St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) had a strong presence at the Inaugural Conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA).

IOTA assembled in Iaşi, Romania on January 9-12, 2019. Founded by University of St. Thomas Professor Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk and a group of leading scholars, IOTA’s mission is to promote the international exchange of knowledge within the context of the Orthodox tradition.

’With several hundred scholars from over 40 countries and all six continents, IOTA has called its Inaugural Conference the largest and most representative gathering of Orthodox church leaders, scholars, and professionals in modern history.

“It is a source of great encouragement that no institution had a greater presence at the conference than St. Vladimir’s Seminary,” remarked Seminary President Archpriest Chad Hatfield.

Along with Fr. Chad and others, members of the SVOTS community in attendance also included Seminary Dean Dr. Ionuţ-Alexandru  Tudorie; Dr. Peter Bouteneff, professor of Systematic Theology and co-chair of IOTA’s Dogmatic Theology section; Dr. Gayle Woloschak, professor of Bioethics and IOTA’s vice president; Assistant Professor of Theology Dr. Tracy Gustilo; Seminary Trustees Frank Cerra and Archpriest Philip LeMasters; Alumni Archpriest John Parker, the dean of St. Tikhon’s Seminary, Archpriest Michael Oleksa, Deacon Brandon Gallaher, Dr. Tamar Goguadze, Dr. Will Cohen, Dr. Vera Shevzov, and Dr. Scott Kenworthy; Seminarians Archimandrite Chrysostomos Onyekakeyah, Sophia Theodoratos, and Alexandru Popovici; and SVS Press authors Dr. Rico Vitz and Archpriest Andrew Louth.

• Related: SVOTS participates in IOTA planning session

The overarching theme of the conference was Pan-Orthodox Unity and Conciliarity. The Keynote Address was given by His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware).

“We have to confess, with humility and realism, that while we affirm synodality in theory, all too often we have neglected it in practice,” Metropolitan Kallistos noted.

• Watch Metropolitan Kallistos’ Keynote Address

During the conference, a broad variety of topics were discussed in over 70 separate sessions, from fundamental philosophical and theological issues to the urgent questions of our time. Classical issues included such topics as Orthodox approaches to scripture, the doctrine of the trinity, and spirituality of Philokalia. Contemporary issues included the controversial church situation in Ukraine, ecological challenges, and the role of women in church life. The IOTA event also included opportunities for communal worship, two sacred art exhibits, a pilgrimage to local monasteries, and a book exhibit to benefit emerging Orthodox scholars. The gathering was also enriched by the participation of presenters and observers from a variety of non-Orthodox faith traditions.

“I would say IOTA achieved its goal of being a place of exchange between what we would call ‘Old World Orthodoxy’ and ‘New World Orthodoxy,” said Fr. Chad. “The theme was very timely given the current tensions in global Orthodoxy.”

“The IOTA conference was truly an intense international pan-Orthodox experience,” said Seminarian Sophia Theodoratos. “The hospitality offered and the evident atmosphere of goodwill among those present was quite extraordinary. Hopefully dialogue will continue after the event to further strengthen exchanges between clergy, academics, laity and observers.”

IOTA plans to host worldwide conferences every four years in different locations worldwide, following the model of the Olympic Games.

As 2019 begins, Saint Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press has added two titles to its offerings: The Testament of the Lord and Theology as a Surprise.

The Testament of the Lord becomes the fifty-eighth entry into SVS Press’s widely popular (no pun intended) Popular Patristics Series. The Testament of the Lord is one of several ancient “Church Order” texts. Written in the first four centuries of the Church, they direct Christian conduct and morality, ecclesiastical organization and discipline, and the Church’s worship and liturgical life. Beginning with an apocalyptic section in which the risen Lord himself addresses the reader, The Testament then describes the building of a church, the mode of appointment for clergy and monastics, and the conduct of daily prayers and of other liturgical services.

The text is newly translated by Alistair Stewart from the extant Syriac (with an eye to Ethiopic manuscripts), and the introduction makes the case for a fourth century Cappadocian redactor who gave the work its present shape, though much of its material goes back at least to the third century.

Also new to SVS Press is Theology as a Surprise, written by His Grace Bishop Maxim (Vasiljević), bishop of the Diocese of Western America of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

“This is not a book of theology in the form we have become accustomed to expect: a systematic examination of the usual topics of theological reflection; it is much more than that,” writes Very Rev. John Behr, professor at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and editor of the Popular Patristics Series. “Bishop Maxim draws upon Scripture, the Fathers, and Liturgy to address perennial and yet very contemporary questions: our experience of time and history, our existence as human persons and the complexities of sexuality and gender, our life in the polis and the ekklēsia, and the relational presence of an icon in a world saturated with digital images.

