Jordanville Journal

The Philadelphia Story (Part 2)

2012-03-09T10:37:00.001-05:00

The next morning we all sang liturgy in the parish. Since I was staying in the parish house, all I had to do was go downstairs. We sung in the back of the church, which acoustically made better sense; hardly any sound escaped from our original spot last night. Elias D. of Ottawa directed the choir.

I surprised him during a lull in the singing.

All that singing during the past couple of days (plus a sleep deficit) made me a little tired. I plopped down on a bench in the back of the church, next to Tina, one of the narrators in the concert (and a soloist). We talked about the great volume of singing involved this weekend.

“After the singing, there will be more singing,” she said.

“And in between the singing there will be singing,” I answered.

“And after all this singing, there will be much rejoicing.”

“In song!”

I’m the one in black.

We then took a group picture and had a lunch appropriate to Meatfare Sunday: blini. Well, at least one kind was filled with meat.

In between the singing and the singing, a few of us went on a walk through the city. We admired the charming brick architecture of the neighborhood, and we went up to that museum most famous for being in the movie “Rocky.”

Once we got back it was time for the concert. We went to St. Michael’s, the site of the concert, and practiced a little. Then it was time for the concert. The men and women processed into the nave, clad in black. Finally, Nicholas came in and introduced the concert. After the introductory reading, we began singing an arrangement of “Blessed is the Man,” by Trubachev. But words cannot adequately express how the concert went. You’ll have to see it for yourself:

The full recording of the concert, minus some of the readings.

We sang to a full house, who gave us some strong applause in the end. It felt really nice to be a part of such a group of talented people, and I’m not just saying that because most of them will be reading these words.

In the end, there was much rejoicing (in song), and we had something to eat. However, us seminarians had to go to class the next day* so we had to get going. I made my long Russian goodbyes to as many people as I could, and we hit the road, stopping at a Roy Rogers along the way to have our last chance at meat.

It was probably the worst burger I ever had.

I’m very grateful to our hosts at the parish house as well as Fr. Valeriy of the Joy of All Who Sorrow parish. Major thanks go to all my fellow singers in the Youth Choir, especially Alex Cooley and (long-time supporter of this blog) Dimitry Doohovskoy. Also props go to the St. Tikhon’s choir and the Princeton Byzantine chanters for joining us, Suzie for choreographing the choir, and of course Nicky Kotar for pulling it all together.

*I slept in, anyway.

All Along the Blogosphere (3/3–3/9)

2012-03-09T07:38:00.004-05:00

I decided to post weekly a selection of the blog posts and web articles I found most interesting over the past few days. The links are mostly from Orthodox sources; I’m striving for a “best-of” selection.

The Desert Struggle Fr. Stephen on the warfare of the human heart.

Fire Consumes Rectory, Priest Continues Liturgy This is a model to follow. Please pray for Fr. Adam.

Seven Sins of Cain according to St. John Chrysostom.

Argument against the prosperity doctrine and determinism from the Prologue.

Capella Romana: Ancient Light Their newest CD. I really liked their Byzantine Divine Liturgy album.

The Machete Order for watching the Star Wars saga. NB: Some language.

Real Break in Constantinople Some members of OCF (the Orthodox Christian Fellowship) from colleges across the country take some time out to travel to Constantinople, where they took care of long-forgotten graves. “We’re keeping their memory eternal.”

The First Week of Lent in Jordanville

2012-03-07T19:33:00.000-05:00

I was unfortunately unable to attend the services at the monastery during the first week of Great Lent, but I am posting the following news report and videos for the sake of my readers.

(Eastern American Diocese) On the first week of Great Lent, the full cycle of services was served at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY. The Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts was served on Wednesday and Friday, celebrated by the abbot, Archimandrite Luke, co-served by the monastery clergy. Please see photos from the first week of Great Lent at Holy Trinity Monastery courtesy of the monastery website.

Videos:

The Philadelphia Story (Part 1)

2012-03-05T18:21:00.001-05:00

Lost in the LeHigh Valley

We were inching our way along a Pennsylvania country road, the way mostly illumined by the headlights and tail lights of hundreds of cars in front of us. Nicholas Chapman, publications head at Holy Trinity Monastery—my boss—sat in the driver’s seat. “Lost in the LeHigh Valley,” he said.

Nicholas Kotar, sitting in the passenger’s seat, turned to me. “John! Take notes!” And thus was born this post.

We were on our way to Philadelphia for a concert of epic proportions, combining the strengths of four different singing groups: The EA Diocese Youth Choir, the St. Tikhon’s Seminary Mission Choir, Byzantine chanters from Princeton, and the Holy Trinity Seminary Choir (our first concert since Boston). In all, there were going to be over forty singers from all around the Eastern seaboard. Nicky was going to be the conductor (natch).

We had left just after lunch on Friday, February 17th. Our way was for the most part free and easy, with nothing unexpected except for a flaming car on the side of the road. The GPS predicted our ETA to be 5:30pm. What the GPS didn’t anticipate was the massive roadwork which diverted all the traffic off the interstate. It added at least two hours to our travel time.

We finally got to Philadelphia a little after 7:30, and dropped off Mr. Chapman at the train station (he was going to stay in Princeton, then come to Philadelphia for the concert). Nicky also got off, because he wanted to hang out with some college friends. That left just Anthony and I to fend for ourselves and find the parish house where we were staying. We finally found it thanks to Dimitry Doohovskoy, local organizer of the event, fan of this blog, and all-around good guy. Mitya stayed up very late making sure that the people arriving to stay at the house were taken care of.

Most of the men were staying at the ROCOR parish of Our Lady, the Joy of All Who Sorrow. Anthony and I got to the parish house and we made sure to choose decent spots to sleep. The people in charge of the house explained to us various things. “Are we the first guys to arrive here?” I said. “No,” said Ivan, one of the residents, “there are two guys from Boston, John and Nick.”

John and Nick…Kasarda? Surely enough, the two Distinguished Gentlemen from Ipswitch were already there. I was happy to see them again, the first time since before Christmas.

“Nick looks like old and grizzled Tintin.” —John K.

The house was relatively empty (most of the other guys didn’t show up until late at night) so we were mostly by ourselves. We made friends with a cat, which I failed to attract by wiggling my fingers. “What are you doing, John? Are those spirit fingers?” said John Kasarda.

Later that night, more guys came to join us, including three from the Bulgarian parish in Boston, some folks from Albany, and a musical prodigy from Miami.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast. I met and reunited with more people, and then we all assembled in the parish hall, where we were shunted off to St. Michael’s, another Orthodox church where the actual concert was supposed to take place. This wasn’t an actual rehearsal but more like stage blocking for the concert.

Nicky: “Move IN!”

Suzie, who was in charge of the blocking, worked with the readers for the concert, or rather she sort of held auditions.

“Give me your best Baptist preacher.”

Soon, we got back to the ROCOR parish. I had happy reunions with many people; it was like a who’s-who of ROCOR youth. After lunch came the rehearsal. Nicky took the conductor’s stand and explained the raison d’être behind the concert. Unlike many concerts of sacred music, this one was tied to a unified theme: a depiction of the hypothetical life of the Good Thief, told through readings and song. “We want to show the audience something beautiful, something Other…which is why the next four hours are going to be excruciating,” said Nicky.

Sure enough, rehearsal was very long, but nobody seemed to mind, and it felt pretty productive. Something was starting to gel. We had a break and split up for separate rehearsals. We got back together again just in time for Vigil. The Vigil service was split up between the youth choir and us Jordanvillians, who sang most of the Church Slavonic stuff. It went pretty well.

After vigil, we had a dinner of pizza and lasagna. The people at my table told me not to eat too much as we were going to Outback afterwards. Outback! I readily agreed, and despite a little confusion about who was riding with whom, a sizable number of us managed to get to Outback (which was in New Jersey, no less) before the kitchen closed. I had a ribeye steak, my last steak before Great Lent!

Censored by the Postnyi Police for being too tempting.

We got back late at night. I stayed up a little, anticipating an exciting Sunday.

There will be blini.

2012-02-26T16:58:00.000-05:00

When I was young and eager to compete in academic competitions, I read about other countries rather voraciously, including Russia. The one thing that stuck in my mind about Russian was that they would eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Not only that, but they would have crazy toppings like sour cream and caviar! I wanted to try these bliny, as they were called in my book, with all the fixings.

Who knew that I would be at a Russian Orthodox seminary, helping out a protodeacon prepare (indeed) all the fixings for a feast of rich pancakes?

Fixed up.

Fr Victor, veteran protodeacon, long-time Jordanvillian, and teacher of Old Testament and Russian Literature, usually prepared bliny at the monastery every year before the beginning of Great Lent. However, last year he decided he was retiring, so someone else made them (they were okay). A few of us lucky ones got to eat the golden concoctions at his house.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Russian cuisine, the week before the beginning of Great Lent (which this year is tomorrow) we do not eat meat, but are allowed to eat fish and dairy products. Hence we call this week Maslenitsa, or “Butter Week.” This corresponds to the Western Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day, except that we Orthodox have an entire week to ease into the season of repentance.

This year, my classmate, who has some power of influence, thought it good to remind Fr Victor of bliny-time. It did not take much convincing, however, and Fr Victor quietly told us that he would be making them on Friday, but to “not tell people, or else everyone will show up!”

The same classmate got me (somewhat reluctantly) to help out on Friday with the bliny. It turned out that Fr Victor had already made them that morning (getting up at 4 am to do so!) and that we had to mainly concern ourselves with putting together the major toppings.

He took out bags of fish that he had preserved himself. We put on plates his homemade gravlax and cured herring, as well as some smoked Nova salmon. My classmate filled little cups with salmon roe, so that everyone would have the chance to eat some caviar.

Little pockets of golden goodness.

Being from Hawaii, I’m used to fish eggs (and I really like ikura, a.k.a. salmon roe, with my sushi). I was pretty happy. Finally, we got out the main course, which was heating up in the oven.

Oh, yeah.

“I finally got a great recipe,” Fr Victor said. “They’re not too thick, and they have lots of goodies in them.” He had us wait until after the prayer for us to take out the food, lest there be any premature food-gathering. But when we finally took out the bliny, there was much (silent, because this is a monastic trapeza) rejoicing.

After passing out the food, I finally sat down to have some bliny. It was very, very rich and buttery, and the toppings were top-notch.

After all that delicious bliny, there’s only one thing to do…I went that night to Pete and Kate’s house, for even more bliny!

Postscript: Thus ends the pre-Lenten portion of this blog. I will pick up posting after the First Week of Lent. I will be spending it in Hawaii, because I am flying there for the funeral of my late grandfather. Please forgive me, a sinner.

Hurried Jottings

2012-02-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I’m very sorry for my blogging whimsicality, but ’tis the life of a seminarian.

I will flesh out this update with individual posts in the near future. Here’s what I’ve done in the past two weeks.

On the weekend of the Publican and the Pharisee, four of us (plus two instructors) went to Erie, Pennsylvania to worship at the old rite Church of the Nativity, which joined ROCOR over twenty years ago. I did not cross myself with two fingers, but otherwise immersed myself in medieval Russian liturgical practice. The parishioners, who were very welcoming and actually very “normal” Orthodox, were just as curious of us as we were of them.
The next weekend, the Prodigal Son, was also the Feast of the Three Hierarchs. We did a lot of Greek chanting (video) and there was a reception for us where we all got scholarships like it was Christmas day.
Wednesday was the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord. I spent the day in the kitchen chopping, chopping, chopping cabbage for cole slaw.
For Movie Nights we’re watching Little Dorrit, which makes me want to pick up some Dickens.
My maternal grandfather Calvin is very sick. Please pray for him.

In one hour, I will be on the road to Philadelphia for a big concert with the Seminary Choir, the Eastern American Diocese Youth Choir, and a host of other guest singers. I wish you all a great Meatfare Weekend. Don’t go overboard!

A hike up Mt. Burdell

2012-01-27T08:15:00.000-05:00

Since this blog is entitled “Jordanville Journal,” and not “San Francisco Vacationer,” it behooves me to end my series on San Francisco with this post.

The second week of vacation went by quickly. For three days of it I was in church for Theophany services. I was also concerned with the tying up of loose ends—writing postcards and the like. But on Monday—a federal holiday—I got a day off.

On Monday morning four of us Conquering Time creative types, including Pafnuty and I, drove up to Mount Burdell in Marin County. There, we met up with I. and her monk friend. The six of us then started up the slope. Despite its name, Mt. Burdell is actually a 1500-foot hill. It’s a short climb. Our plan was to go to the top, rest for an hour and do some writing, and go back down. We went up a gently-rising path, and came to a fork. One path went straight up the mount, and another wound gradually around it to the summit.

“That path looks dangerous and steep,” said one of us hikers. “Let’s take it.”

Tougher than it looks.

We proceeded slowly, but it didn’t take too long to reach the top. The key thing was making sure our center of gravity was towards the hill, lest we end up taking a tumble like Wesley and Buttercup in “The Princess Bride.”

