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Metropolitan Hilarion Accuses West of Leaving Egypt Christians in the Lurch

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The Episcopal Assembly could be in the forefront of this.

Moscow, November 1, Interfax – Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations has accused the West of failing to stand up for Egyptian Christians during recent violence against them and has slammed Western governments for putting economic interests before human life.

“Despite the unprecedented escalation of violence against Christians in Egypt early in October, not a single Western country has put any pressure on the provisional military authorities of that country or threatened economic sanctions,” a statement from the Synodal Department for External Church Relations quoted Metropolitan Hilarion as saying during a ceremony at the university of Lugano, Switzerland, in which he had the degree of doctor honoris causa conferred on him.

Footage showing armored personnel carriers “crushing a peaceful Coptic demonstration and shooting at unarmed people remain outside the attention of politicians” though they shocked the entire world, he said. The Copts are a Christian ethnic group in Egypt.

“Neither has an appropriate assessment been made of the speech of the Egyptian minister of security, who denied that weapons had been used against demonstrating Copts, or of reports about falsifying the death toll and the character of injuries. It is the right of the churches to ask the governments of their countries how long this would go on. Why are economic interests more valuable for those countries than the lives of completely innocent people who get killed just because they believe in Christ?” he said.

He called for Christians to come together “to defend their brothers and sisters who are suffering in various regions.”

“If this doesn’t happen, we will look even less convincing in the eyes of this world. On the other hand, by defending our fellow believers, we will strengthen our positions, will become more unified, and hence closer to one another,” he said.

Attacking the secularization of the West, he said Christians face “an imperative and seemingly unfeasible task to lead modern so-called post-Christian civilization out of its crisis.”

“Christian Churches, primarily the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and also the ancient Eastern Churches, should come together today and join forces. We have the imperative need to create a community of Churches following the apostolic tradition where we would together discuss problems and challenges of the modern world,” the metropolitan said.

He also suggested setting up “joint informal information structures that would provide objective, fresh and verified information on events that are of determining significance for the future of the Church and the world.”

Frank Schaeffer’s Fundamentalist Fakery

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From the article: “Schaeffer’s Orthodox history might be inconvenient to him today because based on the Church’s teachings — sanctity of life, sexuality, marriage, a hyper-patriarchal priesthood — it looks a lot like the dimwitted “Taliban” Christians and “fundamentalists” that Schaeffer spends so much time denouncing of late. Then again, you can hardly go around advertising the fact that you spent years proselytizing on behalf of traditional morality if, today, you want to maximize your page views on HuffPo and get MSNBC producers to call you back.”

Source: Acton Institute | John Couretas

Frank Schaeffer: Bachmann, Palin, Perry Use Religion Like Snake Oil Salesmen (2011)

Remaining Orthodox in a Secular World : A Sermon by Frank Schaeffer (2002)

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has a story on FrontPageMag.com about Frank Schaeffer’s call for the Occupy Wall Street protesters to go after Evangelical Christians. Schaeffer is the son of evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). Tooley:

A blogger for The Huffington Post, young Schaeffer is now faulting religious conservatives for facilitating Wall Street greed. He’s imploring the Wall Street Occupiers to “protest the root source of America’s tilt to the far unregulated corporate right.” For Schaeffer, the next logical step is to demonstrate “outside mega churches, Evangelical publishing houses, [and] religious organizations that lead the ‘moral’ crusades against women and gays and all the rest.”

The article, titled “Wall Street Occupiers Urged to Target Churches,” also describes Schaeffer attacking Roman Catholics as “likewise ‘fundamentalists’ who have ‘delegitimized the US Government and thus undercut its ability to tax, spend and regulate.’ So Catholic bishops, like evangelical mega churches, have also tricked their followers into voting against their ‘own class and self-interest.’” See the top video in this post for a sample of Schaeffer spleen.

In August, New York Times reporter Mark Oppenheimer interviewed Schaeffer about his new book Sex, Mom and God and said that that the author’s “break with conservatism, and with evangelicalism, came in the late 1980s.” But, as Oppenheimer described it in “Son of Evangelical Royalty Turns His Back, and Tells the Tale,” Schaeffer, Oppenheimer wrote:

… had long been skeptical of many of his bedfellows. He found the television pastor Pat Robertson and some of his colleagues to be ‘idiots,’ he told me last week, when we met for coffee in western Massachusetts. Looking back, Mr. Schaeffer says that once he became disillusioned he ‘faked it the whole way.’