And he does so in engagement with a diverse range of contemporary thinkers: philosophers, scientists, poets, artists, media figures, and film directors. The theological vision and call that emerges here is indeed a surprise, and one that brings the gospel to bear on all aspects of our life and existence."

Both new titles are available through SVSPress.com, or by calling 1-800-204-BOOK (2665).

St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) is poised to establish a permanent Institute of Sacred Arts (ISA) on its campus, with “creativity and holiness for the life of the world” as its mission, thanks to a $250,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

The grant, announced November 29, 2018, will help the Seminary build upon the Sacred Arts Initiative (SAI) which the Luce Foundation also funded in 2016. The Institute of Sacred Arts will introduce a curriculum where art and theology are mutually interpretive: theology informing the arts, but also arts informing theology.

“Many universities and divinity schools are concerned with the arts, but only rarely are they thoroughly integrated with the theology that might undergird them, or with the liturgy that brings them into a coherent, performative whole,” said Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff, SVOTS professor and director of the SAI. “We seek to integrate across the sacred arts—visual, aural, rhetorical, and tactile—as a means to study theology, especially through the liturgy, and to bring theological insights into the study of art, a field often dominated by historical, critical, and political perspectives.”

Over the course of three years, SVOTS will begin expanding its curriculum. Students drawn to the Seminary for its richness in the arts will be able to specialize by following a newly designed concentration or track. All seminarians, however, will experience the interweaving of the arts into their core courses, including church history and theology. Additionally, an artists-in-residence program will help the ISA offer the highest level of professional expertise in the practice of the arts. (This component of the ISA is not part of the Luce grant funding. Donations to help sponsor artists-in-residence may be made through the Seminary’s giving page.)

The fruits of the ISA will also be extended to the general public with the annual five-day Sacred Arts Summer Institute, beginning in 2020. SVOTS faculty, artists-in-residence, and visiting artists will lead master classes on such subjects as singing, conducting, and music composition; icon painting and carving; literature and poetry; and homiletics.

“The Summer Institute will be able to go one step further than many weekend or one-day workshops, as SVOTS will integrate arts practice with the highest caliber of theory and theology,” said Bouteneff.

Before every Summer Institute, building upon the success of two “Rethinking Sacred Arts” symposia funded by Luce’s previous grant, an annual three-day scholarly symposium on sacred arts will take place.

Through the new grant, the Seminary will also expand collaborative relationships with other institutions, theological schools, and universities, as well as with sacred arts creators, and create audio and video podcasts for the public.

“St. Vladimir’s is now well-positioned to offer something with the ISA that really isn’t available anywhere else,” said SVOTS President Archpriest Chad Hatfield. “We anticipate making a major impact on the fields of art and theology through the introduction and careful testing of a new and fully arts-integrated model of higher theological education.”  

“We are so thankful to the Henry Luce Foundation for continuing to believe in what we have been working toward with the Sacred Arts Initiative,” he added.

In recent years, the partnership with the Luce Foundation has produced the landmark Arvo Pärt Project and its concerts, lectures, and publications, and the three-year Sacred Arts Initiative, both of which have grown out of the seminary’s historic commitment to the study of icons and sacred music.

“The work made possible by Luce Foundation support has already been instrumental in improving the education of our students, the collaboration of scholars in the field, and in engaging a broadly diverse public,” said Fr. Chad.

The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to honor his parents, who were missionary educators in China. The grant award was given through the Luce Foundation’s Theology Program, which aims to “advance understanding of religion and theology,” through projects that "cross religious, disciplinary, and geographic borders," and through support for "scholarship that is theoretically sophisticated, historically informed, critically reflexive, and practically invested.” Read more on the Luce Foundation’s website. 

St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) is journeying to Seattle this February! Join us to support SVOTS seminarians, the future leaders of the Church.

The Fête in the Northwest will be an evening of inspiration and entertainment. Enjoy live music by Seattle-based duo Mr & Mrs Something and their acoustic folk, bluegrass, and Americana sounds, drinks (cash bar), and eats by Takis Mad Greek Food. The event will also feature Seminary President Archpriest Chad Hatfield and Amazon’s Rebecca Pagani, chair of the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative.

This event is so important because, truthfully speaking, it is about you and the Church. We want you to hear about what St. Vladimir's Seminary is doing to raise up your next bishop, priest, deacon, choir conductor, youth minister, Sunday school teacher, or iconographer.  We want you to hear about how your help sends missionaries to Africa, Guatemala, and other regions of the world still discovering the True Faith, and how authors and scholars go on from Seminary to write and teach the things that God uses to help change lives--maybe even yours. This is about your church and the Church. Purchasing a ticket allows us to cover the cost of putting on this great evening, but your presence and further donation is what gives seminarians the support they need to serve the Body of Christ--you, us, and all who have been baptized into our Lord's death and resurrection.