“All those prostrations must have kept me in shape,” I said to a fellow hiker.

“If I bend over any more, I’m going to be making a prostration,” he said.

We finally reached the top. Since we had an ambling pace, it took us an hour and a half to get there. Some searching about revealed a path to a shady, somewhat rocky area, surrounded by trees. There were traces of human presence: ashes from a fire, scratchings on rocks, a carved face. We each took a rock and sat down for an hour, letting the creative impulses do their work.

Certainly inspiring something.

We started writing. Some wrote poetry, others songs. I, whose creativity was probably stunted by television, wrote silly haiku*:

Sitting down at last.

Oh, she said, my dog’s got ticks.

I stand up quickly.

Haiku need to have

Oblique references to nature

Like rocks, birds, and stuff

Silent and serious

We all have to write something

Do bad haiku count?

I also wrote down some character ideas for a continuation of Sense and Seminarians, which have absolutely no reflection on real people. At least, that’s what my lawyer will probably say.

After the hour or so was complete, we packed up and went down the windier path, which was no less difficult than the steep path due to all the loose rocks on the ground. I nearly fell two or three times. “It won’t just be your cassock that ends up purple,” I. said to me.

At the end of our hike, before parting ways, we sat down and had a nice little picnic, which included gourmet cheese left over from the Old New Year’s party. I don’t consider myself the outdoorsy type, but I’m very happy to have been able to spend the day hiking with friends. It was strenuous and invigorating!

UPDATE: An ardent Reader told me that I needed to wrap up my trip to San Francisco in a tidy concluding sentence, like this: “… and then I flew back to Jordanville. My arms are barely strong enough now to type this blog post.”

*Or, to be more exact, senryu, since though they have the 5-7-5 syllabic form, there’s no reference to nature, and they have a somewhat ironic tone.

Happy Old New Year!

2012-01-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

After the Christmas party, my first week of vacation was pretty quiet. Pafnuty worked during the week, so I spent my days by myself wandering the streets of San Francisco. For the most part I stayed in my familiar haunts in the Richmond district near the cathedral. Usually my day would consist of waking up late, saying my prayers, talking with Pafnuty before he went to work, and going out and walking around. I would have cheap dim sum on Clement Street and check my e-mail at the library on 9th. During my time in San Francisco, I ended up checking out a few movies from the library, including three Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies. Watching Fred and Ginger dancing created in me a sense of wonder which I have not experienced in a long time (at least, while watching a movie).

On Wednesday, I had dinner with my friend Erin, who apparently had hatched a nefarious plan to steal my purple cassock. “I wasn’t going to steal it,” she clarified. “I was just going to take it away from you and never give it back.” We managed to put aside our differences in sartorial taste and had sushi (with donuts for dessert) on Polk Street.

We were on a roll. Or two or three or four…

That Friday, several members of the Orthodox artistic group Conquering Time (plus me) had a Julian New Year’s Party at Erin’s. Several of us contributed to the feast, which was made up of five courses. Nicky Kotar was of course present, but he did not have anything due to his going to St. Tikhon’s to precent at the New Year midnight liturgy.

He missed out on the delicious salad, the creamy bisque, and the absolutely superlative duck and brussels sprouts.

Superlative.

We then had some fruit and cheese and then dessert, which consisted of a cake and a layered French thing with a yogurty filling. Everything was excellent!

A Very Busy Christmas

2012-01-23T18:21:00.000-05:00

We last left off, dear readers, with Nicholas Kotar and I catching a plane to San Francisco. Although we had purchased tickets separately, we coincidentally ended up on the same flights. All was well at Syracuse Airport: the place wasn’t crowded and the plane was on time. Meanwhile, Nicky was excited to get some meat after the long Nativity Fast.

“I’m getting Beef Jerky from the vending machine!” he said.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…”

Nicky took the risk and purchased the 1 oz. package of beefy goodness. He took a bite. “This is the worst beef jerky I’ve ever had,” he said.

I tried some. It truly captured the quiddity of vending machine beef jerky.

Still, we finished the whole thing.

We flew out on JetBlue, with a layover in JFK. I took advantage of the audiovisual amenities of the flight to watch hardy men mine for little yellow rocks under the Alaskan permafrost, among other things. By the time we got into SFO, it was quite late. We got picked up by Nicky’s dad, Fr. Serge. I got dropped off at my temporary dwellings at my friend Pafnuty’s* place.

The next day I attended the early liturgy at the Holy Virgin Cathedral. After the liturgy, I joined some friends to breakfast at one of the priestly homes. A certain P.K. had made some idiosyncratic cookies for the occasion, including the pièce de résistance:

Holy incense smoke, Batman!

In the afternoon, I went to the St. John’s Academy annual Christmas Yolka, which went very well. This year, the kids put on a little play interspersed with holiday singing.

The main event came that night with the Kotar Christmas party. Although the Kotar home is pretty average-sized (i.e. small) as far as San Francisco houses go, it seems to fit an extraordinary number of people during special occasions. I dare say that it seems “bigger on the inside.” There was good food, good company, and a great deal of singing of Christmas carols from multiple centuries. I finally returned to Pafnuty’s, looking forward the rest of the Christmas vacation.

*not his real name, of course.

A Jordanville Christmas

2012-01-13T18:47:00.001-05:00

Happy Old New Civil Year!

I’m writing from a surprisingly sunny San Francisco. My internet connectivity is limited to visits at the library. I haven’t been online much, but before I sign off I figured that I might as well give an update on what happened during Yuletide at the monastery.

The days approaching Christmas were intense. In the Orthodox world, the week before Christmas is described as a second Holy Week. Indeed, fasting becomes a little stricter, and the hymnography takes on a more anticipatory tone. It is time to prepare both body and soul for the Advent of the Lord.

My week started with cleaning on Monday and Tuesday. This year’s assignment was to clean the corridors and walls of the new section of the monastic building, including the interior of the bookstore. I was paired up with Pete and a fifth-year. Our superior, one of the hieromonks, was known for his meticulousness. Over two days, we had to thoroughly scrub, sweep, mop and dust every inch of the new section. We also had to take out the stains of the tile floor, which involved scraping them out with knives. At first I complained to myself as I scrubbed the walls that this level of attention was excessive; after all, the walls looked perfectly fine. But then, as I glanced at my bucket between scrubs, I noticed it become gradually murkier.

After going over the floors with a knife, we took a little break. I talked with Pete about the clean-up, saying: “We’ve only scratched the surface!”

He answered with something between a chuckle and a groan.

Finally, late in the night of the second day of cleaning, we mopped the floor and waxed with with floor polish. The first half of our preparation period was over.

Sometime around (or perhaps before) this period, two distinguished gentlemen from Ipswich, the Brothers Kasarda (Nick and John) came over and stayed at the monastery, along with a few others. It was a fun time and a good break from all the cleaning. I remember a few of them sitting in the lounge room. John called out to me: “Hey John Martin! Bring out everything FUN from your room.”

I obliged, and brought out, among other things, my ukulele and purple cassock. A good time was had by all.

Our dorm’s Christmas tree.

We attended evening services (Vespers, Compline and Matins) on Thursday night, and went to the Christmas Eve vesperal liturgy on Friday morning.

On Christmas Eve, we didn’t have any food until the evening, in accordance with the ancient tradition of not fasting until nightfall. With hunger as our sauce, the evening meal was very delicious. There were mashed potatoes (decadently topped with loads of dill), mushroom gravy (one of the best gravies I’ve ever had, vegetarian or otherwise), peas, soup, and a warming compote. I ate my fill, but after a whole day of fasting, my stomach took a while to decide whether it was full or not.

Then it was time for the Christmas vigil. Although the tension between Advent and Christmas is not nearly as sharp as between Great Lent and Easter, I still felt a sense of festivity, the feeling that everything was new and young again. The snow, which kept teasing us, finally stuck around a bit.

Christmas day was as it always is: joyous and crowded. After the liturgy, we had a festive trapeza featuring kholodets (aspic) made with swordfish.

It tastes better each time I have it.

Right afterwards, we had a reception in Father Luke’s office. A friend of mine gave me Hawaiian coffee (natch), and there was cake. Soon, however, I had to high-tail it out of Jordanville with Nicky Kotar, because we both had a plane to catch to San Francisco!

Non Sequitur UPDATE: I’m very happy to report the return to the blogging world of Aaron Taylor (Logismoi). I hope that Mr Taylor will update his excellent blog on a regular basis.

Merry Christmas!

2012-01-07T12:48:00.001-05:00

To all my readers I wish a most joyous and blessed Feast of the Nativity of Christ. An update on Christmas (and more) at Jordanville will be up shortly.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

The Rules of Silent Ninja

2011-12-31T10:51:00.000-05:00

The most popular game played at conference (at least among the people I hung out with) was Silent Ninja. It’s a little hard to explain how to play it online, but I’ll try my best to lay out what it’s all about. Perhaps you can try it at your New Year’s or Christmas parties!

Silent Ninja is a live action turn-based strategy game. I’m explaining here the rules we followed at syezd.

To play the game, you will need:

A large open space, preferably with some kind of padding on the floor.
A decent number of participants (at least ten)
A referee

The players get into a circle and reach out their hands into the center. They yell, “One…Two…Three…NINJA!!!” and jump back, freezing into various poses. At this point, all players have to stay in position, moving nothing but their eyes. The referee then begins with one player to start.

One…Two…Three…NINJA!!!

The players take turns and try to get each other out. This is done by using your hands to hit other player’s hands. The wrist does not count.

During your turn, you can only move in a single fluid motion to attack. The person you’re attacking can defend himself, but again using a single fluid motion. After you finish your turn, both you and your target have to freeze in position. This can leave you wide open to attack, so be careful!

Various positions you can take during play.

Your position is key. Oftentimes you can’t see your targets (or your attackers for that matter) and you have to use peripheral vision and ninja skills. If your hands are out in the open, they will get slapped. Sometimes players stay in defensive mode by crossing their arms; this can get a little silly once there are only two or three players left.

The referee keeps track of whose turn it is. At first, all the players are in a circle, taking turns clockwise, but after all that movement things get jumbled up, so you really need a good referee to sort things out. However, you are allowed to move as soon as player before you moves: no permission from the ref is required.

Once there are two or three players left, things start heating up. Since you can move as soon as the other guy moves, the pace of the game gets much quicker. The endgame is all about reflexes at this point.

Last ninja standing wins!

Pictures taken from the 2010 conference in Jordanville.

St. Herman’s Youth Conference: Ottawa (Part II)

2011-12-30T18:31:00.001-05:00

Sunday

The first several days of syezd were fun, but things really started to pick up on Sunday. In the morning, we took several buses to the Protection Church in Ottawa, which I think is an example of good, traditional Orthodox church architecture. The church reminded me of the churches I’ve studied for my church architecture paper, especially churches in the Novgorod and Vladimir regions. The interior was a very large space, with four piers towering over the nave, making the usual cross-in-dome plan. The western piers also helped support a gallery (the choir loft). The square nave and piers create a sense of verticality which is complemented by the multi-tiered iconostasis, which had excellent icons executed in a traditional style. Unfortunately, the vaults and cupola of the church were bare; the ceiling was covered in blue paint. Hopefully someday, when the church has enough funding (and a skilled iconographer), the blue paint will be replaced with beautiful frescoes.

The Great Entrance.

The liturgy was hierarchal, and at least ten or so priests and deacons assisted Metropolitan Hilarion and Archbishop Gabriel. Their presence combined with the many youth in attendance made the service feel very lively. Most of us received Holy Communion from one of the three chalices which came out. At the end of the liturgy, we all had a group photo.

The trapeza meal was filling, and it was nice to sit and talk for a bit. After the meal, the guys helped clear the parish hall and set it up as a food bank. The Ottawa church sponsors this and other projects; it also owns a retirement home and runs a church school. During the last Great Lent, I went up to Ottawa to participate in an annual fundraiser the parish holds for an orphanage in Ukraine. It’s very nice that the parish is active, and I think that’s why it’s doing well.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel. We had a little time for some activities (mostly Silent Ninja) before coming back for the group discussions.

Actually, it wasn’t so silent.

When we got back, Reader Nektary, the guardian of the Hawaiian Iveron icon, told us how he discovered the icon, and about the miracles the Mother of God has done through her Icon.

There was little time left for small group discussions, so the priests got together in a panel and answered questions that we wrote for them. I liked Fr. Vyacheslav’s answer to the question, “When is the right age for dating?” He told a joke: “A realtor is showing a couple around a house, and is explaining all its features. The couple listen excitedly. Finally, it’s getting close to the end, and the house seems to be just the right fit for them. The realtor then asks them, ‘By the way, what sort of hobbies do you have?’ They answered, ‘We like going with realtors to look at houses on the weekend.’” The point of the story being that whether you’re is 16 or 40, if you’re not ready to settle down, you shouldn’t get involved in a romantic relationship.

Some of the other questions got more compact answers. Fr. David Straut got: “Is it okay to party in college?” “No,” he said. “Next question!”

