From December 27-29, 2005, high school and college students gathered at St Vladimir’s Seminary for the annual Christmas retreat. Over 30 retreat participants discussed topics around the theme “You're Growing Up, But Are You Mature in Christ?” according to their age group—college, high school juniors and seniors, sophomores and freshmen. Shared meals, shared worship, shared discussion and shared free time are at the heart of the St Vladimir’s Christmas Retreat.

One of the retreat participants, James Stewart, age 20, from Bellefonte, PA, said, “I came for the fellowship, to have a place to ask questions, discuss my faith, attend services, and spend time with other Orthodox Christians my age. And I got what I came for.”

Three age specific workshop sessions as well as whole group panel discussions were the bulk of the retreat. One of the workshop sessions, “Is your concern the ‘House of the Lord’ or is it ‘The Lord of the House’?”led by Fr David and Shari Garretson from Ss Peter and Paul Church in South River, NJ, challenged the participants to ask themselves if Christ is at the center of their lives. Another one of the presenters was Fr John Shimchick of the Church of the Holy Cross in Medford, NJ, who focused in on the writings of St Paul in his talk entitled, “The Apostle Paul’s Description of a Christian—Irrelevant, Out of Touch, or Essential?” The fourth presenter was, Fr Steven Belonick, Director of Recruitment and Alumni Relations at SVS. Fr Steven described levels of faith and gave spiritual advice on moving from one level to the next in his talk, “At what stage of faith are you.”

Our gallery of photogaphs is available.