The evening kicks off at 7 p.m. at the hall of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. Tickets may be purchased below. Questions? Email events@svots.edu.

• Download the flyer

*UPDATE: The Concert is sold out. To reserve your seat for the Tenebrae concert in New York on April 5, 2019, click here.

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St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington, DC is set to host a spectacular evening of music by the St Vladimir’s Seminary Chorale. Tenebrae: Music of Holy Week from East & West is Friday, February 22 at 7:30 p.m.

The concert takes its name from a candlelit Holy Week service from the Western Christian tradition (tenebrae means “darkness” in Latin). The evening promises to be an inspiring look ahead to the solemn Lenten journey, the cross, and the empty tomb.

A reception will follow with wine and light hors d’ouvres. Books and CDs will be available for purchase from SVS Press.

The concert will help raise funds for St. Vladimir’s seminarians. There is no admission fee to attend the event, but advanced tickets are required (see below). Donations made before the concert, by February 5, of over $100 will be listed in the event program.

We offer this evening of contemplative and powerful music to you, for whatever you may need it to be during this season of preparation. Walk with us; breathe with us; be with us.

• Download the flyer

St. Vladimir’s Seminary, including the Seminary bookstore, will be closed for business December 24 and 25 in observance of the Eve of Nativity and the Feast of the Nativity. Normal business hours will resume December 26.

A schedule of services at the Seminary’s Three Hierarch’s Chapel can be found here.

Singers from the St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) community kept a busy schedule in the month of December, performing at two concerts and spreading Nativity season cheer at a local nursing home.

On December 8, the St. Vladimir’s Seminary Chorale partnered with Ancient Faith Ministries and the Choir from Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, East Meadow, NY to present an evening of carols, hymns, and scripture readings in preparation for the celebration of the Holy Nativity of our Lord. Under the direction of Robin Freeman and former SVOTS faculty member Dr. Nicholas Reeves, Holy Trinity’s choir director, the combined choirs sang familiar carols and Orthodox liturgical hymns interspersed with readings from the Old and New Testaments.

Watch a replay of the concert, performed at Holy Trinity, here.

The very next evening back on the Seminary campus, on December 9, the Chorale performed alongside The Westchester Chorale, recognized as one of the region’s leading musical ensembles.

“It was a true pleasure for us to host The Westchester Chorale. The entire evening was built around the theme of how music, and specifically singing, unites us,” said SVOTS Director of Music Robin Freeman. “To that end, we opted to arrange the chairs in a circle so that everyone, including the audience, would feel included in the experience. Singing is for everyone, and so, at the end of the program, everyone joined us in singing a few Christmas carols. I hope it will be the first of many collaborations!”

A short clip of the performance can be viewed here.

On Friday, December 14, members of SVOTS’ choir and community members continued the tradition of Christmas caroling at Sunrise of Crestwood nursing home near Seminary campus. The gathering provided the SVOTS’ community a chance to share the joy of the Nativity in song with the residents there and to celebrate the end of the semester together.

His Beatitude the Most Blessed Tikhon, archbishop of Washington, metropolitan of All America and Canada, and chair of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, has published his Archpastoral Message for the Nativity of Christ for 2018.

His Beatitude’s message is available on OCA.org, and is reprinted below.

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon Nativity of Christ 2018

Christ is born!  Glorify Him!

To the Honorable Clergy, Venerable Monastics, and Pious Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America,

My beloved brethren and blessed children in the Lord,

Today, the glorious feast of the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ shines forth and brings joy to all of creation.  The sacred hymnography and iconography of the Church provide words and images to help us interpret the light-filled feast that we celebrate on this day, when He Who “has adorned the vault of heaven with stars has been well pleased to be born as a babe,” and He Who “holds all the earth in the hollow of His hands is laid in a manger of dumb beasts.”

Holy Tradition offers us the account of the universal hush that took place at the incarnation, expressed in Joseph’s encounter with the stillness of the natural world: birds hanging motionless in flight, men and beasts frozen in their tracks and the waters ceasing their flow.  The continuous passage of time and movement of history came to a halt as creation paused in astonishment as the Eternal enters into the heart of time and the pre-eternal God is born as a little child.

This miraculous moment may be unique in history, but it provides us with some inspiration for the manner in which we ought to receive the sacred mystery that we celebrate today.  The Apostle Paul writes: “Be ye thankful” (Colossians 3:15) and “In everything give thanks” (I Thessalonians 5:18).  It is in this spirit of gratitude that we should receive this feast.

