Address of Fr Thomas Hopko, Dean
at an Academic Convocation at
St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary
Granting of the Honorary Degree to
His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I
Saturday, October 25, 1997
Your All Holiness, Your Beatitude, Venerable Hierarchs, Fellow Presbyters, Respected Professors, Dear Brothers and Sisters:
We thank God for enabling His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW to be with us today. We are honored that he has chosen to bestow his patriarchal blessings on our theological school.
We know, by his words and the witness of his life, that Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW steadfastly supports the work of theological education, especially graduate theological study, which insures sound education on all levels of Church life, and contributes to all aspects of the Church's saving mission.
Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW sacrificed much of his life to learn many languages and to be educated at the highest academic level. He made this sacrifice to prepare himself to serve God, the Church, his country and humanity to the best of his gifts and abilities. Having attained the highest position of archepiscopal leadership in his own church and, therefore, in the entire Orthodox Church throughout the world, His All Holiness continues to affirm and support higher theological education as his presence with us today clearly shows.
The patriarch's special desire, for whose fulfillment good-willed people everywhere are working and praying, is the immediate reopening of the Patriarchal Theological School of Halki, his alma mater where he once served as assistant dean, so that this venerable institution might once again take its rightful place among the preeeminent theological faculties of the world.
The words and witness of His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW over many years wonderfully demonstrate the Christian conviction, which is shared by all who fear God and love humanity, that knowledge for its own sake is curiosity, and knowledge for one's own sake is vanity, while knowledge for the sake of others is charity.
The visit of His All Holiness to St. Vladimir's Seminary as Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch, also clearly demonstrates that Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW's personal theological education and academic learning, together with his entire spiritual formation within the Church from his earliest childhood, has truly blossomed into a ministry of all-embracing charity as befits the Orthodox archbishop and patriarch whose duty it is to "preside in love" among his brother bishops within Christ's holy Church.
The Patriarch's support of St. Vladimir's Seminary, as a member of the advisory board of its capital campaign, and by his many acts of kindness such as that which we are now cherishing, is most gratifying. The patriarch's coming to St. Vladimir's today not only affirms the work of this school, but also serves as a recognition of the work of Orthodox theological education in North America from the Alaskan mission to this present day. For St. Vladimir's Seminary, together with St. Tikhon's, both founded in 1938, a year after the establishment of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, is the direct heir of the theological seminaries which operated on this continent from the very beginnings of Orthodoxy in the new world. These include the seminaries in New Archangel (now Sitka), Alaska, San Francisco, California, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Tenafly, New Jersey, whose labors were brutally interrupted by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
In honoring our school with his presence today, His All Holiness honors two centuries of sacrificial service in the field of Orthodox theological education in North America. He raises his hands in blessing over the efforts of hundreds of faithful teachers, students and supporters of seminaries in this land. He aligns himself especially with the learned hierarchs in our seminary's history, who include the canonized saints Innocent, the great missionary in Alaska and first bishop in North America who ended his days as Metropolitan of Moscow; Tikhon, Archbishop of North America from 1898 to 1907 who completed his earthly course as the confessing Patriarch of Moscow under Marxist persecution; and Bishop Nikolai of Zica, the internationally renowned scholar, writer, teacher, confessor and pastor who often visited St. Vladimir's (we treasure in our chapel his gift of an icon of St. Sava with his handwritten blessing), who died at St. Tikhon's Monastery where he served for a time as seminary dean.
In recalling the history of Orthodox theological education in North America, we cannot fail to raise the name of Metropolitan Leonty. As a young priest possessing the highest theological education, Fr. Leonid Turkevich was appointed rector of the theological seminary in Minneapolis in 1906 at the request of Archbishop, later Patriarch, St. Tikhon. He served in this same position at St. Platon's Seminary in Tenafly. After becoming a bishop following the death of his wife, he led the movement in 1938 to open a seminary at St. Tikhon's Monastery and a graduate school of theology (or, in Russian terminology, a "spiritual academy") in New York City named after St. Vladimir who, as we hear in his troparion, "found Christ the priceless pearl" by "sending servants to Constantinople for the Orthodox faith."
Metropolitan Leonty also served as rector of St. Vladimir's after Fr. Georges Florovsky went to Harvard and Holy Cross in 1955. He held this position until installing Fr. Alexander Schmemann as dean in 1962. Archbishop Iakovos, former primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, which is now celebrating its 75th anniversary with the visit of His All Holiness, spoke of Metropolitan Leonty toward the end of his life (he was 89 when he died) as "a living saint."
The essays which Metropolitan Leonty wrote at the beginning of this century in which he analyses the unique character, conditions and needs of Orthodox theological education in the North American context, may still be read with profit now, as the century draws to its close. We will only recall, inspired by the presence of His All Holiness, two of the young rector's strongest convictions. He was convinced first of all that the Church has always sought for her pastors "not simply the educated, but the highly educated", since "only education provides the versatility [mnogostoronnost'] which is indispensable [neobkhodimo] for pastoral activity", enabling the priest to be truly "all things to all people". And secondly he insisted that there can be no choice between the "theoretical" and "practical", between the "academic" and "pastoral", in Orthodox theological education, especially here in North America.