After the discussions we sang an akathist in front of both the Iveron and Kursk-Root icons. Unfortunately, the Iveron icon had to leave with its guardian the next day, but the Kursk-Root icon was staying.

We then had dinner and free time, which was spent going out in the snow. I had my first snowball fight!

Monday

After prayers and breakfast, we all got on buses headed to downtown Ottawa. There, we looked around the ByWard Market. Some of us, led by Alex Cooley, went Christmas caroling. We then had a tour of the Canadian Parliament. I loved its Gothic architecture! The exterior was interesting, and featured a giant beaver guarding the entrance-way. The tour was short but informative.

Mr. Beaver guards the Parliament.

We returned to the hotel, had lunch, and remained in the conference hall for the last lecture, which was given by Nicholas Chapman, who happens to be my boss at the monastery bookstore. Nicholas gave his lecture on Colonel Philip Ludwell III, one of the first Orthodox converts in America. Ludwell, a relative of George Washington and connected to many of our Founding Fathers, converted when he was only 22 years old. He wrote several books on Orthodox teaching and piety, and led a small Orthodox community in Williamsburg, Virginia.

We had a little bit of free time afterwards before the final banquet. I got signed up for the talent show. As I put on my red vest and tie, I started worrying about what to do. I had brought my ukulele all the way from Jordanville to Ottawa, and like Chekhov’s gun, it was aching to be used. Suddenly, in my head, I heard a familiar tune:

Five foot two, eyes of blue,
But oh what those five foot could do!
Has anybody seen my gal?

I quickly googled the song (“Five Foot Two”) and found a site with tabs. I practiced playing it while lending the computer to some girls who were practicing a Serbian kolo.

The talent show was pretty hilarious. It was MC’d by four of the guys calling themselves SHEEEPS: The St. Herman’s Envious, Energetic, Emotional Poetry Society (or something to that effect). The SHEEPS came out to recite some haiku in between acts, including:

Syezd is over, he's home

Ten new female Facebook friends

Which one is the One?

I was introduced as the “Hilarious Hawaiian.” I can’t speak for my strumming skills, but I guess people liked it, which was good for a few minutes’ practice. I also sang with Anthony and one of the SHEEPS an Irish wedding tune called “Mary’s Wedding,” in honor of the recently engaged Maria and Michael.

And thus, we finished syezd. I’m very grateful to everyone who organized the event, as well as Fr Stelian Liabotis and Fr Alexis Pjawka for inviting us to Ottawa!

St Herman’s Youth Conference: Ottawa (Part I)

2011-12-28T17:14:00.001-05:00

December is a pretty relaxing time for a seminarian. Classes wind down, the exam season begins, and then comes the home stretch—the pre-Christmas cleaning. Somewhere in the middle is the youth conference.

I was pretty stoked for this year’s syezd. The first conference I attended was in 2009 in Methuen, but I was only there for a short time. In 2010 the conference was in Jordanville, but of course as part of the local group I didn’t stay at the hotel with everyone else. So even though it was technically my third syezd, I was going to have the full conference experience for the first time.

Friday

We drove up on Friday. That morning, I finished my last exam for the semester, which was New Testament Greek. Later that afternoon, we set off. Three of us were going: My classmate Anthony, his sister Catherine, and I. On the way to Ottawa we listened to and sang along with an eclectic selection of music, which included Simon & Garfunkel (“I am a ROCK, I am an iiiiiiiiiiiiiiisland.”) and Hannah Montana (“I’m a rock star!!!”). The latter was made bearable with interspersed color commentary.

We met with some unexpected trouble at the border. The last time I went to Canada we had to go inside and explain ourselves. This time I tried to prepare. I wrote down the address to the hotel, had the three of us get our stories consistent, etc. But, when the border guard started questioning us, the following (slightly exaggerated) exchange happened.

Guard: “Do you have any guns, bombs, weapons of mass destruction, pepper spray, etc.?”
Catherine: “Uhhh…I have some mace. [takes out a tiny canister of mace, colored bright pink]”
Guard: “Yes, that’s a weapon. You know that’s not allowed in Canada, eh?”
Catherine: “I do now!”

Catherine had to go inside and surrender her deadly weapon. Thankfully I left my Hawaiian war club at home.

Those shark teeth are purely for decoration…really!

Several hours later, we finally arrived at our hotel. Anthony and I reunited with friends long unseen, and we unpacked and got settled.

Saturday

Nobody goes to syezd for down time, as I discovered. After morning prayers, a moleben and a breakfast of muffins, we quickly got down to business. Fr Peter Jackson and Archbishop Gabriel of Canada both gave opening remarks. Like last year, Vladyka Gabriel gave the “X number of particpants, X/2 number of marriages” line, but also stated his great pleasure in hearing that one couple from last year got married and another got engaged. The two couples—friends of mine—started turning a little red.

We had quite a few guests at the conference. Metropolitan Hilarion was present over the whole weekend, alongside Archbishop Gabriel and many priests. Throughout the conference, we were also blessed with the presence of two wonder-working icons of the Mother of God: the ancient Kursk-Root icon, protector of the Russian diaspora, and the Hawaiian Iveron icon.

After breakfast we had two lectures. The first was done by Fr Vyacheslav Davidenko and was on spiritual role models. He used examples from the lives of saints to show how they converted people based on their holy way of living. For example, St Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, was sought after by some soldiers. They met the old man in his house and demanded to retrieve Polycarp. The saint replied that he would find Polycarp the next day for them. But first he took care of them, feeding them well and giving them lodging. After the morning came, the saint presented himself to them. The soldiers, impressed by the kind way he treated them, refused to arrest him, but St Polycarp pressed them to do their duty. This they did, and as a result they were all converted by him and shared in his martyrdom. Fr Vyacheslav entreated us to begin reading the lives of the saints in order to let them influence our lives today.

Fr Sergei Sveshnikov then gave us a talk on living life as a sacrament. You can find his talk at his site, here. He basically said that the whole of life could be transformed through prayer and attention. I really liked both lectures.

After the lectures we had some free time. My group mostly spent in the Hospitality Room (which through mispronunciation became known as the Hostility Room). Then came lunch, choir rehearsal, small group discussions, and finally prayers for communion. By the time we finished, it was time to go to church.

A bus took several trips to bring us all to the Protection Church in Ottawa. We had dinner in the parish hall. Then we had a full vigil service, with the hierarchs in attendance.

After we got back, we had some time to relax and play some rounds of Silent Ninja (which will require a post of its own). Finally we went to sleep, anticipating Sunday and the rest of the Conference.

An Unexpected Feast

2011-12-22T18:09:00.001-05:00

Our dormitory has a kitchenette that we use quite frequently. Recently, one of the seminarians cooked up some red beans and rice for us. He combined a box of Zatarain’s, a can of beans, and assorted shellfish to create a delightful dish for eight. I saw him adding something that vaguely looked like sausages.

Lenten goodness.

“What’s that?” I said, somewhat alarmed.
“Never you mind, John Martin,” he answered.

The sausage-like things turned out to be chipotle peppers, which added some Texas heat to the beans and rice. The heat dissipated from them so much that the peppers themselves turned out to be quite bland. “There’s a party in my mouth, and it’s burning stuff,” I said between bites.

Scarfing down a pepper!

Another seminarian came in and decided to make his own contribution. He took out some tilapia filets from the freezer and thawed and fried them up. I’m not a big fan of tilapia, but the filets turned out really well!

Another seminarian, of Mongolian extraction, announced earlier that he was going to make a “Nestor” for his eggs. Something clearly got lost in translation. It wasn’t until “Nestor” came out that we realized what it was:

“Nestor” (гнездо=nest) made from shoestring potatoes.

“Nestor” was really delicious, and it had a slight vinegary, savory taste which cleansed the palate after the spicy beans and rice. To round out the affair, a (married) sister of one of the seminarians baked us a vegan chocolate cake.

Good food, good friends, and a pleasant evening.

Free Table Finds (1)

2011-12-20T13:23:00.002-05:00

A two-liter bottle of Diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale, along with some pamphlets in Russian. Found after dinner several weeks ago. I didn’t take the ginger ale because a) someone already opened the bottle and b) it was diet ginger ale.

Our First Gig!

2011-12-17T10:26:00.000-05:00

Months of practice finally paid off at our Seminary Choir’s public debut at Holy Epiphany Church in Boston. We didn’t sing a concert. Rather, we did the weekend services, which was even better. There were five of us: Nicky Kotar, David, Anthony, Pete, and me.

Boston is one of my favorite cities on the east coast, at least judging from the places I’ve been. The last time I was in Boston was for the Boston Ball and Youth Choir Weekend last summer.

Pete and his wife Kate went ahead of us on Friday night, so just four of us left on Saturday morning, taking the old, beat-up seminary van for the weekend. Nicky had classical music CDs for our enjoyment. I voted for Mozart’s Requiem. Driving on the cold highway, past the snow-covered trees, we thus heard:

Dies iræ! Dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sibylla!

Which gave us a little memento mori for our journey.

We then listened to Dvořák’s New World Symphony, which sounded like every movie soundtrack ever made, probably because everybody ripped off Dvořák.

We arrived at downtown Boston around 2:30. I’ve had some experience in Boston before, but I wasn’t very familiar with the area, and it was hard giving directions. “Um, there’s a P.F. Chang’s. And a Legal Seafoods.” We wandered around a bit until our friends showed up. We met up with Alex Cooley and Nadia, and then with Pete, Kate, and Suzie. Suzie, a Boston native, gave us a whirlwind tour of the area around Boston Common, including the Make Way For Ducklings statues, the State House with its gilded dome, and some rearranged graves of famous Bostonians. By the time we made our transit we had to leave for Fr Victor Boldewskul’s house for dinner. So, we got into the car, managed to navigate through Boston traffic, reconnected with Cooley’s car, and drove like madmen through the streets of Boston, toward Roslindale.

We finally parted ways with Cooley at Fr Victor’s house, and went inside for dinner. Fr Victor was very happy to see us, and we had a light dinner of Chinese takeaway. At the end of the dinner, we opened up our fortune cookies. Mine said, “No one ever became great through imitation.”

“That’s funny,” Nicky said, “mine says, ‘Now is the time to be a role-model. The younger is watching.’”

We then went to church and sang the Vigil, which went by smoothly. We did the whole service by ourselves, and used all the pieces we practiced, which included various arrangements of ancient chant. Unfortunately, we didn’t do a special “Svete Tikhii” (O Gladsome Light) because we forgot to bring the second page of the piece.

After Vigil, we went to Fr Alexander Jarostchuk’s house, where we had a delicious second dinner. Fr Victor also came by, and he regaled us with stories of seminary life back when he was at Jordanville twenty years ago. Meanwhile, Fr Alexander’s wife Elena came in with some treats made with pineapple.

“I’ll be stereotypical,” I said. “Give me the pineapple.”

Return of the purpledryasnik!

Sunday also went well. I was wearing my infamous purple cassock, which always puts me in a good mood. After the liturgy we had a nice lenten meal in the downstairs trapeza. The babushki kept offering us potent potables. All went pretty well. After we had something to eat, we went to the Law of God class to talk about life at the seminary, fielding questions: “Yes, we can go out (if we get a blessing). No, we don’t eat kasha and bread all the time.”

We rounded out the trip with a final visit to Fr Victor’s house, where he showed us some old pictures from his time as a seminarian. We then did a little reprise of a couple of pieces.

Bow ties are cool.

It was a very memorable weekend. I’m very grateful to Fr Victor and Fr Alexander for their generous hospitality in hosting us, and hope to be back in Boston before too long!

Notes on Russian Church Architecture (Part I)

2011-12-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture

My term paper for Russian Church History is on ecclesiastical architecture. I’m supposed to write about the development of Russian church architecture before the Mongol Invasion (1240). In order to gather my thoughts I’m going to post some informal jottings on the development of church architecture in Kievan Rus.

In order to talk about Russian church architecture, we need to start with its antecedents in Byzantine and early Christian churches. After the Edict of Milan (AD 313) Christians were free to worship publicly. However, Christianity was not merely tolerated, it gained imperial patronage. The emperor St Constantine sponsored the building of many churches, including Old St Peter’s in Rome and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Now the Church had both the liberty and resources to build great houses of worship.

Early Christians worshipped in private homes like this.

The separate functions for each room prefigure the

different parts of early Christian churches.

Christian builders inherited Roman architecture, but reshaped it to express the holy teachings of the Church. Roman architecture had two fundamental forms: the basilica and the rotunda. The basilica, with its emphasized horizontal axis and colonnades, gave a sense of grandness to the interior space, making it suitable for large public buildings. The rotunda, on the other hand, was a cylindrical form topped with a dome, emphasizing verticality. This made it a better form for shrines, as the interior space seemed as if to encourage prayers to fly upwards to the gods. To simplify further, for the Romans the two fundamental shapes were the cube and the dome: the cube represents the earth, and the dome represents the heavens. Roman architects tried to unite the two, a challenge which was taken up by Christian builders.

