I was raised in a parish in the Romanian Episcopate (OCA), a child of first generation Americans of Romanian parentage. I sang in the choir from early on (my father was the choir director until he became a deacon), taught music at our Vatra summer camp from the time I was 16 years old, majored in music in college and grad school, pursued a career in opera for a bit, and settled down for 14 years in the Detroit area. I was Music Director at the Romanian OCA Cathedral during that time, and very involved in starting a pan-Orthodox music ministry and mixed choir there. I’ve worked (for pay) in all three of the major archdioceses in America (Antiochian, Greek, OCA). Some of you may know me from my involvement with PSALM and my role in PSALM’s first national conference in Cicero, IL in 2006. I am currently in a full-time position at St. Athanasius Antiochian parish in Santa Barbara/Goleta, CA. This is one of the parishes of former Evangelical Protestants who converted en masse to Orthodoxy and came into the Antiochian Archdiocese in 1987.

My personal mission these days with regards to my role as a church musician — what drives me, keeps me going?

• Helping the American Church find the form of musical expression that is going to be most appropriate for our language and culture. The verdict is still out. I think we have a long way to go. I use the best of all of the Orthodox traditions of music, and I use LOTS of music composed by American Orthodox composers, as in: composed FOR English and IN English by someone who speaks English really well! It really does work best, in the same way that opera sings best in the language for which it was written.
• Helping facilitate worship that is prayerful, engaging and purposeful, that has the power to enlighten and “convert” all of us over and over again.

How do I do that? Perhaps that’s a topic for another blog entry!

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Valerie Yova is the Parish Administrator and Music Director at St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Goleta, CA.

This article was originally published December 1, 2011

While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of “the all-praised and first-called apostle Andrew.”

In the gospel according to St John, Philip calls his friend Nathanael to “come and see” Jesus, but it is Jesus Himself who invites Andrew to “come and see” where He dwells and to spend the day with Him…

Come and see! This is the abiding invitation of the Church in her liturgical services. Come with faith and you will be numbered with those to whom “it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 13:11)…

Come and see! You will witness the mystery of Christ’s birth from the Virgin, His manifestation at the Jordan in His baptism by John, His victory over the devil in the desert, His proclamation of good news to the poor, His announcement of liberty to the oppressed, His declaration of the acceptable year of the Lord’s grace. You will witness His accomplishment of the signs of His messiahship: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb talk. You will see the winds cease and the seas calmed. You will behold the table spread “in the wilderness” in the feeding of the multitudes (Ps 78:19). You will witness the casting out of demons. And, most glorious of all, you will see the dead being raised by the word of His power. You will know indeed that “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28), and you will testify truly that “something greater than Jonah” and “something greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 12:41-42). You will see what “many prophets and righteous men longed to see…and did not see it, and to hear…and did not hear it” (Mt 13:17). And ultimately you will see the Son of God Himself being lifted upon the Cross in order to give His broken body as food for His people, and His shed blood as their drink, that their hunger and thirst for peace and joy and righteousness, and indeed for life itself, might be forever satisfied.

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 until his death in 1983. Hundreds of SVOTS alumni were trained under his keen mind, warm humor, and guiding principle: “A seminarian should know only three paths: to the classroom, to the library, and to the chapel.” Father Alexander celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the last time on Thanksgiving Day, 1983. This is the homily he delivered on that day:

Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation and eternal joy.

Thank You, O Lord, for having accepted this Eucharist, which we offered to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and which filled our hearts with the joy, peace and righteousness of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for having revealed Yourself unto us and given us the foretaste of Your Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having united us to one another in serving You and Your Holy Church.

Thank You, O Lord, for having helped us to overcome all difficulties, tensions, passions, temptations and restored peace, mutual love and joy in sharing the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for the sufferings You bestowed upon us, for they are purifying us from selfishness and reminding us of the “one thing needed;” Your eternal Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having given us this country where we are free to worship You.

Thank You, O Lord, for this school, where the name of God is proclaimed.

Thank You, O Lord, for our families: husbands, wives and, especially, children who teach us how to celebrate Your holy Name in joy, movement and holy noise.

Thank You, O Lord, for everyone and everything.

Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your deeds, and no word is sufficient to celebrate Your miracles.

Lord, it is good to be here! Amen.

Originally published in The Orthodox Church, Vol. 20, No. 2, February 1984, p. 1:1.

