, he affirms, in those who now constitute his body, those who take up the faith of the cross and willingly submit themselves to death, that he might live in them. Such a one was Blandina, the slave girl, the epitome of weakness in the ancient world, who was hung on a stake to be eaten by wild beasts. Spectators in the stands only saw another seemingly misguided fool dying for their entertainment, but those who struggled alongside her in the arena “saw in the form of their sister the one who was crucified for them.” Dying, Christ lives in her, so that she now lives eternally.

The Scandalous Body

Let us never forget that this is the glory of the body of Christ, the Church, in this world, this is the life we profess to live, this is the inauguration of a kingdom not of this world. As we endeavor to extend this kingdom, we must of course strive to ensure that our behavior does not provide a scandal or stumbling block to others. At a minimum, we must hold ourselves to the highest standards of the society in which we live. But we must equally not fall into the error of supposing so doing is enough for the body of Christ to be in “good order”: as the body of Christ, we will be a laughing stock, held in scorn and derision –  let us never forget this, and let it always be for the right reason!

Troubles such as those that currently beset the Church have done so from the beginning, and they can easily become an occasion for loss of faith, especially if we set our stock solely on the “good order” of this world. Indeed, one of the desert fathers of old warned that in days to come one will scarcely find faith left on this earth, and that the struggle to keep the faith in such times will be greater than any ascetic feat performed of old. If such troubles can be an occasion for despair, they can also be a powerful impetus to make sure that our focus is properly oriented, that our faith is in Christ alone.

We live straining towards the future, the coming Christ, nourished by the hope that he offers. Let us not then be weighed down by the cares of today, for they too will pass; let us instead prepare ourselves for the still greater struggles ahead. But we can only do this if our sights are truly set on the Kingdom inaugurated by the Passion and manifest in those, in us, who by dying live.

Let us Forgive all in the Resurrection

Forgiveness is at the heart of the mystery of the Resurrection: “let us forgive one another so that we may cry aloud, ‘Christ is Risen!’” We cannot claim to be Christians, to dare to greet one another with this  paschal greeting, unless we do so with a forgiving heart. But the depths of this forgiveness is not plumbed if we think that this means the repentance of others and our forgiveness of them, resulting in a peace, or rather a truce, that suffices us. Christ came to call the sinners, so that if we would be amongst the called, this is how we must regard ourselves, the chief, indeed, amongst the sinners.

We must be like the apostles: as Saul, confronted by Christ asking “Why are you persecuting me?” so becoming the great apostle Paul; as Peter, who before resuming his calling as a disciple, had to confess his love for Christ three times, standing by the burning coals, as he had denied Christ three times, warming himself by the burning coals, which harkens back to the vision of Isaiah who, seeing the Lord sitting upon the throne hymned by the seraphim, lamented “Woe is me, for I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips,” and so received the burning coal taken from the altar, hearing the words “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin forgiven.”

Approaching Christ in this way, as ourselves repentant and seeking forgiveness, our hearts will be broken so that the love and forgiveness of Christ can flow through us to others. Then we will be able to receive, from the same altar and with the same words of forgiveness, the medicine of immortality, so that dying we also may live.

Unless a Seed Falls in the Ground and Dies

We are called to take up the Cross, to die with Christ, to become the one body of Christ. Our divisions are truly a scandal of our own making. Whether they are between persons, within an ecclesial body, or between ecclesial bodies, each and every one of us is responsible for our failure to make Christ present through our witness, our martyria, to a world that is increasingly alienated from God and increasingly thirsting for Christ. Clinging on to that which we value, whether our own dignity confronting that of others, a strife-creating indignation within our ecclesial bodies, or our pride in the distinctiveness of our own ecclesial body and the hierarchies of a long-gone era, we are like the seed that remains alone, rather than dying to bear fruit. If we are to be Christ’s one true Body, we must follow him by dying to everything that separates us from him, all that belongs to this world rather than to the Kingdom, and hold ourselves open to wherever he may lead us. Dying, then, we might begin make Christ manifest by how we live as his one body.

We are on the threshold of the Pascha of the Lord. This is not simply an annual event, that we might forget once we stop singing that “Christ is Risen!” It is rather the eternal mystery, present at every moment – every moment, that is, that we do indeed take to heart its proclamation and by dying, live.

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Fr. John Behr (SVOTS ’97) is Former Dean and Professor of Patristics at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.