San Apollinare near Ravenna, an example of the

Roman basilican form adapted to Christian usage.

The Temple of Minerva Medica, an example of a rotunda.

An early attempt to unite these forms came with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in the fourth century. The church, which contained both the place of Christ’s crucifixion as well as His Resurrection, had three fundamental parts. First there was an atrium, which was the entrance area, open to non-Christians, catechumens, and penitents. The faithful were allowed into the church, which was built as a basilica. Further to the east is the Holy Sepulchre itself, enclosed by a rotunda. From west to east, from the atrium, through the basilica, into the rotunda, we encounter deeper levels of mystery. Yet the elements are still separate.

The breakthrough came during the reign of St Justinian, who sponsored the building of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The circular dome finally was able to fit over the cubical nave with the help of pedentives, sections of triangular vaulting. From the marble floor resembling the waves of the ocean, to the star-spangled dome above, the whole universe fit inside the Great Church. Meanwhile, in the Latin West, basilican forms became dominant, and elongated naves remain the standard shape in Western Christianity to this day.

Note the perfect unity between the dome and cube.

In the Middle Byzantine period, architects added four columns or piers in the nave to support the dome, which created a cruciform shape in the church interior. This cross-in-dome model provided a simple yet elegant way to include the cross shape, which was attempted somewhat more crudely in previous centuries.

The four central columns in the naos (nave) create

interior spaces (bays) which form a Greek cross.

The Russian church took its architecture from the Byzantine churches of this period. In the next several posts, I will show how Russian church architecture developed its own unique forms.

For a better explanation of early Christian and Byzantine architecture I recommend “On Earth as it is in Heaven: Form and Meaning in Orthodox Architecture,” an article written by architect Andrew Gould. He and his partner George Holt are doing some amazing work using Byzantine architecture in modern America, which you can see on the site New World Byzantine.

Surprise Trip

2011-12-07T15:49:00.000-05:00

Last week Thursday we were in Fr Andrei’s Russian Church History class, when Fr Cyprian stuck his head inside the doorway and said: “Who wants to go to St Nektarios today?”

St Nektarios Monastery is a Greek monastery founded by Elder Ephraim of Philotheou, located near Roscoe, NY. It’s a little over two hours away from Jordanville. In lieu of Greek class, we second-years were going to get a first-hand taste of Greek monastic life.

By a little pond near the trapeza.

Soon after ten o’clock, four of us second-years (plus Nicky Kotar) got into the black monastic van, and gunned it for Roscoe. After all, we wanted to make it in time for lunch. I brought a book along for the ride, but the undulating landscape was not very conducive to reading, and I had to set it aside.

We got there around noon, only to find out that lunch was actually going to be at half-past. We spent some time in the bookstore before heading to the trapeza. Lunch was simple: some potatoes, pickled green tomatoes, soup, some rusk. Yet it was very delicious. We quietly ate while a monk read from a high pulpit towering over the refectory. When the meal finished the monks sang the kontakion for Christmas, and we all processed out of the trapeza, while the abbot, Elder Joseph, stood to the side and blessed us.

We seminarians then went back inside and helped out with the cleaning up and preparation for the next meal, which took about an hour and a half. We spent some more time in the bookstore, taking pictures, etc. and then went to the monastery church, where a priest was blessing people with a relic of the True Cross. We received the blessing, and soon afterwards Vespers began. We stood in our monastic choir stalls (stasidia) while listening to the beautiful antiphonal chanting of Byzantine hymns.

By the end it was dark, and the grounds were all lit up with Christmas lights.

There was also a rather unique nativity scene, executed in a Byzantine iconic style:

Right after dinner we had to take leave of our hosts. We drove back at a leisurely pace. It’s nice to have a little vacation now and then.

Parks and Ordination

2011-12-06T13:41:00.000-05:00

The period after Thanksgiving seems to go by very quickly. Two weeks of classes are sandwiched in between the Thanksgiving vacation and exams, which actually are a bit of a vacation in themselves. Papers get turned in, loose ends get tied up, and all the while our minds are already checked in and boarding the plane. It’s a busy time.

Last weekend, we had two big events happen. On Saturday (December 3) a contingent of officials, higher-ups, bureaucrats and activists descended upon our monastery for a ceremony celebrating the inclusion of Holy Trinity Orthodox Monastery into the National Register of Historic Places. The whole impetus for getting the monastery recognized was the proposed building, not too long ago, of a number of wind turbines (“Each as tall as the Statue of Liberty,” according to Fr Luke) about a mile east of the Monastery. The monastery joined forces with local interests groups opposed to this development, and applied and received historical landmark status at the state level. Federal recognition allows the monastery to potentially receive grant money or tax credits for the upkeep of its buildings. Usually religious buildings don’t receive this kind of recognition, but according to the powers-that-be, not only does the monastery represent the local community, it is a landmark for the entirety of the Russian Diaspora.

So, a number of people spoke about their individual and group efforts to preserve the monastery and fight the wind turbine people (who were forced out of business, apparently because of shady dealings that they did). Fred Miller, one of the members of the New York State Preservation League, spoke about how he had help understanding our Russian Orthodox ways with the help of one of the nuns in the nearby skete: “Whenever I got something wrong with protocol and what-not…Mother Barbara would grab me by the throat!”

After the talk, we partook of a big spread of refreshments and the visitors got a tour of the monastery grounds.

The next day, one of our seminarians got ordained. It was the Feast of the Entrance of the Holy Mother of God into the Temple. Igor, the seminarian in question, got tonsured a reader before the beginning of liturgy, and then ordained a deacon by Archbishop Gabriel of Canada. Fr Igor will serve for the next forty days in church and will be ordained a priest on Christmas Day.

But otherwise, everything is все нормально, business as usual, here in Jordanville. At least until uborka.

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

2011-12-06T13:09:00.000-05:00

And now for something completely different. As I’ve noted before, some of us seminarians watch Doctor Who on a regular basis, and we’re quite excited about the upcoming Christmas Special: The Doctor, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The BBC has put up a prequel, which you can see above. And here’s the trailer!

Common Courtesy

2011-11-29T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today I received a very slanderous comment from a clearly confused individual. The anonymous commenter made some very serious and nasty remarks about someone I know personally. Of course, I was both shocked and delighted. Shocked because of the nonsense that people can get away with saying under the cover of anonymity, and delighted that I finally have a troll. My blog has made it in the Internet world!

I’ll take this opportunity to lay down the law regarding comments. If someone writes anything which whiffs of slander, back-biting, tale-bearing or the like, I will immediately delete his comment and that commenter will be persona non grata on this site. This blog is free of the contentions that plague much of “Internet Orthodoxy”—I intend to keep it that way.

A Victorious Union

2011-11-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, I went with my friends Pete and Kate M. to a wedding in New Jersey. I last saw the bride and groom, Nicolas and Victoria, at last year’s youth conference at Jordanville. At the syezd, Archbishop Gabriel, in his opening address, expressed his hope that the 150 assembled youths form 75 marriages.

Well, one down, seventy-four to go.

Before we headed out, we attended the baptism of the baby of one of the local residents. Bishop Peter of Cleveland came to baptize the baby, which was held in the monastic baptistery. I love baptisms; they remind me of my own baptism nearly four years ago. After the baptism and the churching, the parents held a reception in the local bed and breakfast. Fully satiated, the three of us hit the road.

It didn’t take too long to get to New Jersey. We went immediately to St. Elizabeth’s in Princeton, where the Youth Choir (a.k.a. Cooley & the Gang) was gathered to sing Vigil and Liturgy, as well as practice the wedding music. While we waited for the others to shop up, I had a happy reunion with my Canadian friends Manya and Katya, as well as with my other syezd friends John and Michael. Cooley had us go over the repertoire, which was made up of many of the standard wedding hymns. One of the unique pieces was “Eternal Father,” the official Navy hymn. We used it for the entrance hymn for Nicolas, who is a naval officer. For the bride we used the first verse from an Englished “Agni Parthene.”

The next day, after singing the liturgy, we went to St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral for the wedding. St. Alexander Nevsky is one of my favorite churches, with its bright frescoes and architecture reminiscent of both the New Cathedral in San Francisco and a super-sized version of the monastery church at Jordanville. The beautiful interior and spacious hall make the church an ideal place for a wedding. We continued to rehearse for the wedding, though “Eternal Father” had a funky tritone at the end which gave us basses a hard time.

The wedding was beautiful, and everything worked out. The bride and groom looked very happy (from what we saw from the choir loft) and were married with Greek wedding crowns made of silver. I think we sang well enough, and even got that tritone, thanks to one of our more musically proficient basses. Fr David, one of the priests, called Victoria “Victorious,” which I think was an inspired mis-speaking.

The reception was very fun, and I got to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while. I also got to dance quite a bit! In all, it was a very enjoyable weekend.

I’m very grateful to Nicolas and Victoria for inviting me. May God grant them many years of blessed married life!

“That’s going in the blog.”

2011-10-31T10:57:00.000-04:00

Things have been getting pretty quiet here at my blog. Second year actually feels more busy than first year for some strange reason, even though we technically have less hours of class (and don’t have to wash dishes, for that matter). Even so, for whatever reason I haven’t had the time to post, until now. Our Church Slavonic/Music teacher rescheduled classes this week, which means that I am free all morning. Huzzah! And it’s Fr. Luke’s namesday, which means ice cream! Huzzah! Here’s what I did over the past couple of weeks:

Participated in the Eastern American Diocese clergy conference
Attended a youth choir weekend in New York City
Sold stuff to a busload of pilgrims from DC
Watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey and Doctor Who for Movie Night(s)
Go to church a lot
Oh yeah, study.

With that brief update out of the way, let’s put a little meat on the skeleton and talk about the youth choir weekend. The last one of those I attended was in June, right after the Boston Ball. This time we were singing at the Holy Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils Russian Orthodox Church in Upper Manhattan (think Harlem). Four of us set out for New York City: my friends Harry and Ben from Buffalo, fellow seminarian Nicky Kotar, and myself. We spent the time going there talking about sundry subjects such as yak-dragons* and Don Quixote. The seminarians tried to get some productive work done in between bursts of conversational creativity.

After arriving in Manhattan we headed straight to the church, where rehearsal was just about to begin. Rehearsal went on for quite some time because we were basically going over all the music for both Vigil and Liturgy, and moreover were gathered together for the first time in months. Alex Cooley (that guy people made a Facebook page about) conducted. I met quite a few new people and reunited with old friends. After rehearsal we had some delicious lasagna and readied ourselves for the Vigil.

Vigil ended later than expected; we were all too tired to do any wandering around the city, so we just went to our respective places-to-sleep. Harry, Ben and I went to the Djurdjinovic** household, where our hosts fed us with some delicious pelmeni. It was a lively evening; up to three conversations were going on at the same time on the long table. We talked into the night and finally went to bed. The girls went upstairs, leaving the guys to sleep in the basement, which was actually pretty comfortable.

The next day we had Liturgy. On the way there we complained about the toll ($12!!!) to get over the GWB. I also had a cold that weekend, so my singing ability was quite compromised. I kept sniffling and coughing all through the Liturgy (“Lord have mer—cough!—cy”). We did all right in the end, especially since it was the first time in many years that an actual choir was singing liturgy. The moleben at the end of liturgy was a mouthful though, with the refrain “Holy Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, pray to God for us” in Slavonic.

The parishioners fed us pretty generously. I enjoyed the meat and caught up with some people I met the previous weekend at the Youth Symposium. A few made toasts, including one of the sub-deacons (pére Djurdjinovic):

“You might have heard about an old band in the 80s called Kool & the Gang…now it’s Cooley & the Gang!”

“That’s going in the blog,” I said to Nicky.

Right after lunch, we had a group photo and parted ways. Good times were had in NYC, and I only regret that we had so little time to enjoy the city. Well, maybe next time!

*That creature that appears in the Neverending Story. Correctly referred to (according to an ardent Reader) as a luckdragon. We discussed the merits of keeping them as fire-breathing guardians of an estate, as well as for milking purposes (“It’d taste like burning…and milk,” said Ben).

**It’s pronounced as read.

Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night Vigil!

2011-10-20T15:32:00.000-04:00

October has been quite a busy month for me. It seems that almost every weekend there’s been something going on. That plus studies plus work (plus, let’s admit it, sheer laziness) equals not much time to write posts. This business unfortunately creates a backlog of potential posts, making it difficult to choose one. If I followed chronological convention I would simply begin with writing about the big fat Russian Orthodox convert wedding I went to in the beginning of the month. But since thankfully I can write about whatever I want, let’s start with something more recent: our trip to Synod and back.

The view from the roof.

Synod, or rather the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign, is the literal HQ of the Russian Church Abroad. A very pious and equally rich Russian bought a Park Avenue mansion for the ROCOR Synod of Bishops. Its main hall and dining room were transformed into a cathedral nave and a chapel respectively.