Schaeffer might be telling the truth, but remember he’s a self-confessed faker. But one thing’s for sure — Oppenheimer didn’t do his homework.

The second, grainy video at the top of this post, shot in a Greek Orthodox church about six months after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, shows Schaeffer in his post-evangelical, pre-HuffPo culture wars mode — more than a decade after his purported “break” from the right. You hear him warning those in the pews about the threat from “the Islamic horde that now pours toward our frontiers” and hear him berating Protestants and Catholics for their soft “feminized” Christianity that won’t stand up to secularism, hedonism and a whole catalog of evils that might have been formulated by, say, Pat Robertson. Schaeffer wants a Christianity that isn’t wishy-washy, therapeutic and “sentimental” but has a “my way or the highway” ethic — a lot like the U.S. Marine Corps. In fact, he has found the alternative to America’s flabby faith: the Orthodox Church.

A tireless book promoter (see also the first five minutes of this longer video), Schaeffer spent a good part of the 1990s and beyond attacking Western Christianity for its many failures and novelties over and against the “pure and clean and perfect” Orthodox Church, into which he was received as a convert. The launching pad for much of this vitriol was his 1995 book, Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religions, which combined Orthodox triumphalism and cold-hearted sectarian vituperation and took it to new heights.

My Greek Orthodox parish was instrumental in bringing Schaeffer to Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1995 for a speaking engagement at a local high school that drew more than 1,000 people. The crowd included many curious Protestants who wanted to hear the son of the famous evangelical theologian explain why he had left the fold and converted to Orthodoxy. While in town, Schaeffer was interviewed on Calvin Forum, a public affairs program on the Calvin College educational TV channel. Indeed, the Reformed minister who interviewed him later was received into the Orthodox Church. Listen to Kevin Allen of Ancient Faith Radio interview former moderator of Calvin Forum, Robert Meyering, about the role Schaeffer played in his journey East.

What is Orthodoxy? According to Schaeffer, “it is the church that has maintained the worship, the sacrament, the truth, in its only pure form that can be found in the world today.” Problem is, in his current incarnation as scourge of the Religious Right, Schaeffer doesn’t say much about the Orthodox Church and his many years of (faking it again?) traveling the country as a Neo-Byzantine circuit rider. You see no evidence on his personal web page of any of those rants against the Catholic and Protestant enemies of Orthodoxy, nor access to a digital version of his tabloid Christian Activist newspaper that was frequently the vehicle for these attacks.

In Dancing Alone, Schaeffer decried the “Protestant debacle [embodied in the ecumenical movement] which has resulted in the disintegration of Western civilization, the acceptance of abortion on demand, the ordination of women, homosexuals and lesbians, the apostasy and heresy inherent in ‘liberal’ Protestant theology.” This was years after he “broke” with the conservatives and Religious Right? Here’s the contents page for the book on Regina Orthodox Press, the publishing house Schaeffer founded and which continues to sell titles like From Baptist to Byzantium and The Virtue of War.

Schaeffer’s Orthodox history might be inconvenient to him today because based on the Church’s teachings — sanctity of life, sexuality, marriage, a hyper-patriarchal priesthood — it looks a lot like the dimwitted “Taliban” Christians and “fundamentalists” that Schaeffer spends so much time denouncing of late. Then again, you can hardly go around advertising the fact that you spent years proselytizing on behalf of traditional morality if, today, you want to maximize your page views on HuffPo and get MSNBC producers to call you back.

IRD covered a speech Schaeffer recently gave in which he cited the Orthodox tradition’s reverence for “holy mysteries” as grounds for rejecting “the frozen being of belief.” But the mysteries of the faith in Orthodox teaching (indeed, the Christian faith rests on profound mysteries) do not provide grounds for a faith that changes, as he puts it, “like the weather.” He should go back and re-read his history of the Ecumenical Councils if he thinks that “anything goes” is how the Church does theology.

Years ago, it was obvious to some Orthodox Christians that Schaeffer had anger management issues. In a 1995 review of Dancing Alone, the scholar and essayist Vigen Gurioan said the book “oozes with the same moralism, instrumentalism and pragmatism that have contributed to the secularization and loss of catholic Christian consciousness that he condemns.”

