Come and bargain hunt at our Huge, Giant, Multi-Family Tag Sale on Saturday, October 15, from 9 a.m. to noon. We will be selling everything from household items to sports items to furniture and clothing. Proceeds from the sale, which will be held in the Kunett Auditorium (basement) under Three Hierarchs Chapel, will benefit children's activities on campus, including our children's choir.
Please stop by and search for your "treasure" amid the multitude of goods that we will be selling. Or, simply come to browse and buy a cup of coffee to benefit our campus kids.
Listen to our Children's Choir here. Buy something at our sale to help support their work and other children's activities on campus!
O Lady, Most Pure, grant peace and health to Thy servants,
all the Orthodox Christians, enighten their minds and direct their spiritual vision toward salvation.
—Molieben to the "Holy Myrrh-streaming Hawaiian-Iveron Icon"
istian jurisdictions throughout the United States. It was brought to our seminary by its original owner and guardian, Reader Nektarios, of Our Lady of Iveron Church in Honolulu, Hawaii, a parish in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR).
This morning, our chapel clergy, led by Chapel Rector and Dean Archpriest John Behr, celebrated a Molieben written to honor the icon. Pilgrims—among them many children—eager to witness the grace streaming from the image of the Virgin Mary and Child, venerated the icon throughout the morning.
The icon, a small paper replica of the Montreal Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, was given to Reader Nektarios by his parish priest in the summer of 2007; it began streaming fragrant myrrh in October 2007. After Reader Nektarios notified his parish priest of the myrrh-streaming, the icon was brought to Our Lady of Iveron Church and was completely wiped dry. A service of intercession was held before the icon, and, by the end of the service, the icon was again streaming myrrh, and the church was filled with the fragrance of roses. In June 2008, the "Holy Myrrh-streaming Hawaiian-Iveron Icon" was officially recognized by His Eminence Kyrill, archbishop of San Francisco and Western America (ROCOR), as miraculous and genuine. Archbishop Kyrill for a time placed the icon in the Cathedral Church of San Francisco, but he later had the icon returned to its home in Hawaii. The icon and its bearer have been given the blessing to travel to various churches and monasteries of Orthodox Church.
"The icon has blessed thousands—tens of thousands—of people in all Orthodox jurisdictions," said Reader Nektarios, as he re-told the story of the icon in our campus chapel, following the Molieben. "It has visited more than 250 churches in the U.S. and Canada."
The full description of the icon and its history may be found on the Official website of the Eastern American and New York Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR): here.
A schedule for the East Coast travel of the icon may be found here.
"The Alumni Association of St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary is announcing the opening of elections to the Alumni Board," says our Director of Alumni Relations and Recruitment, Protodeacon Joseph Matusiak. "All SVOTS Alumni are encouraged to participate in the election of three new board members."
"The Alumni Board," expalins PDn. Joseph, "is made up of nine members, and reserves seats for the Serbian Orthodox Church, Antiochian Orthodox Church, Oriental Churches, Orthodox Church in America, and the Greek Orthodox Church, and for representation by women, with the remaining seats being 'at-large' members. This is an attempt to keep each group that comprises our alumni represented.
"The Alumni Board has been without a representative from the Serbian Orthodox Church for two years," he continues. "This year we received only one nomination from the Serbian Orthodox Church, who is Fr. Christopher Rocknage. Therefore, because the 'Serbian' seat is open and there is no opposition, Fr. Christopher Rocknage is not part of this year's ballot but is therefore elected to the Alumni Board."
PDn. Joseph lists the other candidates for office as:
Dena Fokas Moses (GOA)—SVOTS 2005; worked for Parliament of World Religions; The Algeron Sydney Sullivan Foundation; The Fund for Theological Education. Married with one child. Currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
Patricia Schellbach (OCA)—SVOTS 1996; works for Cleveland City Schools as a School Psychologist, received Doctorate in Education in May 2011. Currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio with husband, Fr. Paul Schellbach.
Fr. Nathan Preston (OCA)—SVOTS 2007; Rector of St Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church, Queens, New York. Currently lives in Queens, New York.
Kh. Stefanie Yazge (AOC)—SVOTS 1986; worked for Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Terre Haute, Indiana as Assistant Professor in Theology Department; Currently teaches part-time at Seton Hill University. Is a published author for the series "Encountering Women of Faith." Married to Fr. Anthony Yazge (SVOTS 1988).
