Genealogies don’t mean the same to us as they did for ancient peoples, so the first part of this morning’s reading may be tedious to modern ears.  Most people will remember the list of strange names and forget the ending probably because a majority check out somewhere around “Amminadab” if not before.  By the time we get to the story of Christmas at the end people are a little glassy-eyed.  I actually look forward to it.  I like this reading!

Just a word of explanation about the genealogy part. Both Matthew and Luke include genealogies of Jesus in their Gospels and they differ from one another.  No worries.  Genealogies were useful for a variety of reasons, so it wasn’t unusual for a person to have more than one made up to cover their bases. Things like inheritance, land ownership, and vocation were at stake.  You had to prove your pedigree!

Since the point was to establish an ancestral link rather than to list all the family names exhaustively they were not as interested in getting all the names in there just right the way we would be.  Thinking of the size of Middle Eastern families that would be ridiculous anyway.

St. Matthew’s genealogy emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of David. He begins with David and moves then to Abraham, a double whammy for Jewish identification and backward since Abraham came before David! His predominately Jewish audience would be looking for that connection. His aim was to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah and Davidic sonship was essential to do so.

St. Luke emphasizes the Lord’s human nature so he begins his genealogy with Adam to be more universal in his message. For his predominately Greek audience that would be significant. Luke points also to the Lord’s divine origin. He ends with “Jesus the Son of Adam and the Son of God.”

Both genealogies are essential for our understanding of the Incarnation. They compliment one another. Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of David, both human and Divine. As a human being he was specifically Jewish. As God He was perfect God.

The real story here is that the Son of God was born at all. If the Son of God had not been born in the flesh, then he could not have been the Son of David. The genealogy tells us that Jesus was a real, live human being with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and probably hundreds of cousins. Tradition tells us that Jesus had half-brothers and sisters since Joseph was a widower and had children from a previous marriage.

Some of the Lord’s relatives were righteous people, some were scoundrels. At least one of them was a prostitute. Just like our families! White sheep and black sheep. Jesus was a human being with an all-too-typical human family. I’ll bet their Hanukkah dinners were a riot!

This tells us another very important thing. Even scoundrels and sinners are included because this is the human condition. Things down here are far from perfect. The thing is that even sinners and scoundrels have the image of God in them. Whether we are righteous or sinners we all have that in common. Human nature does not become evil because we do evil things. Impossible! What God has called “very good” will always remain “very good.” That “very good” human nature we share in common is what Jesus took upon himself – your nature and my nature, everyone’s nature and yet He still remained perfect God and perfect man! But there is more! Then, he took upon himself our suffering and sins and bore our diseases as well and still remained perfect God and perfect man! This is a very great mystery! He took upon Himself the whole of the human condition from birth to death and beyond and remained fully God and fully man! He took upon Himself all that we are in order to heal all that we are. Why? Because He loves us!

At Vespers on Saturday night we usually chant a prokeimenon that says, “The Lord is King, he has clothed himself with majesty. The Lord has put on His apparel and has girded Himself with strength.” What is this “majesty”? What is “His apparel”? It is human nature. Human nature is majestic. It is beautiful! The crown of God’s creation. It is filled with God as is everything he has made. That we have dirtied this beautiful thing is not God’s fault; it is ours. What we discover as we embark on the interior spiritual journey is that no matter what we do, or think, or feel, underneath it all is human nature which sparkles with the light of God. It is the ground of our being, the truth of who we are. Those who come at long last through meditation and prayer to see their own essential goodness understand the core truth about themselves and their neighbors. The Son of God reveals this to us in the example of His own human/divine life.

Here is another great and strange mystery: we too, even though we are created, share this human/divine connection. In Him divinity is by nature. It is granted to us creatures by grace.

-

This sermon, “On the Sunday before Nativity: The Genealogy of Christ” was preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 19, 2010, and was originally published here. Fr. Antony Hughes (SVOTS ’87) is the priest at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA, where he has been serving since 1993.

This article was originally published December 16, 2011

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was a priest, theologian, and one of the leading spokesmen for Orthodox Christianity in the 20th century. Fr. Alexander served as the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 up until his death in 1983.