Four of us seminarians were invited as guest participants at a youth symposium conducted by the Synodal Youth Department. Fr. Cyprian, the Dean of Students (and my Greek teacher), was slated to talk to the youth on missionary work. When we arrived at Synod, we were ushered to our quarters, which turned out to be the conference room. Four cots were laid out for us:

Despite the Spartan appearance, the beds were comfy, and a nice lady with a love for Apple products fed us very well.

The next day, we got up early to help Fr. Cyprian serve liturgy in the lower chapel. It also happened to be his namesday (Hieromartyr Cyprian). I struggled through the liturgy with my co-sufferers and at the very end mangled the polychronia, promoting Vladyka Ieronim to the metropolitanate.

Moleben before the relics of St. Innocent of Moscow, enlightener of Alaska.

The symposium itself was great and I liked Fr. Cyprian’s talk. I liked just as well the chance to meet new people and eat barbecued meat, not necessarily in that order. We also discussed future activities for the Synodal Youth Department, including pilgrimages to various places such as Jordanville. I bit my tongue; I didn’t want to appear too self-interested.

The services were interesting. Vigil at Synod was short and sweet. After a long day of conferencing, I welcomed the respite. However, Synod is perhaps one of the few places where the liturgies are longer than the vigils, because nearly every Sunday liturgy is hierarchical. On Sunday morning, I stood in awe seeing an army of altar servers come out with Bishop Jerome. The Sunday choir was also pretty impressive and sang lots of difficult pieces.

After liturgy and lunch, we bid farewell to our hosts, and left laden with leftover chicken and other food for the road. But instead of a straight shot to Jordanville, we went to Holy Protection Convent in Pennsylvania. Holy Protection (Agia Skepi) is a beautiful Greek Orthodox convent founded by Elder Ephraim. The nuns unsurprisingly knew Fr. Cyprian well. We took a detour to the convent in order to stock up on supplies for the Autumn Pastoral Conference. The abbess, Gerondissa Olympiada, came out to greet us in the bookstore. We received her blessing and she gave us some refreshments. While ministering to us, the phone rang. She ran to answer it.

“That’s a Greek abbess,” Papa-Kyprianos proudly said.

We had called ahead to order spanakopita, baklava, and other dishes. The nuns brought out box after box of food for us to stuff in the back of the van:

Supplies!

They also packed for us, without our knowledge, some cheese-filled pita for us to have on the road. This time I actually had the presence of mind to take a picture of my food before completely devouring it:

We got to attend Vigil and Compline (with the Akathist to the Mother of God) at the convent. The soft sound of Byzantine hymns chanted by the nuns served as a nice close for the day.

Our last stop was at St. Nektarios Monastery in Roscoe, New York. There, a visiting priest had a large relic of the True Cross, which we venerated and were blessed with.

It was quite an amazing weekend. I’m very thankful to the kind people at Synod, Holy Protection, and St. Nektarios for welcoming us as pilgrims. I hope to visit again soon!

What I did on my birthday.

2011-09-28T14:09:00.000-04:00

My birthday falls on the Exaltation of the Cross, one of the major feasts of the Church. It also happens to be a strict fast day—no meat, poultry, fish, or dairy! This year, I was in kitchen helping prepare a Lenten meal for the feast. I like working in the kitchen, being assigned kitchen on one’s own birthday is a rare occasion, so I relished the opportunity. Plus I figured it would be pretty blogable.

I dragged myself out of bed a little before six in the morning. I went to the refectory, my way faintly illumined by twilight. There, I met Fr. Gabriel, who was going to be cook. Being on kitchen with O. Gavriil on a fast day is as simple as you get; all you do is chop vegetables, and he takes care of most of the rest. After Vanya, another seminarian, showed up, we were tasked with peeling potatoes. I followed Vanya down to the basement.

We have an industrial-strength potato-peeler. It works by agitating and rubbing potatoes against each other in a kind of centrifuge. An old alumnus compared seminary life to being in the potato-peeler. Seminarians—all with their different viewpoints, personalities, quirks, and flaws—get thrown into common life. We smash up against each other, share joys and sorrows, and then come out more or less okay. At least I hope that’s the case for me.

There was a lot of peeling and chopping and mixing and other cooking activities. We successfully served the food and cleaned up afterwards. I washed the small dishes.

What came next.

2011-09-26T09:35:00.000-04:00

Last week we picked apples and made some of them into 155 gallons of delicious cider. That gives the best ~~pretext~~ opportunity to share our produce with the outside world!

Yesterday, the Albany parish celebrated its parish feast, the Nativity of the Mother of God. The last time I visited was for the church consecration about a year ago. This time I went with a couple classmates of mine, supplied with 25 gallons of cider and about as many jars of honey. One of our hieromonks came as well to serve with the other clergy. Bishop Jerome of Manhattan was the main celebrant.

At 9:30, the parish greeted Bishop Jerome at the church with bread and salt.

Then the bishop was vested in the church.

The bishop’s particular vestments, especially the sakkos (dalmatic), is taken from Byzantine court ceremony. In fact, a hierarchical liturgy is probably the closest we get to being back in the time of the Palaiologos. What was once a symbol of secular pomp is now transformed into an icon of heavenly glory.

Vladyka blessing with the dikiri and trikiri.

The liturgy was wonderful. At the end, we had a cross procession around the church; I was in charge of the lantern at the head of the procession. One of the standard-bearers said to me jokingly, “If we mess up, it’s all your fault!” Thankfully, that was not the case. After everything finished, I looked at the time and was surprised; time really did fly by!

We set up the cider and honey table in the parish hall, where lunch was under way. Working the table did not prevent us from enjoying other refreshments, as you can see above. There was also the most delicious cheesecake ever:

The rector of the parish, Fr. Vsevolod Drobot, celebrated fifty years in the priesthood, so of course we sang many, many renditions of Mnogaya Leta.

Fr. Vsevolod pointed out that he served his first year in Schenectady, with the remaining forty-nine in Albany.

“So we can celebrate again next year!” someone said.

I hope we can! Not only did I have a good time, I also made some new friends and reconnected with old ones as well. I’m very thankful to the parishioners at Albany, and especially to Fr. Vsevolod for blessing us to come sell our cider.

S prazdnikom!

Apple Picking!

2011-09-24T15:59:00.000-04:00

It’s that time of year. The weather changes, the leaves turn into sunset hues, and apples become ripe for picking. We have quite a few apple trees at the monastery. Actually, the first time I’ve ever seen an apple tree was at Jordanville. Apples don’t grow in tropical Hawaii, after all. Or San Francisco.

By early September, the ground was littered with apples. You couldn’t walk anywhere near the area where the apple trees are (next to the garage, across from the monastery building) without hearing the crunch-crunch, or rather smoosh-smoosh, of apples under your feet. The trees, pregnant with fruit, ached to be relieved of their produce.

So, I was happy to hear that Father Luke blessed, or rather instituted, a general obedience to pick the monastery’s apples on September 22 (last Thursday). Not only would that be fun in itself, we would also get to enjoy the fruits (get it?) of our labors. Plus for me it makes good journalistic fodder for the school website.

Father Cyprian split us up into several groups involved with apple picking and processing. I ended up on the Party Planning Committee, i.e. getting stuff for the barbecue afterward. Before we headed out, I took some pictures of people picking apples.

Most of the apple-pickers used staves to whack the apples from the trees. My classmate S. didn’t bother with that. He climbed the biggest tree and started shaking the branches pretty vigorously. Apples fell like hail onto the ground. “I’m an energetic Serb!” S. shouted from the treetop.

Soon, it was time to get going. My team went to several stops to get the best prices on different goods. We got hot dogs from Price Chopper, burgers from Wal-Mart, and kielbasa from a Polish sausage vendor in Utica:

Doesn’t that look beautiful?

Of course, we didn’t skimp for our monastic brethren, either:

As we were getting the goods the sky began to change and the temperate apple-picking weather turned into rainy picnic-ruining weather. We got a call from Jordanville: it was raining hard. Should we postpone the barbecue to Saturday? Of course not! Meat! The show must go on!

“Move the grill to the garage. We’re eating inside,” I said.

Once we got there the garage was already filled with eager and hungry seminarians. Some apple pies were in the oven, but man must not live by pie alone. We got out the good stuff and before long there was a queue forming at the grill.

Worth queuing up for.

The evening was a smashing success. Apples got picked and made into various apple-y products, meat was available in abundance, and people had a fun time. What’s more, we cleaned up after ourselves with hardly any fuss. I can’t wait for what comes next!

The First Week

2011-09-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

Thanks be to God, we got through the first week of school. The week began with Labor Day weekend and ended with the (real) feast of St. Job of Pochaev. In between, we had a smooth transition to seminary life.

On Tuesday, we had a moleben for the new school year after the liturgy. Then we met in the summer kitchen, where Fr Luke had a short talk with us about the new school year. The question to ask ourselves, he said, was “Why am I here?” He gave us some other sound advice and finally blessed the new students to wear their cassocks. Then Fr Cyprian passed out our student handbooks, and we went in detail over the various rules of living in common.

The first days of class went by very quickly. For Russian Church History I am doing a term paper on ecclesiastical architecture. for Russian Literature we are studying Ilya Muromets and other heroes. And in Biblical Greek, we are struggling to pronounce the [gh] sound. Things are back to normal!

The Last Weekend

2011-09-05T13:59:00.000-04:00

It’s been a pretty good weekend, the last hurrah before the new school year begins, and we all start to get a little (but not too) serious.

Labor Day weekend is a pretty big deal at Jordanville, usually second only to Pentecost or Memorial Day. The ever-memorable Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko), the third abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery, instituted an annual pilgrimage on Labor Day weekend in honor of both St. Job of Pochaev, the patron of the monastery’s printshop, and the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God. He took the idea from St. Tikhon of Moscow, who instituted a Memorial Day pilgrimage at St. Tikhon’s Monastery when he was still in America. The pilgrimages on Memorial Day and Labor Day help sanctify the summer, encouraging Orthodox people to visit the monastery and spend their time in a God-pleasing manner.

Usually, quite a few people show up, but it was a little less than last year, perhaps because of the weather. There was, however, a sizable contingent from New Jersey led by Fr. Serge Lukianov. I also heard rumors of a certain M.M.* who was in search of a husband/going to be engaged, but those claims were absolutely, definitely groundless.

Sunday was the longest day for me. I had to wake up early in the morning, go to the first liturgy, and then open the bookstore, which was pretty quiet because everyone was at the later liturgy. The weather was quite muggy, and the heat hung off one’s skin; wearing a podryasnik didn’t help. The morning was quite relaxing with the (unfortunate) lack of customers for my shift; I feasted on some bacon and eggs that a friend brought from a restaurant in nearby Richfield Springs.

After the lunch, I left my duties to my superior, and went with a certain seminarian to another certain married seminarian’s house, where we watched episodes of The Office. Later that afternoon, I hung out with people from New Jersey, who kept feeding me hamburgers and sausage: “Eat, eat! You’re a growing boy!”

Later that evening, we went to Mr. Shake, another Jordanville Haunt, where we second-years had a last meal with a former compatriot, who is becoming a novice at Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia. We’ll miss him terribly, but are thankful that he’ll be praying for us!

All in all, it was a very full weekend, and a good way to end the summer. I’m very much looking forward to whatever the new year brings!

*Matushka Material

Don’t Panic.

2011-09-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

Serving in the altar is not something you learn from a book. It doesn’t hurt to have a cheat-sheet, like the one you see above. But, like dancing, serving just requires developing a sense for what’s going on, which takes time.

Unfortunately, I’m a singer, which means that I am more required on kliros than in the altar. Indeed, here at Jordanville there is a division of labor among the seminarians between those who serve and those who sing. Those who do both usually do one better than the other, and represent that exception that proves the rule.

I don’t expect to be able to serve blindfolded, like some of my classmates. But I do hope to know the basics. This week, I was supposed to serve with one of the more experienced monks. But, a last-minute change made me the senior to an incoming seminarian. Being forced to be the “responsible” one for a change, I had to really start watching what was going on, and learned a thing or two.

Case in point: one does not use regular candles during a hierarchical service, but just the dikiri and trikiri. I learned that yesterday, when Metropolitan Hilarion, our First Hierarch, came to serve Liturgy for Ss. Florus and Laurus, the namesday for one of our elder monks (Fr. Flor) and late Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory. I was guided here and there, and moved around like an action figure. But it was magnificent. The service, I mean.

As I enter my second year as a seminarian, I guess I have to raise my standards a bit higher, beyond “not setting self on fire.” Yes, serving in the altar can’t be learned in a book. Just like life.

Axios!

2011-08-28T14:08:00.000-04:00

Today I discovered with great pleasure that Hieromonk Irenei (Steenburg), the Director of St. John’s Academy and priest at St. Tikhon of Zadonsk church, has been made an archimandrite by Archbishop Kyrill. Axios! Axios! Axios!

Déjà vu…

2011-08-28T14:00:00.000-04:00

I hope that despite this not-so-irenic storm, that everyone is having a blessed Feast of our Holy Mother’s Dormition. Here at Jordanville it’s quite wet and windy, but we’re still dry and warm at the dorm.

