Alumnus Father Steven McGuigan, who attended St. Vladimir’s Seminary as a special student in Academic Year 2016–2017, and was subsequently assigned as pastor of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Juneau, Alaska, recently was the subject of a feature article in his local newspaper, the Juneau Empire. The article, titled, "A Tiny Powerhouse of Prayer,” was written by Kevin Gullufsen.

Father Steven, formerly a Roman Catholic priest, was received as a priest in the Orthodox Christian Church by vesting in March of 2017. He holds an A.B. (magna cum laude), from Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts, as well as an M.A. in Theology and Psychology. He studied at Heythrop College, University of London, and received his M. Div. with honors from St. John's Seminary, in Brighton, Massachusetts. At Grand Seminaire de Montreal, Montreal, Canada, he served as a faculty member. Additionally, he is a Fellow, American Guild of Organists (F.A.G.O.), and the chaplain, recitalist and active member of the American Guild of Organists, Berkshire chapter.

Father Steven reports he enjoys exploring the city of Juneau, and has been warmly welcomed by parishioners—especially since the church has gone without a permanent pastor for the past 7 years. He now is working with his flock to build a vibrant parish, and he already has a “convert class” of 5 people!

"A Tiny Powerhouse of Prayer"

By Kevin Gullufsen, reprinted with permission from the Juneau Empire

Before coming to Alaska, Father Steven McGuigan had never been to the west coast. He was expecting igloos and sled dogs and “snow as far as the eye can see” when he touched down in Kodiak for his first Alaska posting.

But the reality of Alaska life was a little less extreme than the Massachusetts product expected.

“I’d call home and my dad would be like, ‘What’s the weather like? It’s a blizzard here.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, it’s green, you know, and 45 degrees,” McGuigan said with a chuckle. “But it’s Alaska!”

McGuigan, a priest, was installed in his position as the rector of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in August. He’s the first full-time priest the church has had in about seven years. The St. Nicholas parish had previously been served by a patchwork of deacons and priests with other duties. Most recently, Father David Alexander, a U.S. Coast Guard chaplain, served as the “attached priest” at St. Nicholas for about a year.

Though Alexander has been “invaluable” to serving the Juneau parish, McGuigan said he’s excited to establish a full-time presence at St. Nicholas. He hopes to provide a consistency in service and worship—the very thing that drew him to the Orthodox Church. He converted after more than 20 years service in the Roman Catholic Church.

“My overall pastoral game plan is simply, after so many years of not having a priest, or if they had a priest, not having a full-time one, will just try to be very stable and consistent. To let folks know that, if it’s Saturday night, yes, there’s Vespers. If it’s Sunday, yes, there’s liturgy. You don’t have to think about it,” McGuigan said.

About 30–40 people attend the church currently. A Saturday night Vespers (6 p.m.) and Sunday morning liturgy (10 a.m.) constitutes Orthodox Sabbath services. Many of his parishioners are converts to the Orthodox church and many are Alaska Native.

People flock to the church, he said, for its structure and permanence. Russian Orthodox practices largely haven’t changed for hundreds of years. McGuigan said that history reassures parishioners. He converted to the Russian Orthodox Church for the same reason.

McGuigan’s mother began her life as a Russian Orthodox before converting to Roman Catholicism when she married, so he’s been close to Orthodox culture since childhood.

“There was always that element in family life — Orthodox weddings and stuff like that,” McGuigan said. “My own spiritual life has always been sort of east-west.”

At some point, it became increasingly more difficult for McGuigan to remain a faithful traditional Catholic. The church felt like it was changing too fast. He wasn’t completely comfortable with the direction it was taking.

“That’s what I was struggling against as a priest in the Catholic Church. Everything was far more dependent on the priest’s personality and it felt like God was getting lost in the shuffle. This just felt so much more right,” McGuigan said.

So McGuigan converted six years ago. A colleague suggested he take a position as a second priest to get his feet wet, working under another Orthodox priest. But postings as a second priest in Massachusetts were few and far between. McGuigan had colleagues in Alaska, though, whose ears perked up when he mentioned he was looking for a parish.

He was ordained as an Orthodox priest in March and flew to Kodiak shortly after.

“It seemed like every other door was shutting, and there was this stream of light pointing to Alaska, to the point that I finally had to go, ‘OK, for some reason you want me in Alaska. So I’ll give it a whirl’,” he said.