“The eternal God was born as a little child.” One of the main hymns of Christmas ends with these words, identifying the child born in a Bethlehem cave as “the eternal God.” This hymn was composed in the sixth century by the famous Byzantine hymnographer Roman the Melodist:

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One,

And the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One!

Angels, with shepherds, glorify him!

The wise men journey with the star!

Since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!

(Kontakion of Christmas)

 

The Child as God, God as Child…Why does joyful excitement build over the Christmas season as people, even those of lukewarm faith and unbelievers, behold that unique, incomparable sight of the young mother holding the child in her arms, and around them the “wise men from the East,” the shepherds fresh from night-watch in their fields, the animals, the open sky, the star? Why are we so certain, and discover again and again, that on this sorrowful planet of ours there is nothing more beautiful and joyful than this sight, which the passage of centuries has proven incapable of uprooting from our memory? We return to this sight whenever we have nowhere else to go, whenever we have been tormented by life and are in search of something that might deliver us…

It is the words “child” and “God” which give us the most striking revelation about the Christmas mystery. In a certain profound way, this is a mystery directed toward the child who continues to secretly live within every adult, to the child who continues to hear what the adult no longer hears, and who responds with a joy which the adult, in his mundane, grown-up, tired and cynical world, is no longer capable of feeling. Yes, Christmas is a feast for children, not just because of the tree that we decorate and light, but in the much deeper sense that children alone are unsurprised that when God comes to us on earth, he comes as a child.

This image of God as child continues to shine on us through icons and through innumerable works of art, revealing that what is most essential and joyful in Christianity is found precisely here, in this eternal childhood of God. Adults, even the most sympathetic to “religious themes,” desire and expect religion to give explanations and analysis; they want it to be intelligent and serious. Its opponents are just as serious, and in the end, just as boring, as they confront religion with a hail of “rational” bullets. In our society, nothing better conveys our contempt than to say “it’s childish.” In other words, it’s not for adults, for the intelligent and serious. So children grow up and become equally serious and boring. Yet Christ said “become like children” (Mt 18:3). What does this mean? What are adults missing, or better, what has been choked, drowned or deafened by a thick layer of adulthood? Above all, is it not that capacity, so characteristic of children, to wonder, to rejoice and, most importantly, to be whole both in joy and sorrow? Adulthood chokes as well the ability to trust, to let go and give one’s self completely to love and to believe with all one’s being. And finally, children take seriously what adults are no longer capable of accepting: dreams, that which breaks through our everyday experience and our cynical mistrust, that deep mystery of the world and everything within it revealed to saints, children, and poets.

Thus, only when we break through to the child living hidden within us, can we inherit as our own the joyful mystery of God coming to us as a child. The child has neither authority nor power, yet the very absence of authority reveals him to be a king; his defenselessness and vulnerability are precisely the source of his profound power. The child in that distant Bethlehem cave has no desire that we fear him; He enters our hearts not by frightening us, by proving his power and authority, but by love alone. He is given to us as a child, and only as children can we in turn love him and give ourselves to him. The world is ruled by authority and power, by fear and domination. The child God liberates us from that. All He desires from us is our love, freely given and joyful; all He desires is that we give him our heart. And we give it to a defenseless, endlessly trusting child.

Through the feast of Christmas, the Church reveals to us a joyful mystery: the mystery of freely given love imposing itself on no one. A love capable of seeing, recognizing and loving God in the Divine Child, and becoming the gift of a new life.

Excerpt from Celebration of Faith, Vol. 2: The Church Year by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994.

Fasting, praying, Church more than once a week, “take up your cross,” SACRIFICE…Do I have to be a monk?? I have been asked that question on a number of different occasions. With all of the prescriptions given to us to do, it seems sometimes that the Church is asking us all to be monks. After all, monks and nuns are the ones who devote their lives to prayer, who fast all of the time, who don’t have to worry about money or families. Those of us out here in the world have “real” responsibilities and don’t have the time or the energy to focus on all of that. At least that is what we think. Of course, Christ does not ask all of us to be monks or nuns. The life in the monastery is a very unique calling that is blessed and necessary, but not for everyone. Just as all of us are not called to be mathematicians or rocket scientists, not everyone is called to be a monk.