Fr. John Stefero (OCA)—SVOTS 1969; worked as a US Air Force Chaplain. Currently retired living in Georgia with wife Denise.
Fr. Angelo Artemas (GOA)—SVOTS 1989; Rector St. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church, Glenview, Illinois. Currently lives in Glenview, Illinois.
To vote please click here. Elections will close on Friday, October 21, at 5:00 p.m. EST.
View a list of our current Alumni Association Board members, including President Fr. David Barr, here.
We welcome prospective student to our campus from Wednesday, November 9th to Friday, November 11th. Our Fall 2011 Open House will provide those contemplating ministry or a deeper study of the Orthodox faith with first-hand experience of seminary life. Participants will attend classes, worship in the chapel, tour the campus and its resources, and meet faculty members and seminarians. Detailed information on the Seminary's various degree programs, financial aid, and admissions process also will be provided. Additionally, prospective students will have the pleasure of sharing our Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Day meal.
There is no cost to participants, other than their transportation costs. Prospective students may explore their transportation options on our Website. Participants needing help in navigating their way from the New York Metropolitan Airports or Railway/Bus Stations, however, may contact Protodeacon Joseph Matusiak, Director of Alumni and Recruitment, at the Seminary's Recruitment Office: 914-961-8313, EXT 342 or email jmatusiak@svots.edu. Please also contact Pdn. Joseph to obtain more information, a schedule of activities, or an Open House registration form.
Saint Vladimir Seminary, a graduate school of theology, offers Master of Divinity, Master of Arts (Theological Studies), and Master of Theology degrees.
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and trustee of the Seminary, has been appointed to the prestigious position of Chairman of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church. This decision was made by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church during the first day of its winter session, October 5, 2011.
The Synodal Theological Commission was established by a decision of the Holy Synod on December 28, 1993; it was renamed the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission in 2009. The Commission is a permanent working advisory and analytical body of the Holy Synod, responsible for the following tasks:
to carry out instructions of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Holy Synod, and other church institutions in considering particular theological and doctrinal issues;
to make theological analyses of topical problems in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church; and
to coordinate the academic theological work carried out by Synodal departments, dioceses, and other church structures.
Metropolitan Hilarion has worked as member of the Commission since 1996. He holds academic degrees in theology and philosophy from several universities in Russia and other countries, including a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and a Th.D. from St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. He has authored more than 700 publications, including monographs on patristics, dogmatic theology, and church history, and has translated patristic works from Greek and Syrian. In 2005, Metropolitan Hilarion was awarded the St. Macarius Prize for his work The Holy Mystery of the Church. An Introduction to the History and Problems of Onomatodoxic Polemics. With St. Vladimir's Seminary Press he has published Christ the Conqueror of Hell: The Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective,and Orthodox Christianity: The History and Canonical Structure of the Orthodox Church.
Our seminary community congratulates His Eminence on his new appointment and wishes him God's strength and wisdom.
Read the fuller story on the Website of the Moscow Patriarchate here.
The Father Georges Florovsky Library of St. Vladimir’s Seminary has been recently immensely enriched by a donation of books from alumnus Fr. John Leonard (M.Div. ‘72, M.Th. ‘73). The library, now holding over 145,000 volumes and receiving over 350 periodicals each year, is considered one the richest resources available in the North American continent for research in Eastern Christianity.
Eleana Silk, librarian at St. Vladimir’s, noted the exceptional value of the collection, saying, "We have been anticipating receiving this donation for many years now. One of the greatest values of the collection is that Fr. John collected materials from a different geographic perspective during his many years in the Holy Land. His donation will bring many books from Europe and the Middle East that are not normally found in a North American library."
Theodore C. Bazil, associate chancellor for Advancement, in his letter of acknowledgement to Fr. Leonard, wrote:
I want to express profound thanks to you for your recent and most wonderful gift of approximately 3,000 volumes of your personal library to St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. I know your nurtured collection represents over 50 years of carefully collected books that span a broad range of subjects. Your books are purposely eclectic and attest to your lifelong interest and reading in Eastern and Western theology, Christian art, literature, and biblical studies, as well as many other subjects. Over 900 titles alone comprise the Christian art and architecture section.