McGuigan is here to stay and to turn the small, eight-sided church into a “teeny powerhouse of prayer.” It’s going to be a lot of work, both mentally and physically. For one, the facility itself is old and requires careful maintenance. The darkened icons—of Christ, Mary, St. Innocent, St. Nicholas and St. Cyril—which were installed when the church was built in 1894, are in need of restoration. That would cost $2,000–$3,000 each.

McGuigan wants to start daily prayer services and to improve the parking situation for his parishioners at the downtown church. McGuigan and his parishioners are the only ones to do the work. Is it exciting to have the future of the church fall on his shoulders?

“That’s one adjective,” he joked. “What I would like to see is that, despite its size, that this becomes a powerhouse of prayer for all of Juneau—Orthodox or not.”

Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @KevinGullufsen.

Over the summer I had the wonderful privilege of working on a farm every day. My fiancé Jeremy manages a beautiful little farm just outside of Eugene, Oregon, where he grows all kinds of organic produce. After one year of seminary, it was a welcome change to engage in physical labor, to say the least. Above all it was refreshing to be home, to work alongside my fiancé every day, and to be part of a different rhythm as the structure of seminary life made way for the demands of the growing season.

Since I have experience with farming, people often comment to me about how beautiful and peaceful it is, that farming must be God’s work, that I must have so many spiritual metaphors to draw from the experience of farming. In many respects, they are right. Farmers get to cultivate land and plants, watch things grow, and spend constant time out of doors. Very few experiences have given me the sense of wonder at creation as much as watching a miniscule seed grow into a vegetable, both beautiful and nourishing. It is satisfying to feed ourselves and others with the literal fruit of our labors. There is so much to learn from this kind of work!

Yet I find myself wary of “spiritual metaphors,” if only because it can be a great temptation to idealize farming. There certainly are metaphors to be had, and Christ Himself often employed images from agriculture in His teachings (and let me tell you, it is extremely hard to spend endless days pruning unruly tomatoes and not meditate upon John 15, where Christ says we must be pruned to be fruitful). It is, however, easy to underestimate the sheer amount of work involved in farming. Though beautiful, it is a very hard life, not just a pleasant day job (as someone quipped to me recently, “5 to 9 is not 9 to 5!”). Probably the one spiritual equivalent which has stood out to me is this: it is a heck of a lot of hard work. And you cannot stop. For a farm to work, you must tend it faithfully and constantly, and the fruit is rarely immediate. Sometimes a whole crop just fails. Disappointment and weariness can tempt you to throw in the spade, especially when you realize how little control you really have. I find prayer to be very similar. To pray and draw close to God is a constant, not a sometime, action; neither happens by itself, and “results” are not always apparent.

But it is rarely worth it to quit, in farming and certainly when it comes spiritual effort. Both farming and seminary have taught me this. The past year as a seminarian and a farmer, rich with blessings and struggles, has shown me the value of difficult work and persistence. Wherever I am or whatever I am doing—Oregon, New York, farm, or seminary—can be the means of deepening my trust in God and my courage to face life’s difficulties.

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Ashli Moore is in her second and final year of the Master of Arts program at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. She is currently working on a thesis project, which is a model for an Orthodox Christian School that she hopes to implement in her home parish in Eugene, Oregon (pronounced “Orygun”). In her other life, however, she works on Excelsior Farm with her fiancé Jeremy, to whom she is getting married in July. A native of Portland (you may get Portlandia references out of your system at this time), Ashli misses many elements about the Northwest, especially its many tea houses, excellent second–hand clothing stores, and of course, the rain.

Six people in a support group for people with dementia recently gave a poignant performance at Quinnipiac University’s Center for Medicine, Nursing and Health Services, in Connecticut. Taking the stage before an audience of about 100 students majoring in health care, they shared their stories of living with dementia: what it was like to lose their memory; what it was like to undergo testing and to receive a painful diagnosis; and how they are carrying on day-to-day.

Our alumnus, Daniel Belonick, director of counseling services for LiveWell (formerly the Alzheimer’s Resource Center) in Plantsville, Connecticut, played an integral part in their performance. Under his facilitation, the six people—all part of a group that he supports—wrote a 38-page script describing their experience of living with dementia and how they wish to remain connected and engaged with their communities. Their first show was at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut last August, followed by the Quinnipiac performance in November.