Seminary Alumnus and faculty member Very Rev. Dr. Daniel Findikyan is now Bishop Daniel of the Armenian Church. Bishop Daniel was consecrated May 12, 2019 by His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, at Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia.

The episcopal ordination follows Bishop Findikyan’s election in 2018 as primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. His Grace Daniel became the twelfth primate of the diocese, succeeding Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, and is now the first primate born in America in the 120-year history of the Eastern Diocese.

Bishop Daniel will return to the U.S. to celebrate his first Divine Liturgy as bishop among the faithful of the Eastern Diocese on Saturday, May 18.

Bishop Daniel is a native of Fort Worth, Texas. Ordained as a celibate priest in 1997, and a noted international scholar of liturgics, His Grace has served the Armenian Church as dean of North America’s St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, and currently serves as director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, the Eastern Diocese’s research and scholarship facility. Bishop Daniel is professor of Armenian Studies at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where His Grace graduated with a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in 1989. He also obtained an M.Div. from St. Nersess Seminary. Bishop Daniel earned his doctorate in Liturgical Studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, where he studied under Robert Taft, S.J., and holds a Master of Arts degree in Musicology from the City University of New York.

Bishop Daniel has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and books, and has and has lectured throughout the United States, as well as in Armenia, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Sweden, Slovakia and Russia.

Several St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) alumni lent their voices to a performance by the Clergy Choir of the Carolinas Deanery in Edenton, North Carolina.

The Carolinas Deanery of the Diocese of the South of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) held its spring retreat in Edenton March 21 through April 2, 2019. On April 1, the Deanery Clergy Choir gave a concert at St. George’s Orthodox Church, where SVOTS Alumnus and SVS Press Editor Fr. Benedict Churchill (’10) is the Priest-in-Charge. Father Benedict himself sang in the choir, and was joined by fellow SVS Press Editor and SVOTS Alumnus Fr. Ignatius Green (’15) and Alumni Frs. Thomas Moore (’98), Peter Robichau (’10), Andrew Cannon (16), Patrick Pulley (’16), Marcus Burch (’97), Christopher Foley (’06), and John Cox (‘11).

“Let’s just say it like it is - a capella Russian Orthodox music stirred the soul and perhaps brought people closer to God,” wrote Miles Layton, who reported on the event for the local Chowan Herald newspaper.

“The sanctuary was packed,” he added.

The Chowan Herald also recorded a part of the concert and uploaded it to YouTube.

The event was co-sponsored by the Chowan Arts Council.

The woman poured precious oil of myrrh upon thine awesome and royal head, O Christ our God.
—Matins of Holy Wednesday, ode eight

I have found David my servant: with my holy oil have I anointed him. —Psalm 88:20

Among the righteous of the Old Testament, few shine more brightly than King David. God chose him as “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), and so much that transpires in Holy Week was foreshadowed in his life. Our Lord Jesus Christ is his descendant, and in Christ’s kingship are fulfilled all the promises once made to David:

Thy seed will I establish for ever, and set up thy throne from one generation to another … He shall call me: Thou art my Father, my God, and the defender of my salvation. And I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth (Ps. 88:5, 26–27).

David died, “and his tomb is with us to this day,” but these promises were made in prophecy concerning the One who was to come (cf. Acts 2:24–35).

“The Anointed”: this is everywhere a mark of kingship; it is also the very meaning of the title Messiah or Christ. Whereas David was anointed as king by Samuel the Prophet, the Son of David was anointed not by man, but by the Holy Spirit, who descended upon him in the form of a dove at his baptism in Jordan.

At the midpoint of Holy Week, however, we remember an occasion when Jesus was anointed, not by his “equal in Godhead,” as at Theophany, but by his creature, a woman who had “fallen into many sins” (Hymn of Kassiani).

A repentant harlot: such is the woman we encounter on Holy Wednesday, and in her we perceive a great biblical theme. How often throughout Scripture has God’s chosen but unfaithful people been likened to a harlot? “For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds,” we read in Jeremiah, “and you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yea, upon every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down as a harlot” (Jer. 2:20). And, in Hosea: “My people inquire of a thing of wood, and their staff gives them oracles. A spirit of harlotry has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the harlot” (Hosea 4:12).

That Israel should have asked for an earthly king at all was an instance of her pining after the ways of the nations. Samuel tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. “No! but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (1 Sam. 8:19–20)

And so God granted their desire—but not as a sign of favor. Samuel anointed Saul as king, but his reign was bitter, full of turmoil and envy. “Where now is your king, to save you; where are all your princes, to defend you—those of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? I have given you kings in my anger, and I have taken them away in my wrath” (Hosea 13:10–11). Indeed, so severe was Saul’s reign that, while he still lived, the Lord commanded Samuel to anoint a new king, but in secret: David, the youngest of his brothers, and all but forgotten (1 Sam. 16:11–13).