Your early life in the United States Foreign Service and later service as chaplain to the community of nuns in Nazareth for twenty-three years allowed you to add a rich component of books to our library on Islamic, Jewish, and biblical archeological studies. The collection attests to your mastery of languages. How many libraries can boast that they actually have a book in the Samaritan language?
Your donation is an extremely important resource that will benefit this generation and future generations of students, readers, and researchers. It brings great intellectual value to our library and buttresses the remarks of Dr. James Billington, Librarian of Congress, when speaking about our seminary library: “[I] consider its contents to be perhaps the finest collection of eastern Christian literature in the western hemisphere (second only to the Library of Congress, of course). It is a resource which should be made available not only to Orthodox scholars but also to the general academic community.”
The famed vocal chamber ensemble Cappella Romana will sing the responses during Great Vespers and Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Archangels in our Three Hierarchs Chapel. We warmly welcome our friends and neighbors to celebrate with us and to hear the solemn beauty of this choral group, which travels throughout the world. Great Vespers will be celebrated at 5 p.m. on Monday, November 7; Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, November 8.
Founded in 1991, Cappella Romana’s name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe, as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and its Slavic commonwealth. The chamber ensemble dedicated to combining passion with scholarship in its exploration of the musical traditions of the Christian East and West, with emphasis on early and contemporary music. The choir will be in residence on the seminary campus from November 5th–10th.
Margaret Barker, an independent scholar who has developed an approach to Biblical Studies now known as Temple Theology, will be the presenter at the 29th Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture on Sunday, January 29, 2012, at 4 p.m. The lecture, titled "Our Great High Priest: The Church as the New Temple," is free and open to the public and will be held in the John G. Family Rangos Building on our campus.
Dr. Barker read theology at the University of Cambridge, England, and then went on to pursue her research independently. She has received wide recognition for her fascinating scholarship, based on the premise that early Christian theology matured so quickly because it was a return to a far older faith. Dr. Barker believes that those who preserved the ancient tradition rejected the second temple and longed for the restoration of the original true temple and the faith of Abraham, and of Melchizedek, the first priest-king. In her writings, she refutes the scholarly assumption that crucial Christian concepts such as the Trinity, the earth as a reflection of heaven, and the cosmic structure of the atonement, are informed by Greek culture. Rather, she argues, they are drawn from the eclipsed faith of the first temple. In this vein, Dr. Barker has so far written 15 books, which form a sequence, with later volumes building on her earlier conclusions.
Dr. Barker was elected President of the Society for Old Testament Study in 1998, and edited the Society’s second Monograph Series, published by Ashgate. Since 1997, she has been part of the symposium Religion, Science, and the Environment, convened by His All Holiness Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch. This work has led her to develop the practical implications of temple theology as the basis for a Christian environment theology.
In July 2008 she was awarded a D.D. by the Archbishop of Canterbury "in recognition of her work on the Jerusalem Temple and the origins of Christian Liturgy, which has made a significantly new contribution to our understanding of the New Testament and opened up important fields for research."
Please join us for this intriguing lecture. Find us on Google Maps.
To get a sampling of Dr. Barker's research, and to hear her on YouTube, visit her website www.margaretbarker.com.
Father Gabriel Bunge, renowned patristics scholar, contemplative monk, and author, who also has published withSt. Vladimir's Seminary Press, recently was received into the highest level of monastic life: the "Great Schema." He made his profession of vows and received his tonsure by the hand of His Grace Nestor, bishop the Diocese of Korsun of the Moscow Patriarchate, at the Skete of the Elevation of the Cross in the Swiss Province of Lugano, Switzerland. At his tonsure, he was given once more the name "Gabriel" in honor of St. Gabriel of Constantinople, a martyr of the 17th century.
Father Gabriel was received into the Orthodox Christian faith in 2010, after having lived the eremitical life as a Benedictine monk in Switzerland since the 1980s. He wrote the SVS Press title, Dragon's Wine and Angel's Bread, an exposition of the teaching of Evagrius Ponticus (AD 343–399), a desert monk, on anger and meekness. He also authored another press title, The Rublev Trinity: The Icon of the Trinity by Monk-Painter Andrei Rublev, a highly detailed and critically researched work that explains the magnificent icon painted by St. Andrew Rublev.