The New Haven Register published an article about the Quinnipiac performance, describing some of the heartrending, yet heartwarming, personal monologues:

Bob Savage sat alongside his five friends in a support group for people with dementia and, reading from a script, told the audience: “My memory isn’t so good. I’ve become self-conscious about it. I wonder if people understand what’s been happening to me.”

He added, “If I could just get across to them—my family, my friends, the people I live with, the people who try to help me—if I could just let them know what it’s like to be me these days.”

“I trained to facilitate the group under Maureen Matthews, who originally conceived it and who has worked with people living with dementia for more than 30 years,” said Belonick, “The show, with different performers and personalized scripts, is always titled, ‘To Whom I May Concern’—the ‘I’ not being a typo!—and the powerful words of the people in this group are making a difference in addressing audience perceptions about what it’s like to live with dementia.”

Belonick can say that with confidence, because before each performance, the audience is asked to write down five other words that come to their minds when they hear the word “dementia.” Audience members typically have written down words like, “elderly,” “incurable,” “darkness,” “void,” and “fear.”

Then, after each performance, the same request is made, but this time audience members have written down words like, “courage,” “hope,” “thinking,” “love,” and “together.” This provides the platform for the “talk back,” where group members and the audience dialogue.

“As a seminary graduate, I haven’t taken the usual path to ordination and priestly service,” Belonick noted. “But my seminary training, through class, community, and worship, has magnified my training as a professional counselor in this field; it is a ministry of a different kind.

“Seminary prepared me to be fully present in the midst of questions to which there are no easy answers, pain that is felt deeply, and circumstances that offer seemingly overwhelming challenges, and yet to remain ever hopeful in God’s mercy, love, and desire for us to be fully present with Him, and He with us,” Belonick concluded.

Read the feature story in The New Haven Register here.
Daniel Belonick is a member of the Parish Council at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, New Britain, CT.

Our alumnus, Deacon Nicholas E. Denysenko, Ph.D., will join the faculty of Valparaiso University as the Jochum Professor and Chair, effective January 3, 2018. Deacon Nicholas, who holds a Master of Divinity degree from St. Vladimir’s Seminary, was Valedictorian of the Class of 2000, Salutatorian of the Class of 1999, and Ecclesiarch in Three Hierarchs Chapel 1998–2000. His Master’s thesis was titled, “The Dawn of a New Era in Orthodox Church Music: A Historical Analysis of the Formation of Part-Singing and Kievan Chant in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.”

The Emil and Elfriede Jochum Chair, a University professorship established through a gift from Emil Jochum, supports the study of Christian values in public and professional life. The Chair will work to bring scholarship or other forms of creative work to bear on the many dimensions of the Christian calling in a complex society and to engage students in such exploration whenever possible.

“We are so pleased that Dr. Denysenko will be joining us next year as the Jochum Chair,” said Mark L. Biermann, Ph.D., provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “His background as a theologian and liturgical scholar are a perfect fit for the Jochum Chair.

“His scholarly work has placed him as a nationally and internationally known scholar,” Dr. Biermann noted, “and he effectively brings that scholarly work to bear in his excellent work as a teacher and mentor of students. We greatly look forward to the unique and powerful voice that Nick will bring to our discussions about Lutheranism, the broader Christian Church, inter-religious dialogue, and our world.”

“I am deeply honored and privileged to be appointed to the Jochum Chair at Valparaiso University. The Jochum Chair presents a special opportunity to engage the common pursuit of truth—wherever it leads us,” Dn. Nicholas said. “A beloved teacher once told me that working in Christian higher education is a unique opportunity to ‘give blood’—my hope is to create relationships with students, faculty, and people in the Valparaiso community to ‘give blood’—for the life of the world.”

Prior to assuming the Jochum Chair, Dn. Nicholas had served on the faculty at Loyola Marymount University, and on the faculty of The Catholic University of America in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. Besides his Master of Divinity degree, he holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and a doctorate in liturgical studies/sacramental theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

He is currently a member of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, the North American Academy of Liturgy, the American Academy of Religion and the Orthodox Theological Society of America. Additionally, he has authored many publications, including: Theology and Form: Contemporary Orthodox Architecture in America, “A Proposal for Renewing Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century,” and “Liturgy in the Contemporary Local Community and Belonging: Thanksgiving and Petition.”

Read an essay by Dn. Nicholas, “A Meeting of Domestic and Liturgical Rites: Joy and Light in Orthodox Christmas,” published in The Yale ISM Review, vol. 3.1, Fall 2016.