Yet after David’s anointing, Saul’s spite grew only more intense. For in David, Saul now feared the challenge of a rival, though one who had no need to impose himself or vaunt his divine election. In fact, David fled from Saul in the wilderness where, at one point, he could easily have vanquished Saul forever, yet, Christ-like, he forbore (1 Sam. 24:3 ff).

“My Kingdom,” Christ said to Pilate, “is not of this world” (John 18:36). In the world men continue to submit themselves to the tyranny of the devil. The prince of this world, like Saul, continues to fill the land with guile and madness, furiously raging against the legitimate authority of God.

After his baptism and the descent of the Spirit, Christ was driven into the wilderness, to be challenged and mocked by the evil one. Though it was well within his power at any point to vindicate his rightful claim as Son of God, he, like David, forbore (cf. Matt. 4:1–11).

Eventually, all Israel publicly acknowledged David as their ruler, conceding that it was he who had truly been leading them even while Saul was still alive (cf. 2 Sam. 5:1–3).

Christ too was openly recognized by the people: when he entered Jerusalem. They spread their garments before him and shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matt. 21:9), expecting him to lead them in throwing off the Roman yoke, thus to “restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). But since Christ’s warfare is “not against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:12), the people were disappointed of their hope, and their waning enthusiasm would soon give an opportunity for the Jewish rulers to make their move.

David, long into his reign, was betrayed by one of his closest confidants: Ahithophel, whose counsel David trusted as if he had asked at the oracle of God (2 Sam. 16:23). With David’s son Absalom, Ahithophel conspired against the king, but when his plan came to naught, he despaired and hanged himself (2 Sam. 17:23). How bitter is the Psalmist’s lament: “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me” (Ps. 40:9).

These words hang heavy in the air during the last week of Christ’s earthly sojourn as Judas becomes a spy for Christ’s enemies (cf. John 13:18). Entrusted with the moneybox, the false disciple can barely disguise his greed. Feigning concern for the poor, he begrudges the woman’s extravagance as she anoints the Lord with costly oil (cf. John 12:4–6). Was Judas, even at that hour, trying to stifle a faint inner misgiving when he saw the woman’s torrent of love for the one he had resolved to sell?

The harlotry of Israel—a millennium and more of lawlessness and idolatry—all this converged as through a funnel upon Iscariot’s treacherous heart. Israel always turned aside to other gods, and Judas entrusted himself to the protection of silver. He turned his back on the true God, only to find no hope or refuge in any other. Yet his heart was already so sunk in self-deceit that repentance proved beyond him. Like Ahithophel, despairing, he hanged himself.

Yet there is more than this to tell of the fate of Israel. For, alongside Judas, holy Church also shows us the sinful woman. She too, in her harlotry, is emblematic of faithless Israel. Yet she repents. And in her compunctionate heart is gathered together all Israel’s yearning for communion with God: centuries of sacrifices, prayers, and prophetic warnings. The false disciple may betray; the leaders of the Jews may plot and interrogate; Roman soldiers may mock and jeer—but this woman, like Samuel of old, anoints in secrecy the true King of the Jews, and on behalf of her people she confesses the Messiah of Israel.

She anoints the Lord not for the sake of an earthly kingdom, which passes away, but in readiness for death and burial, to which the Lord will submit, that “he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb. 2:14–15).

Adam and Eve, like shame-faced slaves, hid from the footsteps of the Lord in Paradise. But freed of the guilt of sin through her repentance, this woman draws near to those same beautiful feet with myrrh and tears (cf. Hymn of Kassiani). She is redeemed through Christ and raised to the dignity of a citizen in the New Jerusalem.

As Orthodox Christians we too have been anointed with holy Chrism, that we should be raised even higher than the dignity of citizens: that we should reign with Christ for ever (cf. Rev. 22:5). Our anointing, like Christ’s, is a preparation for burial. Before we can reign with him, we must suffer with him and not deny him (1 Tim. 2:12); only through being buried with him can we be raised up to newness of life (cf. Rom. 6:4, 8). Vladimir Lossky puts it thus:

We have received the royal unction of the Holy Spirit, but we do not yet reign with Christ. Like the young David, who after his anointing by Samuel had to endure Saul’s hatred before he obtained his kingdom, we must resist the armies of Satan, who like Saul is dispossessed but still remains “the prince of this world.”*

The treacherous disciple grew faint at the sight of battle and gave himself over to evil and eternal death. But the woman, through repentance, put on the armor of salvation, fought the good fight, and took hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12).