During the first days of the Christmas fast the Church celebrates the feast of the entrance of the child Mary into the Jerusalem temple… The spiritual story tells how, coming into the temple, the child Mary is led into the Holy of Holies by the priest Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, there to be nourished by angels in preparation for her virginal conception of the Son of God…

In the festival of the entrance of Mary into the temple we have seen how Christ’s mother is continuously hymned as the “living temple of the holy glory of Christ our God.” She is praised as the “living ark which contained the Word which cannot be contained.” She is glorified as “the temple that is to hold God,” consecrated by the Spirit to be the “dwelling place of the Almighty.” She enters the Holy of Holies to become herself the “animated Holy of Holies,” the one in whom Christ is formed, thereby making her, and everyone who is one with her in faith, the “abode of heaven.”

…As we go the way of the Winter Pascha the choice placed before us is clear. We can follow the “narrow way” that leads to life, or we can go on the “broad way” that leads to destruction (Mt 7:13-14). We can, like Mary, cleave to the Lord and become His dwelling place in the Spirit. Or we can through immorality and sin choose the death of the nothingness which we are unless the Lord Himself lives within us. “But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Cor 6:17)…

The feast of the entrance of Mary into the temple marks the first specific liturgical announcement of the birth of Christ. On this festival, for the first time in the season, the canon of the Nativity of Christ is sung at the festal vigil.

Christ is born; glorify Him!
Christ comes from heaven; go to meet Him!

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

St. Paul encourages us in Eph. 4 to not behave like the rest of the world! As Christians we follow a higher standard. He tells us not to get lost in useless thoughts; futile thoughts he calls them. Because God gave us free will, we have total freedom of thought. We can think about anything imaginable. Our mind is continually generating thoughts, some good and some bad. Some thoughts are focused on meaningful things and some are of no value to us. Thoughts can build upon one another, grow and generate into rationalizations. Worthless thinking often leads us to sinful thoughts.

Fr. Thomas Keating in his book on meditation refers to this continuous motion of thoughts running around in our mind as “the monkey mind.” Picture a cage with monkeys jumping around and screeching. They rush at you, then away from you and then at you again, always chattering and making a ruckus. That is often the state of our mind, an endless commotion. Our minds have almost unlimited creativity and freedom. But if we do not harness the great power of our mind it can cause a mess. We talk with someone while thinking about something else more important to us. We listen with interest to a Psalm, and suddenly drift off to other thoughts. We injure our relationships when we do this!

St. Paul refers to still darker thoughts in this Epistle. This futility of our mind draws us to the edge; and we risk stepping off and into a darkness of sin.

When we are interested, however, we do focus our thoughts. An exciting movie holds our attention. A good novel can grip our interest. When our interest is not captured though, it often takes great energy and discipline for us to pay attention to a person speaking to us. We allow our mind to wander because we get lazy.

But God can work miracles through the great power of the mind. Our weapon of defense against a lazy, undisciplined mind is prayer. During Lent we pray the Prayer of St. Ephraim – “take from me the spirit of sloth.” We fight against the lazy, idle mind with “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” We fill our mind with “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great goodness. Blot out my transgressions.” Our motivation is enlivened by the power of the Holy Spirit when we fill our mind with the name of Jesus.

St. Paul tells us to “renew the spirit of our mind.” We meditate on Christ. We fill our mind with ‘Christ-thoughts’ and ignore the futile thoughts. We enter into this relationship with Christ, and give the Holy Spirit full reign to direct and focus our thoughts. We are confident of God’s grace for us through His work on the Cross, our symbol of his abundant love for us. In the community of our local church, we are continually encouraged to renew our relationship with Christ. Through the motivation and power of the Holy Spirit we strive for righteousness.

Each time we stop our mind from offending, Christ is victorious in us. We saturate our thinking with Jesus. The more active our relationship is with Jesus Christ, the less our struggle is with futile thinking. The monkey mind is quieted. From the mental chaos – emerges peace and order, and incredible beauty, like a procession of the saints, with Christ at the center. We are able to focus on loving Christ and others. We are becoming a new person: “created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.”

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Deacon Seraphim Joa is a third-year M. Div. student at St. Vladimir’s Seminary from Rockville Centre, NY.  He and his wife, Julie, have a married son and two grandchildren. After retiring from an engineering firm in New York City late in 2006, Dn. Seraphim began thinking about studying to become a deacon.  All advice pointed him to St. Vladimir’s Seminary as the best way to achieve that goal.  He continues now hoping to help in the Church as he is led by the Holy Spirit.