View a YouTube video of Dn. Nicholas, wherein he lectures on “Forming Faithful Orthodox Christians: Mystagogy in the Parish,” presented at the University of Toronto.

Alumnus Bradley Nassif (Master of Divinity, 1985) has a distinctive calling: he’s peacemaker, educator, and liaison between Orthodox Christians and Evangelical Christians. He also has a distinctive position: he’s the only Orthodox professor of Bible and theology working full time at an Evangelical institution of higher education, that is, North Park University in Chicago. Additionally, he has a distinctive background: born and raised in the Orthodox Church, Lebanese ethnically but a native U.S. citizen, he experienced an enlivening of his ancestral faith within the context of the Evangelical community.

The New Republic has described Dr. Nassif as “the leading academic expert on Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical dialogue.” He has been a keynote speaker for both the World Council of Church’s Orthodox-Evangelical dialogue and the international Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative. He has published numerous articles and served on the editorial board of the five-volume Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States, which was edited by George Thomas Kurian and Mark Lamport, and contains a foreword written by Martin Marty (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Moreover, he serves as a consultant and writer on Orthodox subjects for Christianity Today (CT) magazine, and he has also served as an Orthodox consultant for The New York Times, with his comments being published in that newspaper. As well, annually, he administers a grant from the John C. Kulis Foundation, titled, “Engaging Orthodoxy,” which is designed to strengthen Orthodox witness in America.

Most recently Dr. Nassif published an article in the December 2017 issue of CT, in recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation this year. Titled, “The Reformation Viewed from the East,” the article assesses Martin Luther’s famous doctrine of sola fide (=faith alone), and encourages a re-examination of the doctrine by both Orthodox and Evangelicals “with more informed negotiations free from awkward encounters and inhospitable historic conditions.” In the article, Dr. Nassif finds a possible touchstone of unity between the Orthodox and Evangelicals in the writings of Mark the Ascetic (c. 430–535), in particular in a treatise titled, “On Those Who Think They Are Made Righteous by Works.” (Read the full CT article here.)

Dr. Nassif's most recent book is a co-edited volume on The Philokalia: A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality, foreword by Kallistos Ware (Oxford University Press). He was also the editor of New Perspectives on Historical Theology: Essays in Memory of John Meyendorff, foreword by Henry Chadwick (Eerdmans); and the author of Bringing Jesus to the Desert, a popular introduction to the Desert Fathers (Zondervan).  

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Dr. Nassif and his wife, Barbara, are parents to their daughter, Melanie, who is studying theology at Union University (TN).  Brad and Melanie are chanters and, with Barb, sing in the choir at Holy Transfiguration Antiochian Orthodox Church in Warrenville, IL.

St. Vladimir’s Seminary thanks Christianity Today for its permission to post Dr. Nassif’s article, “The Reformation Viewed from the East,” on svots.edu.

On December 3, 2017, our alumnus, Archbishop Benjamin visited our campus. His Eminence is the archbishop of San Francisco and the West in the Orthodox Church in America and now presides at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco. Currently four seminarians here at St. Vladimir’s hail from His Eminence’s Diocese.

His Eminence’s stay coincided with the 100th anniversary of the enthronement of Metropolitan Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus. Metropolitan Tikhon once presided in the same cathedral in which Archbishop Benjamin now presides.

Metropolitan Tikhon’s remarkable legacy included his extremely difficult labor as head of the Church of Russia from 1917, at the start of the Bolshevik Revolution, until his repose in 1925. It also included his earlier evangelical ministry as head of the Russian Orthodox Diocese in North America in the early twentieth century.

The Church of Russia glorified Metropolitan Tikhon as a saint in 1989, and Orthodox Christians of many jurisdictions in North America equally venerate him. During his tenure in North America, he envisioned a future Orthodox Church in the New World, that would include all the national Orthodox communities—Russian, Arabic, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, et cetera—united in one Archdiocese.

During his visit Archbishop Benjamin served the Divine Liturgy in Three Hierarchs Chapel and delivered a homily, reading the Salutatory Address offered by St. Tikhon on December 23, 1898, in San Francisco, upon his accession to the Episcopal See of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. (Read the entire text of St. Tikhon’s address, titled, “On Cooperation in the Church,” here.)

We thank our alumnus, Archbishop Benjamin, for his visit, and wish His Eminence “Many Years.”

