Two St. Vladimir’s Seminary professors are featured in the latest newsletter of the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology, and Religion (OCAMPR). Priest Adrian Budica, the seminary’s director of Field Education and CPE supervisor, and Dr. Albert Rossi, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, authored a pair of articles about pain and suffering and visiting the sick.
The articles appear in the spring 2018 edition of the OCAMPR Newsletter. Both Dr Rossi and Fr Adrian have led workshops and paper presentations at OCAMPR's annual conferences in recent years."
Dr. Rossi’s article is entitled On Pain and Suffering.
“The psychological perspective regarding pain and suffering pivots on meaning. That is, what does the pain and suffering mean to the sufferer?” he writes. “….Pastorally, we try to have radical empathy, not sympathy toward the person suffering. Active listening provides the skill for radical empathy, trying to allow Christ to move through us.”
In Fr. Adrian’s article, Visiting the Sick, Visiting Christ, Visiting Myself: A Theology of Pastoral Care, he “reflects theologically on the pastoral ministry of a chaplain from an Orthodox perspective.”
“I first came in contact with chaplains during a hospital internship as a seminarian at St. Vladimir’s Seminary,” writes Fr. Adrian. “I was drawn to the idea of a chaplain’s role—mysterious, frightening, awe-some [sic]….
Christ was and is, paradoxically, the One suffering (the patient), the One healing (the physician), and the One connecting (the chaplain).”
Read the articles in their entirety here.