Schaeffer, Guroian wrote, is at heart an individualist who has taken it upon himself to single handedly interpret the Truth and right all wrongs:

Schaeffer seems to have become Orthodox because the rest of America has gone wrong, and Orthodoxy is the best religious remedy for cultural crisis and moral malaise. At work here is not the catholic mind of the church but the romantic self that takes upon itself the task of reconstructing and arbitrating theological truth. Schaeffer intones “Holy Tradition” repeatedly when he passes judgment on the falsehood in others and claims truth for his own statements (“Holy Tradition says…”). But at center stage as arbiter and mediator of this so-called Holy Tradition is the “I.”

Schaeffer is still arbitrating the truth, but now from the left. Fair enough. That’s his choice. Although, inciting mobs to attack churches and publishing houses does sound a tad intolerant.

But the New York Times claim that the years of “faking it” among Christian traditionalists ended in 1985, doesn’t hold water. Actually, his right wing, sectarian hate speech phase extended deep into the 1990s and 2000s, albeit masquerading in the rich brocades of Orthodox triumphalism. You wonder: Because Frank Schaeffer is such a good faker, could he still be faking it today? Is he a double agent in the culture wars, secretly going among the liberals at HuffPo and MSNBC until the time is ripe to once again expose the evildoers with new books and fresh tirades? We’ll have to stay tuned.

Orthodox Evangelist Preaches the Gospel to All Nations [VIDEO]

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From the Gospel to All Nations site:

Gospel To All Nations (GTAN), led by Fr. Maximus Urbanowicz, is working to fulfill the Great Commission by taking the “Good News” of Jesus Christ and His Church to all the nations of the world.

As part of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), under the omophorion and with the blessing of, His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH, Gospel To All Nations actively works for the salvation of souls, equipping the faithful, and building the Church of Jesus Christ through preaching campaigns, church conferences, literature distribution, and mass media.

Our prayer is that God will INSPIRE your faith, EQUIP you for evangelism, and IGNITE a passion for the salvation of souls resulting in ACTION. The heart of God is for multiplication of laborers in His harvest fields, through His Church. Fr. Maximus Urbanowicz prays that you will lift up your eyes and join together with Gospel To All Nations in spreading the message of repentance and faith, while reaping the harvest of souls into the Kingdom of God and Church of Jesus Christ.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Here is a short glimpse into the Orthodox, evangelistic mission of Gospel To All Nations and the impact they are having throughout the world today. May you be inspired to pray and be motivated to act, because the harvest fields are white, but the laborers are few.

Fr. Maximus Urbanowicz Preaching the Gospel

Abp Chaput: New York Times, CNN, MSNBC Can’t be Trusted on Abortion, Faith

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Roman Catholic Apb. Chaput

These are words some self-styled Orthodox commentators on Church and society would do well to heed. From the article:

“In the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only of Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers,” he said.

“And with relatively few exceptions, the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief.”

The archbishop said that Christians “make a very serious mistake” if they turned to outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and MSNBC, “for reliable news about religion.”

“These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith,” he said. “These are secular operations focused on making a profit … They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.”

MADRID, SPAIN, August 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When it comes to finding information on vital issues like abortion, same-sex “marriage,” and faith, the mainstream media simply can’t be trusted, the incoming archbishop of Philadelphia told a group of youth in Spain last week.

“Being uninformed about the world and its problems and issues is a sin against our vocation as disciple,” Archbishop Charles Chaput told his audience during a special World Youth Day session in Madrid. And yet, he went on to note, the Christian believer is faced with a unique challenge in finding accurate sources of information on key issues.

“In the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only of Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers,” he said.

“And with relatively few exceptions, the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief.”

The archbishop said that Christians “make a very serious mistake” if they turned to outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and MSNBC, “for reliable news about religion.”

“These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith,” he said. “These are secular operations focused on making a profit … They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.”

Reacting to the archbishop’s comments, L. Brent Bozell III, the president of the Media Research Center, told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that, “Archbishop Chaput is a breath of fresh air.”

“The secular media don’t believe in God, and even less in the Catholic Church,” Bozell said. “Thirty years ago Robert Lichter undertook a survey of the news media and the numbers were stunning: 50% didn’t believe in God, 86% seldom or never attended church or synagogue, 2% were practicing Catholics. That was thirty years ago. The numbers are unquestionably worse today.”

Prominent Catholic American blogger Thomas Peters agreed. “When religious news is reported on reliably people have a better opportunity to decide for themselves and weigh the truth claims involved,” he told LifeSiteNews.