On Sunday, October 22, 2017, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) awarded our Alumnus, Protopresbyter Leonid Kishkovsky, the miter, in recognition of his many years of service to the Church of Our Lady of Kazan, Sea Cliff, NY, and to the OCA. The honor was granted to Fr. Leonid during the Divine Liturgy, which was concelebrated by His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), and His Eminence, the Most Reverend Michael, archbishop of New York, and of New York and New Jersey. Archbishop Michael placed the miter on Father Leonid during the service, on behalf of the Holy Synod. The day also marked the parish’s 75th Anniversary, so additionally, a Synodal Gramota was presented to Fr. Leonid, the Parish Council, and the faithful of Church of Our Lady of Kazan at the conclusion of the Liturgy.

Father Leonid was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1943. His parents fled from Warsaw with him in 1944, just before the Polish Warsaw uprising, and they became war refugees in Germany. They immigrated to the United States as Displaced Persons and settled in Los Angeles, California, becoming members of the Holy Virgin Mary parish.

After completing undergraduate studies in history and political science at the University of Southern California, Fr. Leonid studied at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. He and his wife, Alexandra (Mimi) Koulomzine, met at a student retreat at the seminary and married in 1969. Ordained as a priest in November 1969, Fr. Leonid was assigned to San Francisco’s Holy Trinity Cathedral to build an English-language community in the Cathedral’s St. Innocent Chapel. He and Mimi were actively engaged in Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) campus work with college students in the San Francisco area.

In 1974 Fr. Leonid was called to serve the Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Sea Cliff, and at the same time to work in the Chancery of the OCA in Syosset. During his long service at the Chancery Fr. Leonid has represented the OCA in Orthodox, ecumenical, and inter-religious settings. He has been President of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; Moderator of Religions for Peace (international) and Religions for Peace USA; Moderator of Christian Churches Together in the USA; a member of the World Council of Churches governing bodies; and a member of the Board of Directors of International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC). He continues currently as Director of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations for the OCA.

Axios! And, Many Years!

On Sunday, October 8, 2017, in the Orthodox Church of Ss. Peter and Paul in the city of Siemiatycze, a historic event for the Orthodox regional community as well as the entire Orthodox Church in Poland occurred. Archimandrite Warsonofiusz (Doroszkiewicz), became Bishop of Siemiatycze. His was the first episcopal ordination in the 586-year-old history of the parish.

Archimandrite Warsonofiusz (then Fr. Basil Doroszkiewicz) graduated from St Vladimir's with a Master of Theology degree in May 1987. His thesis was "The Problem of Unification of the Easter Orthodox Chalcedonian and Oriental Orthodox Non-Chalcedonian Churches."

On the eve of October 7, the new bishop, who is under the omophorion of His Eminence Metropolitan Sava, met with the Holy Council of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in Poland. First, the decision made by the Holy Council of Bishops of Church on August 24, 2017, regarding the appointment of Archbishop of Warsonofiusz as the Bishop of Siemiatycze was read. A service of thanksgiving (Molieben) followed, and then Archimandrite Warsonofiusz addressed the worshippers:

Your Eminence Wladysko, and Fathers, Your Excellencies!

With great emotion and inner fear, I stand before your Eminence and wise archpriests who gathered in this temple. My anxiety is to you, a spiritually experienced bishop, who knows and understands.

In accordance with the decision of the Holy Council, I was chosen to accept, through the chancellery of the great, saintly, and awakening of the service of the Archbishopric. The merciful God calls me to a new, heavenly and very responsible ministry.

How can I answer this decision of our Orthodox Church? First and foremost, I confess to you with all my heart the extreme unworthiness and human impotence. As the Apostle Paul says, "I shall not glory for myself, except of my weakness" (2 Cor 12.5). Understanding my unworthiness and the depth of the episcopal service disturbs me and confuses my sinful soul.

At the beginning of my monastic life I promised obedience to the Holy Church. So today I can once again testify my readiness to follow this path. With full humility I accept the will of God, the decision of Your Eminence, the Council of Bishops of our Orthodox Church, and enter the new path of the Archbishop's ministry.