This article was originally published November 17, 2011.

"Orthodoxy does not need more professors, but confessors.” -Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos

St. John the Compassionate Mission was founded in 1986 among the poor and the marginalized of downtown Toronto and is an apostolate of the Carpatho-Russian diocese. The Mission has had, and has, a variety of different programs responding to needs as they arose. “Around” the Mission has grown the thriving parish of St. Silouan. The Mission seeks to be where Orthodoxy becomes Orthopraxy.

At its heart St. John’s seeks to make real the teaching of the Fathers, especially St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, on how the Church should be present to the “world.” The life of the Mission thus has four essential elements: diakonia (service), community, liturgy, and study, and each is lived out in a regular daily and weekly rhythm.

The Poor our Masters (St. John the Compassionate) – A Deacon’s View, Dn. Pawel Mucha

Five years ago I left Europe to be an intern for one year at St. John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto. Nine months later I was ordained as a subdeacon. The subdiaconate at the Mission was real in both liturgy and daily diakonia, and was also fulltime. At times, it was too “real” and too “fulltime!” My ordination to the diaconate came last year.

Among the many “obediences” of the diaconate has been setting up and running the Mission’s intern program – the Lived Theology School. Despite 20 years teaching experience I was to discover that the real teacher was not me, but mission life and the poor themselves. Knowledge in and of itself is not enough; it needs to find a reality.

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Fr. Roberto Ubertino and Dn. Pawel Mucha minister to the poor, socially excluded, and handicapped in downtown Toronto. More information on the history and vision of the Mission can be found here, as well as on the Mission’s website.

This article was originally published November 11, 2011.

Matthew the Poor (1919-2006), also known as Matta El-Maskeen, was a Coptic Orthodox monk who lived in the desert 50 miles southwest of Cairo. This excerpt is from The Communion of Love, a collection of his writings that reveal the essence of the Christian life in simple yet profound images.

If we look back at the early days of the Church, we are astonished at its power, especially that of the newly-founded Churches. In spite of the fact that the people were simple and ignorant of the bible – for manuscripts were only rarely possessed by individuals – and in spite of the newness of their faith in Christ and the deep influence of their old pagan customs, their spiritual life and their demonstrations of faith, love, and zeal were fine examples of a powerful life lived according to the precepts of the Gospel, a model for practical understanding of the meaning of eternal life, the Kingdom of God, living by faith, dying to the world, faithfulness to Christ, expectation of His second coming, and faith in the resurrection. Even up to the present time, we still draw on their faith and tradition, and understand only with difficulty the letters that were written to them, which they understood easily and lived out.

The secret of all this is that they lived by what they heard. Every commandment fell on faithful hearts prepared to act sincerely. All the words of Christ entered deeply into the fabric of daily life. The Gospel was translated into work and life.

Those simple people understood the Gospel. They understood that it was a life to be lived, not principles to be discussed, and they refused to understand it on a purely academic level. Up to this day, faithful followers of Christ still draw life for themselves from the living spring of the understanding of those early Christians…

When they heard “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” they sold everything and laid their money at the feet of the apostles.

When they heard “Blessed are those who mourn now,” they despised all suffering and weariness in the service of the Lord

When they heard “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” they bore the cruelest humiliations and insults and attacks.

When they heard “Watch and pray,” they met in the catacombs to watch and pray all night.

When they heard “Love your enemies,” history recorded no resistance put up by the Christians, whether positive or negative, against their persecutors. And they bowed their necks to the sword in humility and obedience to honor the words of Christ.

This was for them the meaning of reading the Gospel and understanding it. There was born in them a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, and this is why the Holy Spirit was at His most active in working with them. He would give power to the word, strengthen their hearts, support them in weakness, lead them in the darkness, comfort them in distress, and accompany them along the way till they gave up their spirit into the hand of its Creator with great glory.

Excerpt from The Communion of Love by Matthew the Poor, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984, p. 24-26.

At various times and circumstances in my life I’ve struggled with a sense of accomplishment and a sense of order.

I’m a pretty well-ordered person, outwardly, but inside I often feel like I’m in danger of failure . . . and I find myself trying to address that by doing more or “accomplishing” more.  I “get disciplined” and do some extra planning, and try to follow through better.  This goes on for some time, with varying degrees of success.  But I easily abandon my best-laid plans of “orderly doing” with the slightest excuse or simply evolve into something else, another mode of operation.  All this is probably a very common problem, the psychology or spirituality of which is pretty basic and well understood–by others!