“I think the heart of the story is that Christians and other people of faith deserve to have their stories told accurately by the mainstream media,” Peters said. “Catholics have a responsibility to hold the mainstream media and wider culture accountable when they fail to give them a fair hearing.”

Archbishop Chaput also told his audience that banning religious communities from taking an active role in civic life imposes “a kind of unofficial state atheism,” and that “forcing religious faith out of a nation’s public square … does not serve democracy.”

Religious freedom means being able to worship as one chooses and “includes the right of religious believers, leaders, and communities to take part vigorously in a nation’s public life,” said the archbishop. He reminded the young people that given the crucial battles over abortion, family life, and homosexual “marriage” in the United States, they need to prepare themselves to be “capable defenders” of their faith.

An interview with the Creator of “Good Guys Wear Black”

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Fr. John Peck

HT: OrthodoxNet Blog and Byzantine, TX

Fr. John A. Peck serves at St. George Orthodox Church in Prescott, AZ and is already well known as the administrator of the “Preachers Institute” and “Journey to Orthodoxy” websites. Recently he launched a site called “Good Guys Wear Black,” which aims to provide a resource for men discerning their vocation to the priesthood. Fr. John was kind enough to answer some questions I had about this new effort.

Father, how did this whole thing get started?

The same things that brought about my other working websites – I had a need as a priest, and nothing to fill that need.

For Preachers Institute, I needed access to good patristic sermons and good sermon resources, and I was sure that I was not the only one.
For Journey To Orthodoxy, there was no comprehensive site which inquirers could go to to get information, and read the stories of others who have made the journey. I especially wanted a place for heterodox clergy to see that others have happily and successfully navigated the personal and professional obstacles to entering the Church.
For Good Guys Wear Black, there is literally nothing to help young men (or not so young men) discern a vocation to Holy Orders. Well, I have young men discerning a vocation to Holy Orders, and some not-so-young men as well. They need some specific direction and guidance about how to think about such a calling. From that, GGWB was born.

It’s as simple as that.

It seems like you’ve come out of the gate running – with, among other things, a news section, pre-made banners for bloggers to use, and complete directory information on seminaries in North America. Were you able to leverage your experience in development of the ‘Journey to Orthodoxy’ and the ‘Preachers Institute’ websites to come out with such a comprehensive site? Who is helping in the site’s development?
New media is constantly changing, and developing the right tools is important. Often, readers request certain things – which is simply giving the ‘customer’ what he is asking for! Like most, I learn from what others are doing, and from my own successes and failures. Fr. Hans Jacobse helped me design the site. He’s great with coding. He also helped me with my other websites and we often collaborate on independent jobs, parish websites or business websites. We are both mission priests, so such work helps us financially.

What, if any, involvement have you had from Orthodox hierarchs, the Episcopal Assembly, or the seminaries themselves?
I’m sorry to say, none. Hierarchs are busy doing bishops stuff, and seminaries are busy doing what seminaries have always done. This kind of work is necessary, but not on the agenda. I would love to partner with each seminary, offer unique vocational materials from each and work together to direct students not only to admissions, but to a vocation specialist.

I’ve mentioned my ideas to a few possible benefactors, people with financial resources that want to see good things done, but despite the fact that I’m doing precisely what they say they would support, I never hear from them again.

I only do this because I feel it is necessary. While many complain and worry about what to do, have meetings, make plans, often nothing gets done. For my part, I have a few skills, and I can at least get this kind of thing done.

What plans do you have for future projects? How do you plan to get the word out to the parish level? Do you foresee mailers to OCF and youth groups, posters for parish halls, etc.?
Honestly, as a parish priest, I’m way too busy to do this myself, but I have no help and no funding from anyone to do it. I think this is a great opportunity for OCF. At the very least, they should invite someone like myself or a diocesan/metropolis or seminary representative to speak on vocations, and perhaps set up a vocations weekend.