Upcoming in December from SVS Press is another title of Fr. Gabriel, Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Acedia. The book is a companion volume to Dragon's Wine and Angel's Bread, and it examines the all-too-human condition of spiritual discouragement, often termed "weariness of the soul." It is one of the few books available in English to deal exclusively with the problem of despondency (acedia), and how it can be overcome by building a dam, as it were, against negative thinking, and by acquiring apositive attitude.
Read the Russian language article about Father Gabriel's tonsure here.
From February 9–11, 2012, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute will hold an international conference to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the falling asleep in the Lord of Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, one of the most renowned Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century. The conference theme is "The Legacy of Father John Meyendorff, Scholar and Churchman (1926–1992)."
Father John served as dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary from 1984 to 1992, and as professor of Church History here from 1959 to 1992; he also taught at the St. Sergius Institute, prior to coming to the United Sates.
Dr. Paul Meyendorff, the son of Fr. John, and also The Father Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology at our seminary, is slated to speak at the conference. His scheduled presentation is titled "Father John Meyendorff’s Role in the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America."
At the Conference in February 2012, the St. Sergius Institute will honor its former student and teacher with lectures and a Round Table on the various domains in which he worked: theology (in all its aspects), Church History (Byzantium and the Slavic world), and the Orthodox Church today.
Born on February 17, 1926, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, in a family of the Baltic aristocracy, "Baron Ioan Theophilevich Meyendorff" grew up in the Parisian milieu of Russian emigrants. Having finished his secondary education, the young Meyendorff enrolled at St. Sergius in 1944. At that time the Institute was the center of theological renewal in the Orthodox world, counting among its professors major representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, such as Frs. Sergius Bulgakov, Georges Florovsky, Cyprian Kern, Nicholas Afanasiev, and Professor Anthony Kartachov. Among his fellow students at St. Sergius was his friend from early childhood, Alexander Schmemann. During his years of study at the Institute, John (Jean) Meyendorff began to take courses at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne). Once he completed his coursework at St. Sergius, the Institute engaged him to teach Church History and Ancient Greek. His studies were crowned in 1958 with a doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne on the Byzantine theologian St. Gregory Palamas.
The next year, he was ordained to the priesthood. He then left with his family for the United States at the invitation of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, who had been teaching at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary since 1951. Fr. John taught Patristics and Church History at St. Vladimir’s, and Byzantine History at nearby Fordham University.
Fr. John's thesis on Palamas—the original French version of which was soon out of print and has never been re-edited—acquired for him a notable reputation in both ecclesiastical and academic circles. This book, which in French bears the modest title Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas (translated into English under the title A Study of Gregory Palamas [SVS Press, ), remains a classic which cannot be ignored by any student of Byzantine theology. Fr. John provided an important contribution to the rediscovery of this great and important Byzantine theologian of the 14th century, a rediscovery which had already begun with the works of Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, Fr. (later Archbishop) Basil (Krivocheïn), Fr. Cyprian Kern and Vladimir Lossky.
Father John further is widely considered to be one of the most important representatives of the direction in Orthodox theology known as the “Neo-patristic Synthesis” (the term is from Fr. Georges Florovsky); the word “neo” indicating that it is not simply a return to the study of the church fathers or a “theology of repetition,” but rather is representative of a creative rediscovery of the living tradition of the Church. The theological works of Fr. John are essentially shaped by an historical approach that left its profound mark on Orthodox theology in the twentieth century. In this regard, he turned out to be a student par excellence of Fr. Georges Florovsky, whom he had known both in person and through his works, though not having been formally his student at St. Sergius (at that time, Patristics was taught by Fr. Cyprian Kern).
Fr. John’s activities were not limited to the academic world and to theological and historical studies. He was always actively engaged in church life. This is why he gained such great respect in the ecclesial world, both within and beyond the Orthodox Church. He was a co-founder and president of “Syndesmos,” the World Federation of Orthodox Youth Movements; and he was a member of “Faith and Order” of the World Council of Churches, a department over which he presided for almost ten years, from 1967 until 1976. It is due to his efforts, and to those of his friend and colleague Fr. Alexander Schmemann, that the Russian Orthodox Church in America, known then as “the Metropolia,” obtained autocephaly from its Mother Church in 1970, under the name of “The Orthodox Church in America” (OCA).
For a complete description of the international conference, including the detailed program and registration form, visit the Website of St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, here.