Through such warfare, a sin-loving harlot is transformed into a pure bride, adorned for her husband. Throughout the long, moonless night of this age, she keeps watch with joy for the midnight coming of the divine Bridegroom. Wise in her renewed virginity, she keeps her lamp full of oil and burning brightly. She is ready, when he comes, to be led by him into the eternal Bridal Chamber, there to partake of his delights.

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Hierodeacon Herman (Majkrzak) is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and of St. Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, Pennsylvania. Before becoming a monk at the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco, Manton, California, Fr. Herman taught liturgical music and liturgical theology at St. Herman’s Seminary, in Kodiak, Alaska. Since 2010, Fr. Herman has served in the past as the Chapel Music Director and Lecturer in Liturgical Music at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.

* Vladimir Lossky, “Dominion and Kingship,” in In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1974), 225.

St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) Alumnus Dn. Kuriakose (Alex) Abraham has joined the ranks of the Holy Priesthood of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC). Priest Kuriakose was ordained March 30, 2019 by the hand of His Grace Metropolitan Zachariah Mar Nicholovos at Sts. Baselios & Gregorios Orthodox Church, Plainfield, NJ. Several SVOTS seminarians and alumni from the MOSC and other jurisdictions attended the ordination.

Father Kuriakose graduated from St. Vladimir’s Seminary with a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in 2016. He is also a graduate of the liturgical studies program at Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam, Kerala, India, and holds a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University.

Father Kuriakose will serve the MOSC’s Northeast American Diocese. While he awaits a parish assignment, he has been assigned as spiritual adviser for the annual Winter Summit conference for Malankara Orthodox college students.

The Seminary community wishes Fr. Kuriakose and his wife, Shinta Kochamma, many years!

Recent St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) graduate Dimitrios Nikiforos is now Hierodeacon Aetios! Hierodeacon Aetios was tonsured and ordained by the hand of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at St. George’s Cathedral, Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday of Orthodoxy weekend.

His All-Holiness tonsured Hierodeacon Aetios into the monastic life at Vespers on March 16, 2019, and ordained him subdeacon at Orthros the following morning. Hierodeacon Aetios was ordained to the holy diaconate by His-All Holiness during Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, March 17. Seminary Professor and Orthodox Church in America Chancellor Fr. Alexander Rentel flew to Istanbul to attend the tonsuring and ordination.

Trained as an attorney, Hierodeacon Aetios was initially drawn to SVOTS due to its strength in canon law and historical disciplines. He graduated from the Seminary summa cum laude with a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in 2018. He was also selected as the class valedictorian. Hailing from Greece, Hierodeacon called Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Brooklyn, NY home during his time at St. Vladimir’s.

The community of St. Vladimir’s Seminary wishes the newly ordained Hierodeacon Aetios many years!

Troost Avenue is the symbol of generations of racism and poverty in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s also the street you’ll find a place offering an Orthodox Christian approach to healing: Reconciliation Services, a faith-based nonprofit founded by St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church.

The work of the nonprofit—which is led by executive director Rev. Justin Mathews, an alumnus of St. Vladimir’s Seminary (M.Div., 07)—was recently featured by Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership magazine.

“We are intentional about allowing the history of this place to infuse our solutions to the problems that we see,” Mathews told Faith & Leadership. “We can’t heal trauma without acknowledging the source of the trauma.”

Fr. Justin is also one of two priests who serve at St. Mary of Egypt Church, housed in the same building on Troost Avenue as Reconciliation Services and Thelma’s Kitchen, which Fr. Justin described as Kansas City’s first "donate-what-you-can" café. Reconciliation Services’ outreach includes healthy community initiatives, social services, mental health services, and economic community building.

Read Faith & Leadership’s inspiring story about the work of Reconciliation Services here.