Looking back on my life’s path, I can continually thank God for everything I have experienced and received from life. For the multiple mercies I did not deserve. Thank you for the people who God has sent to me, who have solidified and taught me. After graduating from high school I decided to join the Warsaw Seminary. To this day, my venerable teachers, such as Fr. Mikołaj Lenczewski, Sr., Mikołaj Sendulski, Piotr Domańczuk, Ks. Vyacheslav Rafalski, and Fr. Athanasius Semeniuk. In 1976 our seminary was moved to the monastery of St. Onufrego in Jabłeczna. This was my first meeting with the Orthodox monastery, at which time the vicar and rector of the seminary was Archimandrite Sava, the present Metropolitan of our Orthodox Church.

In 1979 God again brought me to the monastery of St. Onufrego, but already in the role of a monk. The monastery became my spiritual haven, where under my Wladysko’s direction I began to learn the monk's life.

Years spent in the seminary and the Christian Theological Academy gave me the opportunity to start exploring theology. With the blessing of our clergy authorities I continued to study theology abroad.

In those days, I had the opportunity to learn and gain spiritual wisdom, and knowledge and life experience, from the great fathers of the Orthodox Church. Protopresbyter John Meyendorff expounded the mysteries of patristic theology in front of me. Father Alexander Schmemann deepened my liturgical knowledge.

Divine Providence also directed me to Greece. God has allowed me many times to go to the Holy Mountain of Athos, where I had the opportunity to meet the great old Paisius the Hagrid and other wise monks. Their ascetic life has become for me a living and true testimony of the action of Divine Providence and the endless love of God to man. Their activities confirmed me on the belief that a true monk should reject his own will and stay in constant prayer.

I also recollect fond memories when I return to my time in the Warsaw seminary. Therefore, I cordially greet all of my colleagues and graduates who are currently engaged in pastoral work in our Orthodox Church.

With great pleasure and joy, I tried to fulfill the duties entrusted to me by your Eminence in the established monastic community in the Sakas. Under the protection and patronage of the great martyr and miracle worker Dmitri Solovinski, I devoted myself to the service of the local parish and the monastic fold. I was fortunate enough to pray, and to create a community in this sacred place for almost ten years. Thanks to these years, I gained invaluable pastoral experience in contact with our faithful.

With the blessing of your Eminence, I dedicate my humble work to the good of our Orthodox Church. Under the care of the Supra Icon of the Mother of God and with the active help of the governors of Lavra and the brothers there, I was able to deal with all this.

You too, Wladysko, sent me three times to the Holy Land, where I could experience the great miracle: the descent of the Holy Fire. It was a special blessing and happiness that will remain in my heart and soul for the rest of my life.

I think back to my childhood. I cannot but remember my dear parents today, Wlodzimierz and Helena. They are the seed of love for our Orthodox faith. They were the true heroes of the spirit and servants of the Church of Christ. I give them my low obeisance.

Greatly contributing to the process of my development and close to my heart is the late Archpriest Athenazy Semeniuk. His boundless love for the people serves me as an example of pastoral service. I will always remember his instruction and guidance as a humble and good shepherd.

All my life and all the events in it were filled with spiritual contact and saving me wisdom from each of today's bishops. Distinguished Archbishops and Fathers, all of you are dear to my heart, thank you for the help and support you have shown me in difficult times.

Your Eminence! I would especially like to thank you for the honor and the choice of me as Bishop of our highly knowledgeable Orthodox Church. You, as a wise and loving Father, have looked after me, directed me and raised me unworthy—and here I am—I am sinful standing before you, and I only dare hope for your archpastoral prayers so that I may carry the cross worthily and properly. Church of Christ, hope in me.

Divine Providence decided that my ordination fell on the day of the memory of the great St. Sergius of Radonezh. He is also a patron of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where I also studied.

Before his death St. Sergius instructed his disciples: "Brothers, take care of yourself. First of all, have the fear of God, the purity of the soul, and the undying love. " These words speak to me— as a newly elected bishop —with a loud echo and as a main motto.

We pray to you, the Blessed One, the Most Merciful Archbishops and Pastors of Christ, the Orthodox monks living on our earth and those carrying on their monastic work on Holy Mount Athos, and all of the monks in this temple today; the heavens and the Advocate, and especially to St. Sergius of Radonezh, for I am very sinful and weak.

Pray for the descent of the Holy Spirit on me, who am unworthy and sinful. I ask for intercession and support so that I can serve God and our Orthodox people in a dignified and impeccable manner.