Once again I’m hitting the ground running. I got here last Tuesday, having taken a red-eye from SFO and transferred in DC. Despite my nearly complete lack of rest, I quickly adjusted to the monastic schedule and am now sleeping normally. Things here are the same as ever, but with several interesting changes, including new seminarians! Along with a certain PK from San Francisco, there are also two students from China, plus a guy from Sweden. From what I hear, there will be about 13 to 14 new students this year.

I’m pretty happy to have my (sort of) brother Chinese* here. The other day, I had my first taste of real pu-erh tea. The tea comes in a brick shaped roughly like a frisbee. Using a pick-like instrument, some leaves are cut out, and then steeped in a tiny pot. The leaves are reused several times, producing a subtly different flavor and aroma each time.

We also just celebrated the Feast of the Dormition today. I was in the kitchen, just like last year. In fact, it all felt like déjà vu. Not only was I assigned to kitchen for Dormition 2010, I also attended the English vigil at the cemetery chapel, as well as confess (to the same priest, even!). Thus, the cycle is complete. I’m ready to begin a brand-new year, full of much of the same, but with interesting variations.

*my late grandmother was Chinese.

Jordanville Journal Digest (2010–2011)

2011-08-17T02:47:00.000-04:00

In two weeks, I will have completed one year of blogging. Of the uku-billion blogs I’ve started and abandoned, this is the longest-lived. So, in preemptory recognition of my anniversary, here are ten of my favorite posts, in chronological order:

Entrance Exams!

“We assembled yesterday morning on the second floor of the seminary building, then entered one of the classrooms. Someone came in: ‘If you don’t know any Russian, please proceed to the next classroom.’ First exam: over!”

Somebody’s gotta do it.

“To prevent any widespread outbreak of meat consumption and other hazards, we are kept very busy by our classwork and obediences.”

Five-Finger Discount

“Warning: do not leave items on the free table if you do not want a monk or seminarian to take them within thirty seconds.”

A Day in the Life of a Seminarian: Early Morning

“What really gets me up (after several hits of the snooze button) is my cell-phone alarm, set to a funky ringtone. It's about 5:45 am or so, which makes me a little late for Liturgy. Oh well: I throw on my podryasnik and coat, and brave the elements.”

Forget about it! (Fr. Michael Pomazansky)

“Like everything in the world, our human nature is wisely constructed. We are capable of acquiring and preserving knowledge, and we are capable of forgetting. Often even forgetfulness is useful and laudable.”

A Day in the Life of a Seminarian: Classes

“…there are many interesting side-conversations, mostly involving monastic footwear, coming from one of our more animated classmates,”

End-of-Semester Reflections

“When I got here, I quickly realized that coming here had not automatically changed me, and the Uncreated Light didn't suddenly burst out of my face the day I stepped into my dorm-room.”

Inter-Seminarian Hijinks

“Fr. Killian: And there we have rooms for the single female students, an area we affectionately call the Feminary.”

O Lord and Master of my Life…

“I awoke at five in the morning to the sounds of the mallet hitting the semandron, that ancient instrument used to rouse monks to prayer. The potent sound of wood against wood is a call to prayer: a call to rouse oneself in preparation for the long prayers during the first week of Great Lent.”

School’s. Out. For. Summer.

“‘It's winking at me,’ said somebody looking at the spit.”

Far across the Sea…

2011-08-16T01:54:00.000-04:00

Happy Feast to my New Calendar friends!

A week ago, I left my homeland and traversed the dark sea until I came to another old haunt, the City by the Bay. San Francisco, known to locals in abbreviation as “S.F.” or simply “the City,” but never “San Fran” or (anathema!) “Frisco,” was my home for two years before I left for Jordanville. My San Francisco days had their ups and downs, but I learned to be a little more ambitious and less wary to step outside my comfort zone. In many ways, it prepared me for seminary life.

Here’s a few things I’ve done so far:

Hang out with friends.
Visit the San Francisco library. I still have my old card!
Eat as much meat as possible before the Dormition Fast began.
Go contra-dancing!
Walk around the neighborhood. This city is probably one of the most walkable in the country. Even the sleepy neighborhood around the Cathedral has a good deal to see within a walkable ratio.

It’s always a joy to see my old friends here. My parish at the Old Holy Virgin Cathedral have always welcomed and supported me like family. I’ve also seen and greatly enjoyed my time with other good friends from around the Orthodox community. Now, let me put on my seminarian hat for some pertinent reflection:

After a year at Jordanville, it’s no surprise that many of my anecdotes and jokes concern seminary life. I try to cool it before the eye-rolling starts.
Thankfully, my Orthodox audience is mostly receptive, and would ask quite a few questions (“Do you really eat with spoons?!?”).
Being a seminarian (like it or not) comes with an aura of authority, even though, as a lowly second-year, I have none. During a service, people could look at you as if to say, “well, what do we do next?” Or, they could ask you to conduct a piece of music or two. It’s best to say “I don’t know” if you’re not sure, but it helps to be prepared just in case.
It is indeed nice to eat with forks again.

It’s been a great Summer! My fellow seminarians, enjoy the rest of your vacation!

A wake-up call to future (and current) seminarians!

2011-08-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

Fr. Alexander Antchoutine of Holy Virgin Protection parish in Glen Cove, New York, gave an excellent interview for the ROCOR Fund for Assistance. Priests in the Russian diaspora have a special cross to bear, because in addition to their many priestly duties most of them also have to work lay jobs, and are heavily scrutinized by their parishioners. I recommend this article to basically everyone.

The Theanthropic Theatre

2011-08-12T14:49:00.000-04:00

Note: In response to this thread on Monachos I decided to put the paper I wrote for my Patristic Anthropology class online, since it deals with the pertinent subject of the Creation, Fall, and Redemption of man. Any mistakes in this paper in transmitting the teaching of the Holy Fathers are my own.

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

For millennia, mystics, philosophers, and scientists have searched out the mystery of human existence. What is man? Where did he come from? Where is he going? These three questions have sparked endless debate. Some have searched the skies, others the depths of the earth. And other thinkers try to delve within the human psyche, trying to tease out an answer. However, the early church fathers, in particular Ss. Athanasius, Basil, and Irenaeus, along with Origen, began with the Creator rather than the creation. The key player in the drama of the creation, fall, and redemption of mankind is Jesus Christ, the Word of God. Man was created in the image and likeness of Christ, and after mankind fell away from the Word and descended into madness, Christ came in the form of a man, renewing creation.

The Creation of Mankind

The church fathers unanimously depict man as being the head of God’s creation, being made in His image and likeness. The first indication of man’s honor is the manner of his creation. God created heaven and earth through commandments such as “Let there be light.” However, when He made man on the sixth day of creation, He said: “Let us make man…” [1] St Basil writes: “He did not cast forth your origin by a commandment, but there was counsel in God to consider how to bring the dignified creature into life.” [2] St Irenaeus writes that God established the whole world with His Word, and set down laws, but “man He fashioned with His own hands…” [3] In other words, man was made through the Son and Holy Spirit, which St Irenaeus calls the “hands” of the Father. It is from within God, that is, a deliberation between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, that man was made. St Basil writes that this deliberation shows us that we ought to “glorify the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Holy Spirit,” because the creation is a common work of all three Persons. [4]

God not only made man in a special and direct way, He also made him in His own image. At first, the word “image” suggests the outer appearance of man. Indeed, St Irenaeus seems to ascribe divinity to the outer form of man: “He gave his frame the outline of His own form, that the visible appearance too should be godlike…” [5] However, both Origen and St Basil deny that the human body is according to the image of God. St Basil writes that this would imply that God also has a body with hands, feet, eyes, and so forth, which would “diminish the Great One in a Jewish way.” [6] Since God is incorruptible, and the body corruptible, there cannot be any similarity between the two: “Is something flowing the image of the immovable nature? The shaped of that which has no shape? How that shall we search out that which according to the image?” [7] Origen answers that “it is our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immortal which is made ‘according to the image of God.’” [8] Thus, both St Basil and Origen recognize “two human beings, one the sense-perceptible, and one hidden under the sense-perceptible, invisible, the inner human.” [9] The image of God is principally in the soul of man and consists of his superiority of reason, which allows him to rule all of creation. Throughout his first discourse On the Origin of Humanity, St Basil uses many examples of how man uses his superior reason to capture and tame many beasts, despite the weakness of his own flesh. [10]

Through his rational soul, man is called by God to rule all, including his own body. St Basil calls the body “the instrument of the soul.” St Athanasius likens the relationship between the body and the soul to that of a charioteer and his horses, as well as that of a musician and his well-tuned lyre. [11] God took the “purest and finest of earth” and mingled it with His power, creating the body. [12] St Basil interprets the two accounts of man’s creation in Genesis as being respectively the creation of the inner and outer human being: “He made the inner human being, He molded the outer.” [13] The fact that God Himself “molded” the body of man is an indication of its high honor; the body is not merely the instrument of the human soul, but also “an instrument fit for the glory of God.” [14] Man received a special structure making him distinct from the animals. For example, his upright posture encourages him to seek after heavenly things. [15] According to St Athanasius, man must use his soul to achieve a “better harmony” within his body, using the image of a musician with his lyre. It is through this inner harmony that man achieves the likeness of God.

God not only created man in His own image, but also in His own likeness. Ss. Athanasius and Basil, along with Origen, make a distinction between image and likeness: the image is ours by virtue of being human, but we achieve the likeness of God through exercising our free will. St Basil, speaking to his congregation, emphasizes the need to become righteous in order to be like God: “If you become a hater of evil, free of rancor, not remembering yesterday’s enmity; if you become brother-loving and compassionate, you are like God.” Through becoming righteous, we “put on Christ” and thus achieve likeness to God. [16] However, St Athanasius, who was writing against the enemies of Christianity, emphasizes the soul’s contemplation of God as being in the likeness of God: “For having no obstacle to the knowledge of the divine, he continuously contemplates by his purity the image of the Father, God the Word, in whose image he was made…” [17] And, in De Incarnatione, he seems to equate likeness to God with having “a share in the power of His own Word.” [18] These two views are of course complementary, for they both imply the soul ruling over the body and being superior to it, being fixed upon God “in unembarrassed frankness.” [19]

Our first parents lived in the contemplation of God, but at the same time they were not yet fully developed. St Irenaeus writes that Adam was “a child” and needed a place for him to grow, and thus he was placed in the Garden. [20] God commanded Adam and Eve to “grow and multiply,” which for St Basil signifies the growth of the inner human being, the perfection of virtues. Man is also called to multiply and fill the earth with righteousness. [21] According to St Irenaeus, Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden, having no evil thoughts or imagination; they were entirely childlike. But that meant that they lacked a developed discretion, thus becoming “easily misled by the deceiver.” [22]

The Fall and Decline of Mankind

Man fell from his high estate by taking his thoughts away from God and focusing them on himself, becoming self-centered. They could have remained in immortality, as long as they retained “the grace of the participation of the Word.” But sin caused death and corruption to enter the world, taking a strong hold upon mankind. [23] With every successive generation, the sins of mankind magnified.

Man was placed in Paradise in order to flourish spiritually, which is why God gave man a specific law: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” [24] St Irenaeus writes that the law forbidding man from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was given “so that the man should not have thoughts of grandeur, and become lifted up, as if he had no lord…and take up an attitude of self-conceited arrogance towards God…” God warned Adam and Eve that if they sinned, they would no longer retain immortality, but “die the death.” [25] St Athanasius interprets “dying the death” as “the natural corruption consequent on death.” [26] However, the devil, who was jealous of the favors man received from God, persuaded him to sin. [27]

St Athanasius paints a very vivid picture in Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione of the implications and aftereffects of the Fall. In partaking of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve preferred earthly, fleshly things over the contemplation of God. When Adam and Eve realized their own nakedness and hid in the Garden, [28] “They realized that they were not so much stripped of clothing as stripped of the contemplation of divine things, and that they had turned their minds in the opposite direction.” Man forgot the divine power they received and instead focused on the body and its sensations, becoming imprisoned by fleshly desires. Thus, not only did they become subject to death, they also lost the likeness to God, descending into beastliness. In the beginning, their minds were focused on the one God; now, their thoughts are scattered among the competing desires of the body. Clinging to pleasure, man becomes afraid of losing it, leading to an overwhelming fear of death. Frustrated desires lead to all kinds of crimes. [29] Turning back towards the metaphor of the Charioteer, it is as if he, disregarding the goal, “were simply to drive his horses as hard as he could—and he can drive as hard as he likes; then often he would rush into other people and often drive over the edges…for he has eyes only for the track and does not see that he has gotten away from the goal.” Thus, squandering the inheritance the Father gives him, man becomes a prodigal son, wasting himself on selfish desires, driving himself towards oblivion.