Here are a few things we need to get done:

Parish Materials and Media materials: Apart from getting parishes to host a vocations page on their websites (with links, prayers and information), we need to have posters in each parish, something offered in each Parish bulletin or Newsletter. GGWB will create most of this, but we need to get the awareness of clergy and their staff to get them in.
Annual Vocations weekend/festival: Either large local parishes and even Diocesan centers/Metropolis centers can host a vocations festival or vocations weekend themselves. This should not be done haphazardly, but with great focus. We need to bring young men discerning vocations together, for a focused week or weekend, and hit hard issues of discernment, seminary, diaconate, priesthood, and get some answers and guidance from experienced clergy. This would be a lot of fun, and very helpful to the prospective student For those who have not had one nearby, we would host an annual one for everyone else. Anyone interested should contact us here at GGWB. We know what to do. It must be done.
An Annual Preaching Festival: We have a multitude of Oratorical festival participants that, once they leave high school, really have nothing even close to that work until seminary – and seminaries are, frankly, very weak in homiletics. If you preached 10 sermons in your seminary career, you were the exception(I preach ten a month, on a light month). OCF isn’t set up to allow them to continue to speak and hone their preaching skills.Recently, several Orthodox students participated in the national Festival of Young Preachers, and did very well. We need to sharpen the skills of these young men and women now. One young man who was inducted into the Academy of Preaching, after his sermon evidently felt that he, too, had a calling to the priesthood. Since preaching with excellence is the most basic skill of the competent priest, I have encouraged him to pursue it.

What do you think is the biggest surprise to incoming seminarians?
Oh, I can’t answer that. I’m not at a seminary now, so I have no idea what the experience is.

I can tell you that when I went to seminary, it was the fact that despite there being a new log chapel smack dab in the middle of the grounds, no one was allowed to enter it. We walked around it. We worshipped in the museum. It was awful. I can’t describe the experience – how wrong it was. We eventually did get into it to bless it on Theophany, but even that was hard fought. Once in, we weren’t leaving, and it suddenly became the center of our whole experience there. It was alive. It almost breathed. And we were alive in a new and exciting way.

For today’s seminarian, I think a lot would depend on expectations, and the state of discipline at the seminary – and the seminary one attended.

Frankly, from what I’ve heard from seminarians at every seminary (and I have), any significant increase in discipline hardly exists. It’s more like a gentlemen’s code or something. I don’t agree with this. Seminarians should be given a strict schedule. It should not be like attending college or grad school with chapel (which has, at times, even been optional!).

Seminaries are places of excellent education, but often poor formation – precisely because I think it is assumed that formation has, for the most part, already taken place. This is a mistake. A seminary is indeed a garden, but gardening means work, planning, discipline to weed out trouble and a regimen which must be adhered to – but only if you want the maximum harvest. I know – I’ve been gardening all my life, and I require men who begin their vocation journey to get, plant and care for garden plants as a part of their discipline.

Discipline creates formation and nothing is more important at a theological seminary than formation.

If we aren’t getting the maximum yield from our seminaries, it is up to the seminary to change what it is doing. And the seminaries are in the process of doing that now. I really hope that trustees and benefactors will listen to seminary deans and presidents and listen carefully, and support their plans and vision.

For the future seminarian, I think the best way to not be disappointed is to have no expectations. Then, nothing else matters.

I see a “Tentmaking” section is under development. What plans do you have for that part of the site?
I believe the 21st century is the beginning of the Mission Millennium, and that in this century we will particularly distinguish ourselves as finally having outgrown Church infancy. I know, that comment will not be welcome to some, but I think Christianity is still in its infancy (too much drool and dirty diapers).

Tent-making is a key mission strategy. Basically, you require every man who comes to seminary to have a marketable trade or skill. If he does not have one coming in, he should be given training by the time he’s out. It could be apprenticing in stone masonry, plumbing, HVAC, electrician work, bookkeeping, or any more professional pursuits. Seminaries can do this by offering partnerships with local community colleges for students without employable skills. Yes, this is work, but it is important.

Besides, I don’t think anyone should attend seminary who hasn’t worked in a factory or dug ditches or some such work, and definitely should not be ordained until they have spent six months in some job like that. Such experience is a world changer.

Upon graduation, bishops would fill parishes with some clergy, and appoint others who have been properly prepared to pre-determined and approved mission areas to get work, get busy and grow the Church.

In fact, I see that this should be a fertile opportunity for seminaries.

It is not necessary that every tentmaker be a clergyman. Lay people should inundate this opportunity and we should ask them, indeed, call for them to do it – but not haphazardly – rather, according to a plan. There should be a year long program of intense, but distance study with local seminars covering very practical skills and topics. We could geometrically multiply mission work here in the USA, Mexico, South America, Canada, and everywhere else. For the tentmaker, the work is the first mission work.

For the clergyman, the chance to populate America with new missions, parishes and cathedrals this is an opportunity with no peer. We need to have a plan, a strategy (Journey To Orthodoxy is doing this now) – and this in turn will ignite a missionary spirit in laypeople, seminarians and clergy alike.