It is good to ask, at certain stages of our life, who we are. It is an opportunity to take stock of oneself, what you are doing, and how you are measuring up to the vision or vocation that you have. Each of us must do this as a person, and we must corporately do it as a body of persons – the Church. In this instance, we are doing it as that local body of the Church that is known as the OCA. Who are we?

I teach a class at St. Vladimir’s Seminary called “Orthodox Christian Identity,” and it is a good opportunity to explore some of the things we take for granted about ourselves. We look at how we define “Orthodox” – sometimes in opposition to “the West”, sometimes through external elements such as vestments, sometimes through intricate theological definitions, sometimes through liturgy. And we think about where we would most *want* to see Orthodoxy, in other words, what really matters most about Orthodox Christian identity. And that inevitably comes to: the right knowledge and praise of God, through his Son Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit – all expressed through a right and loving relationship with people and with the world. In short, it means being a true Christian!

If we want to come to the essence of our identity, we want to tease apart the essentials from the non-essentials. But this is not as easy as it sounds. I will take here just one example that has accompanied the entire history of the OCA, namely the “ethnic” question: the OCA has decisively Slavic roots. To what extent should these roots be part of our ongoing life and identity as Orthodox Christians in America?

What makes this a complicated question, apart from the crucial pastoral issues (the needs of the people, on the ground), is that the Orthodox Church, and more-so all the local Orthodox churches, are products of history. They are all embedded in cultures. This makes it more difficult to identify some of the “non-essentials.” Some would say that all ethnic trappings are in that category of expendables, but how realistic is that? All theology, and all right-living, is expressed in specific contexts, in specific times and places. Would you strip off the ethnic and cultural trappings of the Gospel narrative? Our Lord spoke in terms that could be understood by farmers and fishermen: sheep, seeds, and nets. He spoke in terms of first-century near-eastern social customs too, and we have to come to know some of those customs if we are to understand his parables.

The marks of history – the influence of Greek culture on our theology and our Creed, the influence of Jewish customs on our liturgy – are indelible. We simply do not have theology without them. Likewise, think of the inevitability of Syrian, Slavic, and other cultural vessels – earthen vessels – that carry the treasure of the gospel (see 2 Cor. 4:7).

All of this is a long way of saying that when we consider OCA identity and vision, we are right to ask questions of how long, how much, and in what ways our Slavic heritage is to remain a part of who we are. But the centuries of our life in America have shown that they do not have a simple or uniform answer.

Perhaps in our day, the question has changed, or is changing in ways that we ought to encourage.

It’s no longer a matter of whether we are Russian, or were Russian; it’s no longer about whether we hold on to the musical, iconographic, liturgical traditions that are particularly Slavic. They’re with us; they are beautiful and time-tested vessels of the Right Praise of God. Even the language issue is slowly dissolving, as more and more parishes rightly adopt the language of the community, which is in most cases English. The question now is about attitude and attachment. Just as the problem with money and riches isn’t the stuff itself – as Luke 18 shows us, it is our attachment to the stuff – so it is with Slavic forms. They can be cherished vehicles, but not idols.

In my current parish, where I help direct the choir, we are talking about reintroducing bits of Slavonic, for pastoral reasons. There were times when this would have been seen by some people as a sad retreat to the past; I see it as a healthy and unforced move forward, with the past. “Forward with the past” describe a lot of what Orthodoxy is about.

As we pursue a genuine Orthodoxy in our land, it helps to remember that, really, there is no other “American Orthodoxy” than the Orthodoxy that bears its ethnic roots. In fact, what can be more American than a Church with multinational roots?

My hope and prayer for the OCA in the 21st century is that it is well on the road to a healthy – detached, free, realistic – relationship with its roots. We had to go through strongly Slavic periods. Then, especially in the lead-up and aftermath of our autocephaly in 1970, we had to be in turmoil about casting off our Slavic identity. Here we are now, in post-modern America. Let’s deal with it as sanely as we can, and let’s always keep our eye on the prize: the right praise of God, stemming from and leading to a God-pleasing life in service to the world. That’s what it’s about. And as we keep our gaze fixed on Our Lord, let’s shun idols wherever we find them.

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Dr. Peter Bouteneff (SVOTS ’90) teaches courses in theology, patristics, and spirituality at the St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where he is Associate Professor in Systematic Theology and Director of Institutional Assessment. After taking a degree in music in 1983 he lived and worked in Japan, and traveled widely in Asia and Greece. Together with Prof. Nicholas Reeves, he is co-directing the Arvo Pärt Project, an exciting collaboration with the great Estonian Orthodox composer.