Prayer and silence is something I want to do, but have a hard time sticking with it, as do many people.  My latest attempt at surrendering my own will to God is to start praying at a particular time of day, and always keep that time of prayer.  I have a prayer rule that is my own, but whether I complete it all or only parts is not as important as starting at the same time every day.  This is my “one thing” that is a test of my own willingness to surrender my will to God.  And even this small thing has proven extremely hard to do . . . a sign of exactly how out-of-control and unwilling I am to surrender anything to God.  I think the person that can really follow through with this “small” thing has really achieved something pretty awesome, and by God’s grace has acquired some humility.

It occurs to me that the Liturgy of the Church (meaning any service) begins at a particular time and in most churches does not begin late.  This is one of many examples of how the Church does for us what we may not be able to sustain on our own.  Collectively, we keep each other to the ascetic rule, so to speak–the rule of beginning prayer at a particular time, always, every day (every day the Liturgy is said).  Of course starting on time, always at a particular time, doesn’t seem ascetic because we’re all used to it . . . we have to operate that way to be courteous to others and so that our communal life will have order and peace.  But this is also a gift to us for our salvation and continued growth–being a part of the community, and accountable to others, becomes our external motivation, a help, a support, a means to get to prayer on time.  Of course, we even fall down at this and come to church late sometimes.  But . . . prayers begin without us!  This can be a hard reality, and a warning, that others are taking up their place in the Kingdom of God whether we are there to partake or not.  I’m thankful for this “point” of surrender which does not wholly depend on me.

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Fr. Paul Coats (SVOTS ’08) serves a new OCA mission station in Rock Hill, SC.  He also works as an engineer for a national trade association.  His wife Gerianne is currently directing community youth theater while home-schooling their daughter Helen, who helps lead the singing at the mission.

This article was originally published November 3, 2011.

St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749) was a theologian and hymnographer. He was one of the great defenders of the holy icons against the iconoclasts. The following are excerpts from his first treatise “against those who attack the holy images:

“Of old, God the incorporeal and formless was never depicted, but now that God has been seen in the flesh and has associated with human kind, I depict what I have seen of God. I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation… Do not abuse matter; for it is not dishonorable, this is the view of the Manichees. The only thing that is dishonorable is something that does not have its origin from God.” (Treatise 1.16)

“I say that everywhere we use our senses to produce an image of the Incarnate God himself, and we sanctify the first of the senses (sight being the first of the senses), just as by words hearing is sanctified. For the image is a memorial. What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding.” (Treatise 1.17)

“Is it not fitting to venerate the saints rather than stone them? …If you loved God, you would certainly honor his servants. …How was the dead man who touched the bones of Elisseus (i.e. Elisha, cf. 2 Kings 13.21) immediately raised up? If God works miracles through bones, it is very clear that he can also do so through images and stones and many other things, just as also it happened with Elisseus, who gave his own staff to his servant and told him to go and through it raise up the child of the Shunamitess (cf. 2 Kings 4.29).” (Treatise 1.56)

Excerpts from Three Treatises on the Divine Images by St John of Damascus, translation and introduction by Fr. Andrew Louth, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.

I grew up steeped in art and in Orthodoxy as a daughter of a well-known iconographer. It didn’t take long for me to combine the two most important elements in my life! After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from an up-and-coming art school in New Hampshire, I began the long and often challenging process of strengthening my faith and serving the Church with my art. I studied iconography under my father, Fr. Andrew Tregubov, and went on to start my own little studio in conjunction with his. I mainly paint private devotional icons for commission and I recently developed a pattern for traditional baptismal robes for infants that I custom sew. A mother of two (one special needs), I live with my husband in White River Junction, Vermont, and work from home.

Throughout my years of giving glory to God through the work of my hands, I have been challenged and tested. I have lost faith in my abilities, only to find them again. Because of hardship and heartache, I have learned what it means to be truly faithful and to bear witness to Christ. In thankfulness, I create my work so that in some small way, I can share some of the beauty of our faith and of the profound love that our Lord holds for us with others!

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Artist and iconographer Anna DuMoulin currently lives in Vermont with her husband Justin (SVOTS ’10) and their two children.

This article was originally published October 27, 2011