However, that does not mean that everyone isn’t called to some sort of ascesis. That word, most often used exclusively for the monastic life, simply means self-denial, something that Christ tells all of us to do. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me.” ANY MAN. While not called to be a monk or a nun, those of us who are attempting to follow Christ are called to serve the Lord through ascesis. What does that look like?

One of the greatest monks in history, St. John Climacus, wrote a 30-step treatise called The Ladder of Divine Ascent. This book was written specifically for those who were monks and laid out step by step the way to the Kingdom of God. Though he wrote it in the 7th century, it is still read today during Great Lent in many of the monasteries in the Orthodox world. In this work, St. John doesn’t just address the monks, however. He was presented with this same question over 1500 years ago: “Do I have to be a monk?” He responded by saying:

“Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: ‘We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?’ I replied to them: ‘Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate anyone; do not be absent from the divine services; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another man’s domestic happiness, and be content with what your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

Notice that St. John doesn’t start off by mentioning what we should avoid and not do, but what we should actually do. “Do all the good you can” is very different from “avoid doing bad.” If the answer was to avoid doing bad, we would be better suited to stay in our homes and be alone as much as we can; or, if we are outside our homes, to focus on the task that we are doing and not pay attention to anyone else that is around us. St. John is encouraging all of us to pay attention to the moment that we are in and look for the good that we can do. How often do we drive down the road talking on the phone or listening to the radio and mindlessly make our way to our destination? In my case, too often. In attempting to “do all the good you can,” try instead to pay attention to where you are going, your surroundings. You might notice an opportunity to do good. That goes for anywhere we find ourselves, in whatever company. St. John does not want us not to lie, or speak evil of anyone, or hate anyone by not being around other people. His encouragement is to live in the world, doing your work, going about your business around all of the people that you see and to do good, be compassionate, and be content in your life. Not avoidance, but acceptance and transforming a situation.

How can we possibly have the strength to fulfill all of that? St. John answers that as well. “Do not be absent from the divine services.” All of that ascetical discipline is not meant to be something that we just do in separation from the life of the Church. Quite the opposite. None of that type of discipline is really possible or helpful without a constant connection to Christ and His Church. In our attempt to do good we will often be pushed away. In our effort to avoid offending anyone and seeking out the good we may be hurt and feel lost. The answer is in Christ.  Through the divine services, all of the different ones throughout the year, we are encouraged by the witness of the lives of the saints. We are enriched by the Word of God through the Scriptures. Most importantly, we are filled with the Divine Grace of God through the participation in the Mysteries. All of this helps to fulfill the discipline and ascesisthat St. John was talking about. It might seem impossible, but with Christ all things are possible.

One thousand five hundred years later and I think St. John’s words still hit the nail on the head. Not all of us are called to the discipline of the monastery. All of us, however, are called to the discipline that St. John lays out. So where and when do we start? Right here! Right now!

-

Fr. Philip Rogers (SVOTS ’07) has served Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, LA since graduating from SVOTS.  Along with parish work, he serves as the camp director for Camp St. Thekla, the summer camp for the Antiochian Archdiocese in the Southeast.  His wife Kathryn works in the emergency room at their local hospital and serves as their parish choir director.

This article was originally published December 8, 2011.

The extraordinary thing about the image of Saint Nicholas in the Church is that he is not known for anything extraordinary. He was not a theologian and never wrote a word, yet he is famous in memory of the believers as a zealot for orthodoxy, allegedly accosting the heretic Arius at the first ecumenical council in Nicaea for denying the divinity of God’s Son. He was not an ascetic and did no outstanding feats of fasting and vigils, yet he is praised for his possession of the “fruit of the Holy Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5: 22-23). He was not a mystic in our present meaning of the term but he lived daily with the Lord and was godly in all of his words and deeds. He was not a prophet in the technical sense, yet he proclaimed the Word of God, exposed the sins of the wicked, defended the rights of the oppressed and afflicted, and battled against every form of injustice with supernatural compassion and mercy. In a word, he was a good pastor, father, and bishop to his flock, known especially for his love and care for the poor. Most simply put, he was a divinely good person.