In honoring us with his presence, His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW does more than affirm the history and mission of St. Vladimir's Seminary. He joins Metropolitan Theodosius, our alumnus and president, who this very day celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his election as our church's primate, and affirms with him, and the other bishops here gathered, the necessity for sound theological training, education and scholarship in the Church. This is especially precious in this present time when there are some who say that academic theological study is unnecessary and even dangerous to the Church's faith, life and mission in the world.
While we who work in Orthodox theological education constantly teach, and are ever ready to be reminded, that true Christian theology demands liturgical worship, personal prayer, ascetical striving and pastoral engagement, we also constantly teach, and always rejoice in being reminded, that true Christian theology also demands diligent scholarly study, careful critical analysis, responsible intellectual reflection, unwavering respect for facts, and a relentless, courageous and humble pursuit of truth wherever it may lead. For true theology and true scholarship, as His All Holiness himself tirelessly testifies, can never contradict the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Truth, nor betray or blaspheme the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth.
We admire Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW's efforts to lead us on the narrow path which leads to life in God. We honor his willingness to witness to apostolic Christianity which, in St. Paul's words, is constantly concerned with "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise." (Phil 4:8) We see in the Patriarch's every speech and action the desire, using the apostle's words once again, to "present [himself] to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth", thereby teaching us how we "ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). For the "God and Savior" of the Orthodox Church truly "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:3).
We heed the apostolic admonitions of our Ecumenical Patriarch. We strive, at his command and example, to reject every kind of religious nominalism which holds the form of godliness but denies its power (cf. 2 Tim 3:5), while at the same time rejecting every kind of religious zeal which, to refer again to St. Paul, is not "according to knowledge" (kat' epignosin), and so results in well-intentioned people "ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God" replacing God's righteousness with a righteousness of their own (Cf. Rom 10:1).
Many issues are debated in the Church today. They include issues of biblical exegesis and liturgical practice, ecclesiastical order and church organization, evangelical witness and ecumenical activity. We pray and thank God for an Ecumenical Patriarch who encourages the diligent study of the Church's scriptures, councils, canons, liturgical offices, patristic writings and saintly witness in pursuit of solutions to these issues which are pleasing to the Lord and beneficial to His people.
Many dichotomies and divisions are also appearing in our time which are alien to God's gospel in Christ Jesus and contrary to the teaching of the apostles and the testimony of the saints. These include supposed oppositions between the local churches and the Church as a whole, between the Church's ordained leaders and the fulness of the faithful, between conciliarity and hierarchy, authority and freedom, scholarship and asceticism, married life and monasticism. We pray and thank God again for an Ecumenical Patriarch who encourages us to meet together, as we are now doing, listening to one another, looking into each others' faces, outdoing one another in showing brotherly love, giving honor where honor is due, and bearing one another's burdens so to fulfill the law of Christ.
In exercising his archepiscopal and patriarchal ministry, His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW, exercises the three dimensions of the episcopal office with his brother bishops. He shows himself as pastor in imitation of the Church's one Good Shepherd. He shows himself as priest, presenting the Church's only High Priest. And, especially precious for us during his visit to St. Vladimir's, he shows himself also as prophet in obedience to the Church's unique and ultimate prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, about whom the apostle Peter, invoking Moses, proclaimed: "The Lord will raise up for you a prophet.... You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people" (Acts 3:22-23).
St. Paul teaches that every member of the Church should desire the gift of prophecy. Surely theological educators must pray for this greatest of spiritual gifts. And, as the scriptures and fathers affirm, the charism of prophecy is given by God's grace to every man who receives the laying-on-of-hands of the priesthood. The apostle Paul also tells us what the gift of prophecy is for. "He who prophecies", the apostle writes, "speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation" (1 Cor 14:3). This is what we experience today in the visit of his All Holiness to St. Vladimir's. We are edified, encouraged and consoled to complete our course in fidelity to the Church's one Teacher who called us to share in his sufferings, that we might also share in his victory.
Knowing that "for a Christian", in the words of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, "authority and power are nothing but crosses", we offer our final expression of gratitude to His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW on this extraordinary day. We thank him for preaching "the word of the Cross" (1 Cor 1:18) to us from the first moment of his patriarchal ministry, and for striving to live by the Cross in his daily labors. With "Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2) as the content of his service, our Ecumenical Patriarch shows himself ready to preside in the love which God himself is, the God whose beloved Son was lifted up on the Cross in order to draw all people, with the whole of creation, to Himself.
His All Holiness testified to the Cross of Christ and the love of God in his first address as Ecumenical Patriarch. He ended his message that day, as I, in imitation of him, will end mine today. He repeated the words of the Church's first theologian, the simple sentence in which all theology is found and all ministry fulfilled. O Theos agape estin, he said. God is love (1 Jn 4:8).
I have the honor now to call the secretary of the faculty council of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Professor Paul Meyendorff, to read the citation as our seminary's president, His Beatitude Metropolitan THEODOSIUS, confers upon His All Holiness Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW, the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.