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. (I Corinthians 15:12-14)

But now, Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (I Corinthians 15:20-22)

These words from the Apostle Paul beautifully underscore the centrality of the resurrection in the Orthodox Christian faith. We Orthodox Christians affirm our belief and give personal testimony, like St. Paul, each time we profess our faith with the words of the Nicene Creed. We rejoice on Pascha as we sing: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.” We believe firmly that the first-fruits of the Old Testament given in offering to God are a promise of later fruits. (Exodus 23:16) In the same way, the Resurrection of Jesus is a first-fruit offering to God, a promise for all believers that we will be later fruit. (I Corinthians 15:23)

Lazarus Saturday is a unique liturgical affirmation of this centrality. Lazarus Saturday is the only time, outside of Sunday, that we Orthodox celebrate what can be called a resurrectional service. We shout on this day that Christ Jesus has raised Lazarus, confirming “the universal resurrection of mankind,” even before His own passion, death, and resurrection. From the Troparion of the Feast we sing:

Thou didst confirm the universal resurrection, O Christ God!
Like the children with branches of victory, we cry out to Thee, O Vanquisher of Death: Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.

The Evil One has given his best shot, but the message is now clear: as Lazarus is called forth from his tomb, the Devil’s best was not good enough to stand against the Love of God. On this day, Hades surely trembles as it anticipates the risen Lord descending into its very depths.

On Lazarus Saturday, the Great Fast has ended and the Great and Holy Week has not yet begun. We are given a brief respite, a time for renewal, before the solemnity and intensity of the holy days ahead and the future joy of hearing “Christ is risen!” It has been said that the Fathers placed this feast at this point in the liturgical calendar because it “… serves as a necessary ‘rest’ and ‘transition’ between the rigors of the Fast and the awesome and saving events of Holy Week. For in truth, yesterday evening’s Vespers not only ended the Holy Forty Days, but also ushered us into a joyous resurrectional prelude that will eventually lead to our Savior’s Passion.”[i]

The feast day has a clear foundation in the life of the Early Church. The Spanish nun Egeria, who kept an extensive diary noting liturgical practices as she traveled in the Levant and Jerusalem between 381–384 AD, records that Lazarus Saturday was a joyful celebration in the life of the Church. It was the last day of instruction for catechumens who were preparing for Christian initiation rites.[ii]

In addition to Lazarus, there are two other occasions in the New Testament where a person is restored to life by the Lord. (Often, the word “resuscitation” is used in commentaries to make the distinction between those who will “die again” and resurrection which ends death, “trampling down death by death.”)St. Mark records the raising of Jarius’ daughter (Mark 5:21-24, 35-43), and in St. Luke’s Gospel we read of the raising of the son of the Widow of Nain. (Luke 7:11-17) In the first of these stories, we see Jesus touch the little girl and we hear Him speak in Aramaic: “Talitha, cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”In the raising of the widow’s son, the boy himself is not touched by Christ; only his coffin is. From the story of Jarius’ daughter to the story of the widow’s son, we see a progression from Jesus physically touching a child to only needing to touch a coffin in order to raise the dead. The calling of Lazarus from his tomb requires no touch at all. The voice of the Lord is sufficient and all of creation hears Him say: “Lazarus, come forth!” and the command: “Loose him, and let him go.” Lazarus comes forth in his shroud, unlike the Lord who leaves the shroud behind, as Lazarus will someday need his burial clothes again.

The concept of resurrection is not limited to the pages of the New Testament. Our Christian belief in the resurrection stems from Judaism itself. For Jews, Hades, a place of shades, is a kind of “holding pen” where contact with the living and God Himself is suspended. (Psalm 6:5) Some Old Testament figures, such as Enoch and Elijah, are simply “taken up” to heaven, avoiding Hades and death altogether. Traditionally, many Christian commentators have interpreted these events from this side of the Resurrection as prophecies of what is to come, looking forward to the general resurrection when as we read in John’s Gospel: “… for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”(John 5:28-29)

Orthodox Christian believers see Hades bound as Christ takes the hand of Adam in the icon of the Anastasis, (“Resurrection”). This powerful, personal encounter with the Resurrected Lord is what gives the Church its firm foundation—a foundation upon which the Canon of New Testament Scripture and the Nicene Creed rests. Indeed, it is this encounter with the raised Person of Christ that fuels the ascetic life lived by each Christian as he or she prepares in this life for eternal life beyond the grave.