This piece first appeared as a publication on the OCA Wonder Blog. Our thanks goes to the Managing Editor, Mr. Andrew Boyd, for permission to republish this material.

This week, as our nation commemorates the terrorist attack of 9/11 and reels from the tremendous economic, ecological, and emotional destruction wreaked across the southern part of the U.S. from both Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, one particular alumnus needs to be recognized: Father Raphael Barberg, who is Associate Pastor at St. Elijah Orthodox Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Why? Because he was a first responder both at Ground Zero sixteen years ago, and in Houston shortly after Hurricane Harvey hit on August 25 this summer, as a Team Member of the International Orthodox Christian Charities’ (IOCC) Emergency Response Network known as the “Orthodox Frontline.”

During the aftermath of 9/11, Father Raphael utilized his counseling expertise in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), both while at Ground Zero and in the family centers set up around New York City.

In Houston recently, Father Raphael showed up onsite in various locations to meet volunteers and to provide homeowners with emotional and spiritual care (ESC), while occasionally offering a helping hand with the continuous grunt work of repairing damage done to dwellings. He spent the majority of his time at the Red Cross shelter at George R. Brown Convention Center providing ESC, and both his pastoral training and experience as a former Police Training Instructor and a former Police Lieutenant in the City of Buffalo helped him to serve others in a unique way.

While in Houston, he posted several bits on his Facebook page, which provide a brief but fascinating, touching, and sometimes humorous log of his days and nights there:

• August 29: Left Oklahoma City this afternoon and currently in Dallas rendezvousing with other IOCC Frontline clergy. We are planning our entrance into Houston tomorrow. Prayers requested.
• Sept 2: People are asking how I am doing in the work we are doing. Thank God it is a blessing to serve others. Don't have time to reply to all the nice notes. My apologies for not being able to give you more at this time. But the situation is improving here.
• Sept 4: Flood victim Mustafa Herby: “The worst day in Texas,” he said, practicing his drawl, “is a better day than anywhere else in the world.” God bless these folks!
• Sept 4: I missed being at St. Elijah's yesterday, but what a blessing to be with the good people at St. George, in Houston, as they lick their wounds and minister to their community.
• Sept 4: The parishes here, which are victims themselves, are not letting anything stop them from serving their neighbors.
• Sept 5: Nathanael turns 7 today. I'm sad to be away from you buddy, but Poppa loves you and will be home soon....
• Sept 6: Can't say enough about cleanup buckets. Received joyfully and gratefully from residents who need every little bit of hope we can muster to give them.
• Sept 6: Our team's gutting homes. Hard dirty work, but what a blessing to the victims.
• Sept 7: [Eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos] "Thy nativity, O Virgin, has proclaimed joy to the whole universe! The Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, has shone on thee, O Theotokos! By annulling the curse, He bestowed a blessing. By destroying death, He has granted us Eternal Life!"
• Sept 8: Hygiene kits are still desperately needed. And deodorant. LOTS of deodorant.
• Sept 8: Missing Liturgy for the Feast due to “logisticizing.” If you can go to Church, please do so and pray for me. Heading home later today.
• Sept 9: Back home after a 10-day deployment with IOCC. I cannot be prouder of the work being done down there, and trust that the Bravo team will continue that foundation. Folks, I've seen first hand how the money donated to IOCC makes a difference. I've seen the hygiene kits and muck-buckets received eagerly and put to good use. The good work you do, does make a difference in your neighbor's lives!
• Sept 9: Our partner Church World Service has informed us there is a tremendous need for hygiene kits and clean-up buckets to replenish the supply at the warehouse. Instructions on creating and shipping kits can be found here: iocc.org/kits.
• Sept 11: The following list of Orthodox Christians who lost their lives in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks may not be complete, but it is the list that has been most widely circulated during the past decade. “With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of your departed servants, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life everlasting!”

Our seminary community thanks Father Raphael for his inspiring example, and we wish him Godspeed and Many Years!

P.S. Father Raphael also offered counseling following the traumatic mass shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, and in the wake of the destruction of Hurricane Sandy.

P.P.S. Our seminary community is still collecting for IOCC’s work in Texas, following Harvey’s harsh landing, and we’ll announce the final figure representing donations soon. If you would like to donate to IOCC, which is doing its part to assist all those adversely affected, please visit www.iocc.org.