I know that there are many, trained and capable Orthodox Christians ready now – if someone would ask them. Within a year, it is easy to gather together a mission plant of 20 households or more. After that, jurisdictional requirements vary to move one to mission/parish status. But, I would also require every official mission to have a deacon within five years. Is this a lot to ask – yes! Is it doable? Of course! We are Orthodox Christians. We go everywhere, we pay any price, we overcome every obstacle, and we let the Holy Spirit do the work.

People are looking for the Orthodox faith. We should let them find us easily.

Do you see a place for existing groups to help in this effort to make vocations information more accessible? Do you think groups like the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement (OISM) could help get the ball rolling in explaining seminary life to men discerning the call?

I do see a place for others to get this done – I wish they would! But I’ve been waiting 15 years for someone to do it, and I’m tired of waiting. Anyone helping would be a big help. It’s just not on the radar. Yes, OISM would be a big help as would appropriate focus and action from OCF, but I don’t think this is on their radar. That says something. I think men don’t often discern their call because they are told, implicitly or explicitly, that nobody cares.

There is one easy way to tell if it is important. Look at the budget. Is anything dedicated to promoting, discerning and encouraging vocations? Is there any material? Is there any special event scheduled? Any website material? We all know the answer to that, but it can be fixed! I’m not the one to do it. I have no connection to any seminary. Nothing invested anywhere. But until someone else does it, I will do what I can.

So, I’m here to say that you don’t get to choose the Call, you only choose only the answer. It’s time to man-up and follow the calling of the Lord.

Can you talk a little about the “Pre-Seminary” section of your website? Specifically, can you speak about the “Called to Serve” text you recommend?

It is my belief that if a man waits until seminary to do any significant study of Scripture, history or theology, he’ll be a terrible priest.

Before attending seminary, a man should have already read the entire Bible, word for word, every book. They should know how many books are in the Orthodox Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the names of the 12 Apostles (it doesn’t start with “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John”), and much more.

They should know the location of certain very important things. Where in the Bible do you find

the Lord’s Prayer
The Ten Commandments (both locations),
the Beatitudes,
the Golden Rule, etc.

This is so simple to do, but few do it. This is what the “Called To Serve” workbook course solves. It provides a great starting point for Biblical study. That’s why I wrote it – I needed something like it, but could find nothing. It is the only thorough Bible Survey course that includes all the books of the Orthodox Bible.

When a future seminarian finishes this workbook – which is only 20 lessons – he will be comfortable with the Bible, knowing its milestones and special events with ease.

Future seminarians should not be sitting on their hands, but getting to work and preparing. Frankly, I would require either an entrance test (mostly Bible knowledge) or a pre-Seminary boot camp, which would be 3-4 weeks of this kind of stuff – intensively, pass or fail. Then they can hit the board running, so to speak, and with some confidence about their own course of study.

Everyone wants to read the theology of Gregory Palamas, but aren’t willing to do the hard work of simply studying basic information about the Bible. Our liturgical cycle is loaded with Scripture. It’s not unimportant.

Seminaries want men who for three years of their lives are willing to dedicate themselves entirely to the seminary experience. At the same time, when they graduate few parishes are able to support them and a three-year gap in employment is often hard to explain to employers. Additionally, many seminary families are forced to receive government assistance for heating, food, and medical care during their time at seminary. As more seminarians are men with families, how should seminaries respond to the changing demographic of their institutions?

Without a doubt, seminaries need to step up and reduce or remove the cost of going to seminary, and institute loan forgiveness. This is being done somewhat at Holy Cross with some grads, I’m told, and it is a step in the right direction. The Church has to take responsibility for the training of clergy, and by the Church I mean you and me.

Parishes, individuals with means, corporations – all need to take some sacrificial responsibility here and reap the benefits from God for their accountability. Not sure what to do – contact us. Not comfortable with us – contact your bishop. Again, I admonish everyone to support the vision and goals of our seminary leadership. Give them what they need to do what they are trying to do.

Thank you for your comprehensive responses to the questions posed. I hope your website gets the attention it deserves so that future seminarians and their families can make more informed decisions in the discernment process.

Thanks for asking. We are still building the site with the best content we can get. We ask everyone to pray that we are not alone in doing so.

And for those who are considering the diaconate, or the priesthood – contact us.

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