We know that the Pharisees and Sadducees differed greatly on the Jewish teaching regarding the resurrection. We read in the Book of Acts the following:

Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of men came to be about five thousand.(Acts 4:1-4)

The great preacher, St. John Chrysostom, reflected on this passage:

They were annoyed, not only because the apostles were teaching, but because they declared that not only was Jesus Christ himself risen from the dead but that through him we too rise again… So powerful was his resurrection that he is the cause of resurrection for others as well.[iii]

Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers testify to the importance of resurrection, celebrated on this Feast of St. Lazarus. On Lazarus Saturday, all believers encounter the power of the resurrection as revealed in the Book of Acts. As those who keep this feast today, we rejoice as we hear the voice of Jesus calling forth Lazarus, four days dead! Adults work hard to rationalize the reality of the resurrection. These mental contortions often lead us away from the simple faith that children possess—a faith that Jesus tells us is the model of fruit-bearing discipleship. On Lazarus Saturday, our eyes see the joy of children as they behold the resurrection and rejoice in something they cannot explain in worldly terms, but acknowledge, by faith, to be true.

Many customs have developed through the centuries as this story of these friends of Jesus, Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, has spread from Bethany. Most of these customs involve the participation of children. The procession following the Divine Liturgy on Lazarus Saturday is a foreshadowing of the Paschal procession. In the Middle Eastern tradition, special Lenten candies are made and are tied to a branch. As the children finish the outdoor procession and enter the church by passing under the branch, they pull off these treats and eat them. It has been said that after coming forth from the tomb and during his time as the bishop in Citium in Cypress, St. Lazarus only ate sweet tasting foods as a sign of the joy of having had a foretaste of the sweetness of eternal life in Christ. In this way, the children imitate St. Lazarus and eat sweets in anticipation of the “sweet taste” of eternal life.

In Romania, especially in the Wallachia, young girls will choose a girl from among them (usually the youngest) to be dressed in bridal clothing in anticipation of the wedding feast enjoyed by all believers at the time of the general resurrection. They all then trek through their villages, dancing and singing of St. Lazarus. As with many feasts in Romania, special breads are baked and given to the children and the needy. Flowers are also planted on this day, in preparation for Holy Pascha.

Serbian Orthodox Christians have the Lazarus Saturday custom of what is called “Vrbica,” or “Little Willows.” Children are encouraged to go into the woods to find pussy willows to bring back the church for the procession, as if they are going to meet Christ who is coming to the tomb of Lazarus, while singing the troparion of the feast. Children are also often dressed in their very best clothes, as if it were already Pascha. Bells are brought by the children to church on Lazarus Saturday, making a “holy noise.”

There are many other cultural customs that have evolved in different traditional Orthodox countries as a means for giving our children a preview of Pascha and the joy of the resurrection—the hope of all Christians.

On Palm Sunday, the children of the Hebrews will run to greet the Messiah, spreading branches and palms along the way as He enters Jerusalem on a colt. When we see our children rejoicing and having fun on Lazarus Saturday and on Palm Sunday—perhaps waving palms and shouting “Hosanna!”—remember the words of Jesus to His disciples when they tried to keep the children from coming to Him. He said: “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14) We Orthodox baptize our children and do not forbid them to be partakers in the full life of the Church, in obedience to what our Lord teaches us. How many of us have had our hearts melted when seeing the excitement on the faces of our children as they carry candles that they have made on Lazarus Saturday in procession? How many of us have found our own faith renewed as we heard their excited voices telling us of the coming celebration of Holy Pascha? Our children model perfect faith for those of us who have made our faith too complicated to enjoy the simple truth that: CHRIST IS RISEN!

Whatever ethnic background or local custom you observe on Lazarus Saturday, take special note of the children. When you give the children their place and their treats on this day, also hear Jesus when He speaks to us these words which are the key to those of us who seek life in His Kingdom:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.” (Matthew 18:1-5)

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Archpriest Chad Hatfield, President of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, also serves as the seminary’s Professor of Missiology, one of the newest fields of study at SVOTS. Father Chad’s ordained ministry spans 35 years, during which he has served as a school chaplain spanning the elementary school to the university. In the past decade, he has held positions of leadership and administration at two of the OCA’s three seminaries. His many years in parish and school settings have provided him with a unique perspective on how to successfully include children in parish life and the importance of imbuing them with a foundational experience of the joy of Christian living. Father Chad and his wife, Matushka Thekla, have two grown sons, Jason and Sean, and three grandchildren.

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[i] Kidd, David and Mother Gabriella (Ursache), Synaxarion of the Lenten Triodion and Pentecostarion (Rives Junction, MI: HDM Press, 1999), 109-110.

[ii] Wilkinson John, Egeria’s Travels (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, LTD, 1999), 58.

[iii] Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament V, Acts, ed. Francis Martin, General Editor, Thomas C. Oden (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 47.