We use that term “goodness” so lightly in our time. How easily we say of someone, “He is a good man” or “She is a good woman.” How lightly we say, “They are good people.” A teen-age girl takes an overdose of drugs and the neighbors tell the reporters, “But she was always such a good girl, and her parents are such nice people!” A young man commits some terrible crime, and the same rhetoric flows: “But he was always such a good boy, and his family is so nice.” A man dies on the golf course after a life distinguished by many years of profit-taking and martini-drinking, and the reaction is the same: “He was a good man, yeah, a real nice guy.” What do “good” and “nice” really mean in such cases? What do they describe? What do they express?

In Saint Luke’s gospel it tells us that one day a “ruler” came up to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what shall I do  to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answered him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:18; see also Mk 10:18). In Saint Matthew’s version it says that Jesus answered the man by saying, “Why do you ask Me about what is good? One there is who is good” (Mt 19:17). However we choose to interpret Christ’s words, at least one point is clear. Jesus reacts to the facile, perhaps even sarcastic, use of the term “good” by referring to its proper source. There is only One who is good, and that is God Himself. If you want to speak of goodness, then you must realize what–and Whom–you are talking about!

Like God, and like Jesus, Saint Nicholas was genuinely good. Real goodness is possible. For, to quote the Lord again, “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26). A human being, even a rich human being who believes in God, can be genuinely good with God’s own goodness. “For truly I say to you,” says the Lord, “if you have faith as a grain of mustard see…nothing will be impossible for you” (Mt 17:20-21).

The Messiah has come so that human beings can live lives which are, strictly speaking, humanly impossible. He has come so that people can be really good. One of the greatest and most beloved examples among believers that this is true is the holy bishop of Myra about whom almost nothing else is known, or needs to be known, except that he was good. For this reason alone he remains, even in his secularized form, the very spirit of Christmas.

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St. Vladimir’s Seminary

I was raised in a parish in the Romanian Episcopate (OCA), a child of first generation Americans of Romanian parentage. I sang in the choir from early on (my father was the choir director until he became a deacon), taught music at our Vatra summer camp from the time I was 16 years old, majored in music in college and grad school, pursued a career in opera for a bit, and settled down for 14 years in the Detroit area. I was Music Director at the Romanian OCA Cathedral during that time, and very involved in starting a pan-Orthodox music ministry and mixed choir there. I’ve worked (for pay) in all three of the major archdioceses in America (Antiochian, Greek, OCA). Some of you may know me from my involvement with PSALM and my role in PSALM’s first national conference in Cicero, IL in 2006. I am currently in a full-time position at St. Athanasius Antiochian parish in Santa Barbara/Goleta, CA. This is one of the parishes of former Evangelical Protestants who converted en masse to Orthodoxy and came into the Antiochian Archdiocese in 1987.

My personal mission these days with regards to my role as a church musician — what drives me, keeps me going?

• Helping the American Church find the form of musical expression that is going to be most appropriate for our language and culture. The verdict is still out. I think we have a long way to go. I use the best of all of the Orthodox traditions of music, and I use LOTS of music composed by American Orthodox composers, as in: composed FOR English and IN English by someone who speaks English really well! It really does work best, in the same way that opera sings best in the language for which it was written.
• Helping facilitate worship that is prayerful, engaging and purposeful, that has the power to enlighten and “convert” all of us over and over again.

How do I do that? Perhaps that’s a topic for another blog entry!

-

Valerie Yova is the Parish Administrator and Music Director at St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Goleta, CA.

This article was originally published December 1, 2011

While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of “the all-praised and first-called apostle Andrew.”