We live in a world in which the offering of thanksgiving has become a scarce commodity and a rare virtue.  In almost every aspect of our human existence, it seems that our first instinct is not to give thanks, but rather to reply, to respond, or to react.  At every second of our waking, we are compelled to reply to emails, to texts and to posts.  Daily, we respond to our own passionate desires, to every perceived threat and to every offense, and we are drawn to react to every instance of human fallenness, political division and ecclesiastical conflict.

While it may be easier to blame the world for these challenges, we should remember that it is from within our hearts that our actions and attitudes spring forth.  We may long for perfection, but we are confronted by our own weaknesses.  But even here we should remember, as Saint Barsanuphius reminds us, that thanksgiving intercedes before God for our weaknesses.  Thanksgiving is not the crown of the perfect but the strength of the weak.

Thanksgiving is what allows us as broken, sorrowful, hurting and frail human beings to join our voices to the rest of creation in singing:

Make glad, O ye righteous; Greatly rejoice, O ye heavens; Ye mountains dance for joy.
Christ is born; and like the cherubim the Virgin makes a throne,
Carrying at her bosom God the Word made flesh.
Shepherds glorify the new-born Child.
Magi offer the Master gifts.
Angels sing praises, saying:
“O Lord past understanding, glory to Thee” (Praises at Matins).

Sincerely yours in the new-born Christ,

+ Tikhon
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

*UPDATE - Jan. 28, 2019
The registration period is now closed to new attendees. Please return to SVOTS.edu/events to find out about the next open house opportunity.

Do you feel called to serve the Church, either in ordained ministry or another vocation? Cozy up to the idea of enrolling at St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) and pursuing your calling at the Winter Open House, February 3 and 4.

Experience community and academic life at SVOTS over these two days. Take a guided tour of the Seminary campus, sit in on classes, meet the Seminary president, faculty, and staff, attend services, share meals with seminarians, and even attend the community Super Bowl party on Sunday evening!

Plan to arrive before 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 3. The Open House formally concludes the next day with Vespers, which begin at 5 p.m., although you are more than welcome to stay longer for dinner and a Monday evening event with the Seminary’s St. Juliana’s Society.

REGISTRATION
Fill out and submit the registration form on this page to RSVP by Monday, January 28, 2019 (see form below).

DAILY SCHEDULE
Arrive Sunday afternoon, February 3, and leave Monday evening, February 4 
Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019

• By 4 p.m. – Open House guests arrive on campus
• 5 p.m. – Campus Tour
• 6 p.m. – Super Bowl party & welcome remarks by director of residential life and admissions

Monday, Feb. 4, 2019

• 7:30 a.m. – Matins
• 8:15 a.m. – Breakfast and welcome from seminary president
• 9:15 a.m. – Morning Classes (2)
• 12 p.m. – Lunch & group discussion with current seminarians curated by the academic dean
• 1:15 p.m. – Optional daylight campus tour
• 2 p.m. – Afternoon Class
• 5 p.m. – Vespers
• 6 p.m. – Dinner (Optional)
• 7-9 p.m. – St. Juliana’s Society (Optional)

ADMISSIONS INFORMATION

• Welcome!
• Degrees offered
• Tuition & other expenses
• Application forms
• Financial aid
• Housing
• Health insurance
• International students

SHARE THE NEWS!

• Download a PDF of the Open House
• Download a JPG of the Open House

The new book, Mixed Marriage: An Orthodox History, “will surely become a standard work on the subject,” according to Archpriest John A. McGuckin, visiting research professor at Oxford University and emeritus professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University & Union Theological Seminary.

The book, written by Priest Anthony Roeber, is available now through St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press. The study explores historical documentation of incidents and practices regarding mixed marriages throughout the history of the Orthodox Church.

“Fr. Roeber’s excellent book offers a lucid and fascinating history of marriage and its relationship to the Church, the authority of the bishop, pastoral practice in relation to the administration of the Mysteries (how can a couple sharing in the sacrament of Orthodox marriage not be allowed thereafter to share in the Eucharist from which it flows?) and how that important, but often ill-defined term of oikonomia can address the issue of mixed marriage today,” said McGuckin.

Fr. Anthony Roeber is professor of Church History at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS). The author of some 50 articles, six books, and three edited volumes, his most recent publications include the co-authored Changing Churches: An Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran Theological Conversation (Eerdmans, 2012) and Hopes for Better Spouses: Protestant Marriage and Church Renewal in Early Modern Europe, India, and North America (Eerdmans, 2013).