Taking the eyes of his soul from God, man focused them on himself, and then began to invent in his mind many things which did not exist previously, in order to fulfill his desires. According to St Athanasius: “Evil has no existed from the beginning, nor even now is it found among the saints…But it was men who later began to conceive of it and imagine it in their own likeness,” causing idolatry to appear in the earth. [30] For St Athanasius, who was writing in a pagan milieu, idolatry was the epitome of evil, since idols depicted non-existent beings, and evil is essentially non-existence, turning away from the existent God. Man, enthralled by his desires, looked only at earthly things, and began to deify them, like someone, falling into an abyss, becomes mad and thinks only of what is around him and not of the outside world. [31] Men started with deifying the heavenly bodies, then the elements, and then, descending lower, “raised to divine status even men and images of men, some while still alive, and others after their death.” Even worse, they gave the name of “God” to inanimate materials and irrational beasts, and even to their own passionate desires. [32]

As a result of his descent into sin, man, though he is called to be ruler of creation, becomes himself ruled by his own desires, becoming, as St Basil eloquently illustrates, like the wild beasts: “Is not one sharp in insults a scorpion? Is not one who in hiding strikes out in revenge more dangerous than a viper? Is the greedy person not a rapacious wolf? What kind of beast is not in us?” [33] Becoming enslaved by death and desire, suffering the effects of the ancestral sin, man cannot hope to save himself, unless the One Who created man in His own image delivers them from their afflictions.

The New Creation in Christ

Man was rescued out of his sufferings through the Incarnation of the Word of God. Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God promised Eve that a Savior would come, defeating the devil. [34] St Irenaeus writes that God gave the Jews the Law and the Prophets as “heralds of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Thus, at “the end of this age,” the Word became Man, “resuming anew in Himself all things in heaven and on earth.” [35]

Why did God become man? St Athanasius endeavors to answer this question in De Incarnatione. First of all, God desired to save man out of love for His creation. Man was not only under the power of death, but also lost the likeness to God through his sinfulness. It would have been “most improper” that the works of God should perish. [36] However, God declared that they would die if they sinned, so saving them would make God a liar. Even if men repented from their sins, this would not alter their nature, but merely loose the sins: man would still be under the law of death. Thus, St Athanasius presents what could be called a “divine dilemma.” The only way to save man was to recreate him, and thus the Creator, the Word of God, sought to “bring what was corruptible back again to incorruption, and to save what was above all fitting for the Father.” [37]

The recreation of man was brought about by the Incarnation of the Savior. By taking a mortal body, the Immortal One was able to die, but since the body was that of the Word, it sufficed for the death of all. He offered the body to death and thus abolished death. Since He was united with humanity, Christ bestowed on all men incorruption. [38] St Irenaeus emphasizes the parallels between the Fall and the Redemption. Eve’s disobedience was unmade by the Virgin’s obedience. Since we were under “the bonds of death” through our being consubstantial with Adam, Christ, by becoming man, became the second Adam and loosed these bonds. Since death ruled man through the tyranny of the body, it was through Christ’s body that it was destroyed. Finally, since our sin came through a tree, salvation came through another tree, the wood of the Cross. [39] Thus, all of mankind now has the gift of immortality and will rise again on the last day. But that is not enough.

Besides abolishing death, Christ also restored the original likeness that we had lost. St Athanasius compares this restoration to that of a subject of a portrait coming again to renew a ruined painting. Since man was created according to the image and likeness of the Word of the Father, only the Word—Christ—could renew him. He did this through becoming man and teaching the people, redirecting their fallen minds to the divine vision. Man cast his eyes on the earth and looked only on visible things, and also worshiped the demons. Christ came in a visible form for man to see Him, and cast out the demons, showing that they had no power. He also, by His works, overshadowed all the heroes and great men that men deified and worshiped. Through His Incarnation, Christ “both rid us of death and renewed us, and also…by his works he revealed and made himself known to be Son of God and the Word of the Father, leader and king of the universe.” [40] The redemption of mankind is essentially a reversal of the effects of the fall, providing a way back to the original state of man: walking with God in communion and contemplation, and growing towards immortal and blessed life.

Conclusion: Coming out of the Abyss

The creation, fall, and redemption of man can be aptly illustrated in the parable of the Prodigal Son. [41] Taking his inheritance, that is his rationality and free will, man departs from the contemplation of God and uses his body in the pursuit of “riotous living.” He becomes so depraved that, he becomes lower than the animals, envious even of the swine. But, if he returns to the Father, he will return to his former state, receiving the share of the fatted calf: the sacrifice of Christ. “For just as they turned away from God with their mind and invented gods from non-existent entities, so they can rise towards God with the mind of their soul and again turn back towards him.”

Through His death and resurrection, Christ allows men to cleanse themselves of every stain of sin and purify the image that is within them, thus being able to “contemplate as in a mirror the Word, the image of the Father, and in Him meditate on the Father, of Whom the Saviour is the image.” [42] St Basil also writes: “What is Christianity? Likeness to God as far as is possible for human nature. If you are shown to be a Christian, hasten to become like God, put on Christ.” [43] By “putting on Christ” and becoming Christian, we return to the original path which Adam tread upon before departing the Garden. When Christ comes again, we may receive the kingdom of heaven. But, if we remain outside, refusing to follow the way of Christ, there can be only “eternal fire and outer darkness.” [44]

Notes

1 Genesis 1:26 (KJV).
2 St Basil the Great, On the Origin of Humanity 1, §4, tr. Nonna Verna Harrison (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2005).
3 St Irenaeus of Lyons, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, tr. Joseph P. Smith (New York: Newman Press, 1952), §11.
4 St Basil 1, §4.
5 St. Irenaeus, §11.
6 St. Basil 1, §5.
7 St. Basil 1, §6.
8 Origen, First Homily on Genesis, tr. Ronald E. Heine (Washington: Catholic University Press, 1982), §13.
9 St Basil 1, §7.
10 St Basil 1, §§9–10
11 St Athanasius, Contra Gentes, tr. Robert W. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), §§5;31.
12 St Irenaeus §11.
13 St Basil 2, §3.
14 St Basil 2, §4.
15 St Basil 2, §16.
16 St Basil 1, §17.
17 St Athanasius, Contra Gentes, §2.
18 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §3.
19 Ibid.
20 St Irenaeus, §12.
21 St Basil 2, §5.
22 St Irenaeus, §12.
23 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §5.
24 Genesis 2:16–17.
25 St Irenaeus, §15.
26 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §4.
27 St Irenaeus, §16.
28 Genesis 3:8.
29 St Athanasius, Contra Gentes, §3.
30 St Athanasius, Contra Gentes, §2.
31 Ibid., §8.
32 Ibid., §9.
33 St Basil 1, §19.
34 Genesis 3:15.
35 St Irenaeus, §§28;30.
36 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §6.
37 Ibid., §7.
38 Ibid., §9.
39 St Irenaeus, §§31–34.
40 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §§15-16.
41 Luke 15:11–32
42 St Athanasius, Contra Gentes, §34.
43 St Basil 1, §17.
44 St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, §56.

Vintage Orthodoxy

2011-08-07T04:31:00.000-04:00

I hope my friends on the New Calendar had a good Transfiguration.

An idea came to me today, which has yet to be fleshed out: why not have an Orthodox photo blog? Specifically, one which captures (for the most part) ordinary people doing Orthodox things. An emphasis would be on older (vintage) photographs. The sort of pictures I’m talking about include:

Youth activities (camp, conferences, etc.)
Sisterhood activities
Seminarians doing stuff (natch)
Historically significant pictures
Basically anything old, preferably in black and white.

I’ve already set up a blogspot and an e-mail address. All I need are pictures! So, if you have any old photos (regardless of jurisdiction) that you find interesting, please send them to me at vintageorthodoxy [at] gmail.com, alongside a description of the activities and people depicted. The pictures will remain your intellectual property. I’m looking forward to your submissions! In the meantime, here’s footage of the glorification of St. John of San Francisco:

Sense and Seminarians (preview)

2011-08-01T22:51:00.000-04:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man studying at an Orthodox seminary, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views a young lady may be on her first visiting a seminary, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the seminarians, that she is considered as the rightful property of one of them.

“My dear friend Ivan,” said his classmate to him one day, “have you heard that there’s going to be a youth conference here?”

Ivan replied that he had not, and was quite ruffled at being called “dear.”

“But there is,” returned the classmate, whose name was Andrew; “for I heard all about it on the diocesan website.

Ivan made no answer.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“You brought up the subject, and I have no objection to hearing of it.”

This was invitation enough.

Jordanville Videos

2011-07-26T17:16:00.000-04:00

It’s great being home again. But at the same time, I miss life at Jordanville: nature, solitude, silence, and holy services. In order to help this home-sickness (or is it monastery-sickness?) and gear me up for the coming year, I put together a Youtube playlist of videos from Jordanville. If you miss Jordanville too, I highly recommend watching. The playlist includes several videos introducing the monastery, clips of services, and two full-length documentaries (Russian-only).

Strummin’ Along

2011-07-25T04:05:00.000-04:00

Tonight I heard the guitarist Anastasios Comanescu at the Greek parish. Taso is the son of Fr. Ioan and Matushka Effie Comanescu in Palo Alto, whom I know from my San Francisco days. The concert was a fundraiser for the Nisiotes Greek dance troupe, which provided refreshments.

About a hundred people sat in the church hall. The guitarist came in wearing casual clothes and decked in a few flower leis (“I don’t usually wear these at concerts.”). As he tuned his guitar he introduced himself and talked about the pieces he was going to play.

The first set began with “Romanza,” a very recognizable tune which, according to Taso, “will warm up both my fingers and your ears.” Then came a couple pieces by Narváez, followed by a great adaptation of the Prelude from Bach’s First Cello Suite. He continued with a Celtic hymn (“Be Thou My Vision”), something by Ponce, and finally works by the French composers Visée and Couperin originally written for the harpsichord. The lilting guitar was very soothing for the soul, and loud applause punctuated the end of each piece.

A short intermission followed; I got some refreshments (including baklava!) from the table, and talked to my neighbor (a German exchange student) about actual guitarists in Spain.

The second set was made up of three pieces by Mikis Theodorakis (famous for scoring “Zorba the Greek”), which added a nice Greek flavor. He ended the set with three pieces from the brilliant blind composer Joaquin Rodrigo. “Pajaros de Primavera” was quite enthralling, using intricate jumps to mimic the chirping of birds. After the final piece we called for an encore, which Taso gladly played.

It was the best ten dollars I’ve spent in a long time. Good music, good food, and good company equal a wonderful evening.

…just call him Vladika.

2011-07-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

My Internet search for correct terms of ecclesiastical address came up with contradictory results, especially for the lower clerical ranks. However, I think I found what looks to be a reliable text for common usage in ROCOR on Fr. Deacon Eugene Kallaur’s website. The text itself was prepared by His Grace Bishop Peter (Lukianov) of Cleveland.

DISCLAIMER
1. The below forms of address are meant for the most formal written correspondence. You should not use them outside of a very formal context.
2. The translations of the non-Episcopal titles (e.g. “Your Very Venerableness”) are very, very unofficial and are meant only for educational use. If you are an English speaker, please DO NOT use them. I take no responsibility for the looks you might get.

Title	Honorific	Translation
Metropolitan or Archbishop	Ваше Высокопреосвященство	Your Eminence
Bishop	Ваше Преосвященство	Your Grace
Archimandrite or Abbot	Ваше Высокопреподобие	Your Very Venerableness
Hieromonk	Ваше Преподобие	Your Venerableness
Archdeacon or Hierodeacon	Ваше Преподобие	Your Venerableness
Protopresbyter or Archpriest	Ваше Высокоблагословение	Your Very Blessing
Priest	Ваше Благословение	Your Blessing
Protodeacon or Deacon	Ваше Благовестие	Your Evangelicality

NOTES
1. Abbesses also have the address «Ваше Высокопреподобие». From what I’ve read so far, monks in general also have the address «Ваше Преподобие».
2. I have found two sources with slightly different forms of address (here and here). For example, in the second source «Ваше Преподобие» can refer to priests, protodeacons, and deacons. The first source is very close to the ROCOR text I found, though it lacks «Ваше Преподобие».
3. The ultimate source of these titles is of course the Table of Ranks prepared by Peter the Great in 1722. However, I am not sure when the ecclesiastical ranks were formally codified. These forms of address have most probably changed over the course of time; further research may reveal when the ROCOR usage was adopted.