In the gospel according to St John, Philip calls his friend Nathanael to “come and see” Jesus, but it is Jesus Himself who invites Andrew to “come and see” where He dwells and to spend the day with Him…

Come and see! This is the abiding invitation of the Church in her liturgical services. Come with faith and you will be numbered with those to whom “it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 13:11)…

Come and see! You will witness the mystery of Christ’s birth from the Virgin, His manifestation at the Jordan in His baptism by John, His victory over the devil in the desert, His proclamation of good news to the poor, His announcement of liberty to the oppressed, His declaration of the acceptable year of the Lord’s grace. You will witness His accomplishment of the signs of His messiahship: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb talk. You will see the winds cease and the seas calmed. You will behold the table spread “in the wilderness” in the feeding of the multitudes (Ps 78:19). You will witness the casting out of demons. And, most glorious of all, you will see the dead being raised by the word of His power. You will know indeed that “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28), and you will testify truly that “something greater than Jonah” and “something greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 12:41-42). You will see what “many prophets and righteous men longed to see…and did not see it, and to hear…and did not hear it” (Mt 13:17). And ultimately you will see the Son of God Himself being lifted upon the Cross in order to give His broken body as food for His people, and His shed blood as their drink, that their hunger and thirst for peace and joy and righteousness, and indeed for life itself, might be forever satisfied.

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 until his death in 1983. Hundreds of SVOTS alumni were trained under his keen mind, warm humor, and guiding principle: “A seminarian should know only three paths: to the classroom, to the library, and to the chapel.” Father Alexander celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the last time on Thanksgiving Day, 1983. This is the homily he delivered on that day:

Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation and eternal joy.

Thank You, O Lord, for having accepted this Eucharist, which we offered to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and which filled our hearts with the joy, peace and righteousness of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for having revealed Yourself unto us and given us the foretaste of Your Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having united us to one another in serving You and Your Holy Church.

Thank You, O Lord, for having helped us to overcome all difficulties, tensions, passions, temptations and restored peace, mutual love and joy in sharing the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for the sufferings You bestowed upon us, for they are purifying us from selfishness and reminding us of the “one thing needed;” Your eternal Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having given us this country where we are free to worship You.

Thank You, O Lord, for this school, where the name of God is proclaimed.

Thank You, O Lord, for our families: husbands, wives and, especially, children who teach us how to celebrate Your holy Name in joy, movement and holy noise.

Thank You, O Lord, for everyone and everything.

Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your deeds, and no word is sufficient to celebrate Your miracles.

Lord, it is good to be here! Amen.

Originally published in The Orthodox Church, Vol. 20, No. 2, February 1984, p. 1:1.

During the first days of the Christmas fast the Church celebrates the feast of the entrance of the child Mary into the Jerusalem temple… The spiritual story tells how, coming into the temple, the child Mary is led into the Holy of Holies by the priest Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, there to be nourished by angels in preparation for her virginal conception of the Son of God…

In the festival of the entrance of Mary into the temple we have seen how Christ’s mother is continuously hymned as the “living temple of the holy glory of Christ our God.” She is praised as the “living ark which contained the Word which cannot be contained.” She is glorified as “the temple that is to hold God,” consecrated by the Spirit to be the “dwelling place of the Almighty.” She enters the Holy of Holies to become herself the “animated Holy of Holies,” the one in whom Christ is formed, thereby making her, and everyone who is one with her in faith, the “abode of heaven.”

…As we go the way of the Winter Pascha the choice placed before us is clear. We can follow the “narrow way” that leads to life, or we can go on the “broad way” that leads to destruction (Mt 7:13-14). We can, like Mary, cleave to the Lord and become His dwelling place in the Spirit. Or we can through immorality and sin choose the death of the nothingness which we are unless the Lord Himself lives within us. “But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Cor 6:17)…

The feast of the entrance of Mary into the temple marks the first specific liturgical announcement of the birth of Christ. On this festival, for the first time in the season, the canon of the Nativity of Christ is sung at the festal vigil.

Christ is born; glorify Him!
Christ comes from heaven; go to meet Him!

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

St. Paul encourages us in Eph. 4 to not behave like the rest of the world! As Christians we follow a higher standard. He tells us not to get lost in useless thoughts; futile thoughts he calls them. Because God gave us free will, we have total freedom of thought. We can think about anything imaginable. Our mind is continually generating thoughts, some good and some bad. Some thoughts are focused on meaningful things and some are of no value to us. Thoughts can build upon one another, grow and generate into rationalizations. Worthless thinking often leads us to sinful thoughts.

Fr. Thomas Keating in his book on meditation refers to this continuous motion of thoughts running around in our mind as “the monkey mind.” Picture a cage with monkeys jumping around and screeching. They rush at you, then away from you and then at you again, always chattering and making a ruckus. That is often the state of our mind, an endless commotion. Our minds have almost unlimited creativity and freedom. But if we do not harness the great power of our mind it can cause a mess. We talk with someone while thinking about something else more important to us. We listen with interest to a Psalm, and suddenly drift off to other thoughts. We injure our relationships when we do this!

St. Paul refers to still darker thoughts in this Epistle. This futility of our mind draws us to the edge; and we risk stepping off and into a darkness of sin.

When we are interested, however, we do focus our thoughts. An exciting movie holds our attention. A good novel can grip our interest. When our interest is not captured though, it often takes great energy and discipline for us to pay attention to a person speaking to us. We allow our mind to wander because we get lazy.

But God can work miracles through the great power of the mind. Our weapon of defense against a lazy, undisciplined mind is prayer. During Lent we pray the Prayer of St. Ephraim – “take from me the spirit of sloth.” We fight against the lazy, idle mind with “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” We fill our mind with “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great goodness. Blot out my transgressions.” Our motivation is enlivened by the power of the Holy Spirit when we fill our mind with the name of Jesus.

St. Paul tells us to “renew the spirit of our mind.” We meditate on Christ. We fill our mind with ‘Christ-thoughts’ and ignore the futile thoughts. We enter into this relationship with Christ, and give the Holy Spirit full reign to direct and focus our thoughts. We are confident of God’s grace for us through His work on the Cross, our symbol of his abundant love for us. In the community of our local church, we are continually encouraged to renew our relationship with Christ. Through the motivation and power of the Holy Spirit we strive for righteousness.

Each time we stop our mind from offending, Christ is victorious in us. We saturate our thinking with Jesus. The more active our relationship is with Jesus Christ, the less our struggle is with futile thinking. The monkey mind is quieted. From the mental chaos – emerges peace and order, and incredible beauty, like a procession of the saints, with Christ at the center. We are able to focus on loving Christ and others. We are becoming a new person: “created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.”

-

Deacon Seraphim Joa is a third-year M. Div. student at St. Vladimir’s Seminary from Rockville Centre, NY.  He and his wife, Julie, have a married son and two grandchildren. After retiring from an engineering firm in New York City late in 2006, Dn. Seraphim began thinking about studying to become a deacon.  All advice pointed him to St. Vladimir’s Seminary as the best way to achieve that goal.  He continues now hoping to help in the Church as he is led by the Holy Spirit.

This article was originally published November 17, 2011.

"Orthodoxy does not need more professors, but confessors.” -Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos

St. John the Compassionate Mission was founded in 1986 among the poor and the marginalized of downtown Toronto and is an apostolate of the Carpatho-Russian diocese. The Mission has had, and has, a variety of different programs responding to needs as they arose. “Around” the Mission has grown the thriving parish of St. Silouan. The Mission seeks to be where Orthodoxy becomes Orthopraxy.

At its heart St. John’s seeks to make real the teaching of the Fathers, especially St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, on how the Church should be present to the “world.” The life of the Mission thus has four essential elements: diakonia (service), community, liturgy, and study, and each is lived out in a regular daily and weekly rhythm.

The Poor our Masters (St. John the Compassionate) – A Deacon’s View, Dn. Pawel Mucha

Five years ago I left Europe to be an intern for one year at St. John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto. Nine months later I was ordained as a subdeacon. The subdiaconate at the Mission was real in both liturgy and daily diakonia, and was also fulltime. At times, it was too “real” and too “fulltime!” My ordination to the diaconate came last year.

Among the many “obediences” of the diaconate has been setting up and running the Mission’s intern program – the Lived Theology School. Despite 20 years teaching experience I was to discover that the real teacher was not me, but mission life and the poor themselves. Knowledge in and of itself is not enough; it needs to find a reality.

-

Fr. Roberto Ubertino and Dn. Pawel Mucha minister to the poor, socially excluded, and handicapped in downtown Toronto. More information on the history and vision of the Mission can be found here, as well as on the Mission’s website.

This article was originally published November 11, 2011.