Your…Somethingness (an initial inquiry)

2011-07-14T17:13:00.000-04:00

One of the random things I’ve learned as a seminarian is the various titles of honour that come attached to various clerical ranks. Of course, we all know that “Your Holiness” refers to a metropolitan, and “His Beatitude” to a metropolitan. But did you know that in Russia, especially Imperial Russia, the lower ranks of clergy had titles as well? Here’s what I found, according to the current protocol of the Russian Orthodox Church:

Patriarch:
Ваше Святейшество (Your Holiness)

Metropolitans and Archbishops:
Ваше Высокопреосвященство (Your Eminence*)

Bishops:
Ваше Преосвященство (Your Most Reverend)

Archimandrites, Abbots, Protopresbyters, Archpriests, Archdeacons, and Protodeacons:
Ваше Высокопреподобие (Your Very Venerableness)

Hieromonks, Priests, Hierodeacons, Deacons:
Ваше Преподобие (Your Venerableness)

That, anyway, is the usage of the Russian Church today. In my personal opinion, this is a little idiosyncratic, especially in the lower ranks. Why would «Ваше Высокопреподобие» refer to Archdeacons? Wouldn’t that make them sound like they outrank ordinary priests, who are called «Ваше Преподобие»? Moreover, this is Moscow Patriarchate usage, which may not be the same as that which is traditionally accepted in the Church Abroad.

As my research continues (and my Russian gets better) I will make some additional updates, and hopefully come up with a table of honorifics appropriate for use in ROCOR.

*Lit. “Your Very Most Reverendness”

UPDATE: After doing a little research, I prepared a table of honorifics.

Dirty Jobs

2011-07-09T19:05:00.000-04:00

One of the benefits of a seminary education at Jordanville is that you learn new skills that you can apply in the “real world.” One of them is cleaning. Seminarians are regularly assigned to clean the dormitory on a rotating basis. In addition, there’s also cleaning up in the kitchen as well as major uborka for feasts such as Christmas, Pascha, and Pentecost. If you’re not used to doing housework, you will be by the time you graduate. In fact, you might even clean more than necessary, because living in a dormitory with a bunch of other guys can get a little messy.

During my stay here in Honolulu I intended to get an office job through a temp agency. Initial inquiries turned out disappointing, so I turned to a surefire solution: the University job board. My old college maintains a small billboard with help wanted ads. One of them advertised housework for a decent wage; the location was also pretty good. I gave it a shot.

The house turned out to be a fifteen minute walk away. After some preliminary chatting with the lady of the house, I went to work. Scrubbing, brushing, sweeping, and mopping earned me some hard cash. I returned the next day, too. And then the woman recommended to two other potential clients: her sister and her tenant.

I will spare you the details, but I did get pretty down and dirty at times. It was pretty fun in a way, too. The upshot of doing manual labor like cleaning is that the results (and resulting satisfaction) are pretty immediate. What was once grody is now shiny. I understand a little more why cleanliness is akin to godliness.

Aloha from Hawai‘i!

2011-07-04T19:08:00.000-04:00

At last, a long-awaited (?) update! Hopefully you’re all enjoying your July 4th festivities. I’ve been enjoying myself/doing nothing for the greater part of two weeks. I’ve also begun a new review blog called Myrio; reviewed so far are three movies and some calamari curry.

Continuing where we left off, the flight to Honolulu was mostly uneventful. It was actually two flights. The first leg was Boston–San Francisco. I had an overnight layover, which I spent with the Jajehs, a Palestinian family who attend church at my old parish in the City. It was the first day of the Apostles’ Fast, which meant that I could not enjoy some delicious rice with lamb meat. However, the food I did have was so delicious that I did not miss my lamb all that much.

The next morning I bid farewell at the airport, and boarded my plane. I spent the flight continuing Pride and Prejudice; Darcy’s affections were spurned and Mr. Wickham was in deep trouble by the time I landed. My mom picked me up, and I was glad to be back home. That weekend, I also went back to my old parish, and there was rejoicing all around.

If I have the time, I will chronicle some of the interesting things going on here!

Lectures by Fr. George Dragas

2011-06-28T21:59:00.000-04:00

I discovered some videos by my favorite professor at Jordanville, Fr. George Dragas. Fr. George was the last student of the great Russian émigré theologian Fr. Georges Florovsky, and is also a professor at Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Introduction to Patristics from Logos TV America on Vimeo.

St. Cyril's Commentary on the Book of Genesis from Logos TV America on Vimeo.

A lecture on the Incarnation of Christ.

Youth Choir Weekend: Boston

2011-06-21T18:38:00.001-04:00

Note: Normally I don’t use real names in this blog, but at the request of one of my ardent readers, I will mention a few. As Mrs. Maria Kasarda told me, “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

The Boston Ball was just the beginning of an eventful three days. Twenty-odd young people converged on Boston this past weekend for a Youth Choir Weekend.

The youth life of the Eastern American Diocese is extremely healthy, perhaps due to the density of population and universities in the Northeast. The St. Herman’s conference, St. Seraphim’s camp, and other youth gatherings produce an energetic and close-knit generation. The Youth Choir is one such expression of this energy; they meet on a semi-regular basis at various parishes on the East Coast to sing. I wanted to go to previous Choir Weekends, but prior commitments in the seminary and elsewhere precluded any such plans. Thankfully, with school over I was able to make it this time. We were to sing vigil at St. Xenia’s in Methuen, and then the Sunday liturgy at Holy Epiphany in Boston.

After the Boston Ball wrapped up, and I said my good-byes to my new friends, I rode to my friend Dimitry’s house. Dimitry, who was going to direct the choir, is the son of the previously mentioned deacon. For the next two nights I would be sharing a room with two other singers: John and Alexander. Full of excitement and anticipation for the coming days, it was a wonder that I fell asleep.

I woke up earlier than expected on Saturday morning, a result of my regimen at Jordanville. John and I sat down to breakfast with Fr Deacon Alexander, who gave us a fascinating lecture on Riemannian geometry, and had us add fractions.

“What’s ⁵⁄₆ plus ⁷⁄₈?”
“Father, it’s too early in the morning for this!”

We soon departed for North Andover, where there was a park near the home of one of the children of Fr Michael, the rector of St. Xenia’s. We played soccer and hung out. After everyone was tired, hot, and hungry, we walked over to the house, where we had a lunch consisting of leftover steak from the Ball. It was a typical Summer afternoon.

We then had to head over to Methuen for practice. The basses vastly outnumbered the tenors, of which the sole representative was Alex Cooley, traveler of legend. When the time came for the service, however, Cooley was joined by a newly-graduated Ephraim. We were at first split into two choirs for antiphonal singing, but for the sake of greater cohesiveness we soon migrated to the choir loft. After Vigil some of us went to Outback Steakhouse, where the conversation was nothing short of convivial.

The next day we were in Roslindale for the liturgy. Practice paid off; I think we did quite well. And I was happy to be at Holy Epiphany again after an interval of no little duration. The frescoes are well done and include depictions of various parables, which I don’t see very often.

After the liturgy we departed to parts…unknown to me geographically, but it was a lovely home. I cooled my feet in the pool and munched on burgers and hot dogs. Since I was flying out from Boston on Monday, I had to find another place to stay on Sunday night. It turned out that I would stay with the Kasardas, of whom the second boy, John Belosselsky-Belozersky Kasarda, is an ardent reader of my blog. Mrs. Kasarda had in her youth lived in Jordanville for some time, and I listened happily to stories of old Jordanville, such as of Archimandrite Panteleimon (“He would always hold out his hand for M&M’s”). Mr. Kasarda was a very kind and affable host, and we talked quite a bit about Hawaii. My time spent at their home was not without some light entertainment, and I had time to relax and watch several movies, including (natch) “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

My stay was all too short, and I promised to come back again. Mr. and Mrs. Kasarda dropped me off in Ipswitch, where I boarded the commuter rail bound for Boston and on the way to Logan International.

In all, this past weekend was probably one of the best I’ve had this month, if not this year. I’m very grateful to my gracious hosts, and hope to return to Boston soon!

A Wicked Cool Time

2011-06-19T18:19:00.000-04:00

I was in a Greyhound bus headed to Boston, sharing the ride with the type of people you don’t usually see flying. Like Amish people. To my surprise, there was a family of them, rather smartly dressed in dark blue and purple. The father came up to the driver and asked for the A/C to be turned up.

It was an interesting prologue to what would be one of the most memorable nights of the entire year. St. Seraphim‘s Camp has a fundraiser in the form of a ball held in Boston every Summer (or so). It has since become a required entry in many a social calendar. It was my first ball; the last time I actually danced was at a wedding in January 2010.

I am an awful dancer. Despite my singing abilities, I have a bad sense of rhythm, and imagine myself to look like some kind of manic walrus on the dance floor. Plus there was going to be a live band, playing Swing music. I was apprehensive about what would transpire. Would I make a total fool of myself, or only half-a-fool? I ruminated on these and other sundry thoughts as I reclined on my seat, watching the interstate rush by.

The ride was over six hours. Thankfully, I gave my brain some rest from thinking because there was wifi on the bus. In the event of an Internet-less experience, I had also bought from, of all places, a Catholic bookstore in Utica a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. “Well, I’m going to a ball, so I might as well read about them,” went my thought process. Boston was not Netherfield, but I imagine, mutatis mutantdis, that human nature and thus social interaction had not changed terribly since Austen’s day, though times have become much more informal. “I’ve got to be amiable!” thought I.

My bus got to South Station at 5:30pm. After a brief wait, one of my friends picked me up and we drove to Watertown, where the ball was being held at the Greek church. I spent the first hour or so standing awkwardly. Thankfully, I made several cool new friends, including one who, throughout the ball, taught me some basic Swing moves. There was also a deacon, whom I count as one of the most interesting people I met, who gave me some advice on how to dance: “You have to feel the music and just get into it. Don’t think about dancing.”

Later on, he said to me: “Remember Tom Cruise from The Last Samurai? Remember when he was learning how to use the sword? The samurai leader’s son came up to him and said, ‘No mind.’ Remember that, John. No mind.”

Mindless but full of energy, I went back on the dance floor. Even if I did look spastic and vaguely walrus-like, I didn’t care. I was having fun! I It was uncommonly easy to get a dance. I ended up dancing quite a bit, and my only regret is that I didn’t ask more. Whenever the band took a break, they put on some pop classics like ”Twist and Shout,” which I thought was pretty funny since I watched Ferris Bueller not too long ago.

In sum, I met some great people, reconnected with quite a few, and had a blast of a time. The food wasn’t bad either. If you‘re going to seminary, it would be a good idea to wait a couple weeks before you escape in order to enjoy this event. It's a wicked cool time.

Summertime, and the living’s easy?

2011-06-10T13:25:00.000-04:00

Ascension is the unofficial beginning of Summer here at Jordanville. Last Thursday, I went to a fellow-seminarian’s house for some very tasty burgers, accompanied by the Brazilian national cocktail, the caipirinha.

Summertime at Jordanville is relatively relaxing for the seminarian who choses to stay. The major downside is that it can be quite lonely; most choose to go home or go traveling. This adds to another predicament: the odds of being assigned to a general obedience (altar, kitchen, kliros, etc.) go up astronomically. This week, I was assigned to serve in the altar, sing on kliros, and read for lunch and dinner in the refectory. My trip to Canada saved me from kitchen duty. And there is of course work for the bookstore, which is a relatively light schedule of four hours a day.

On top of all this, we have to prepare for the biggest feast in the Monastery: Pentecost, which in the Orthodox tradition is a three-day event. Many pilgrims will show up, which means that we have to make sure the place looks spic-and-span. Instead of posting on this blog, I should probably be getting some sleep!

Of course, despite the sometime difficulty of being assigned to do some task, it’s all part of life at the Monastery, which adds to the overall experience of being a seminarian. And there‘s still opportunity to relax and enjoy the Summer. One is free to come at go at will during vacation time, which leaves ample opportunity for ambling. Orthodox youth events such as the Boston Ball (this coming Friday) and St. Seraphim‘s Camp (July/August) also give the seminarian a chance to meet many other Orthodox young people.

There’s all that. And then there‘s just lying on the hammock…

Oh, Canada!

2011-06-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

One of the perks of being a seminarian is that you get the opportunity to meet many interesting and wonderful people. Jordanville is located in upstate New York, making most of Orthodoxy on the eastern seaboard very accessible by motor vehicle. I took one such road trip last weekend to Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian capital.

I got invited up to Ottawa for the weekend by two friends I met at the St. Herman's Conference, which last December was held here at Jordanville. On Friday, my traveling buddy drove all the way from Buffalo to pick me up at the Monastery; we then drove up into the upper reaches of the mysterious North.

Canada, contrary to popular belief, is not just “America's Hat,” but has a distinct culture and history, of which I and my Buffaloan (Buffaloite? Buffalovian?) friend have no clue. But we clearly could tell it was a foreign country by being stopped at the border checkpoint and mercilessly interrogated.

Guard: “So, what is your purpose for coming into Canada?”
My Friend: “We're here to see two girls, our friends.”
Guard: “And how did you meet these girls?”
Friend: “At a church event.”
Guard: “How would you Americans meet two Canadian girls at a church event?”
Friend: “We're in the same church!”
Guard: “I'm in a big denomination myself, and I don't go around meeting Americans!”

Things did not bode well. The border guard ordered us into the customs office. After careful questioning, we were determined not to be crazy American terrorists bent on destroying beaver dams. Our passports recovered, we arrived without further incident in Ottawa, receiving a warm welcome. Later that night, we got a short tour of downtown Ottawa, including the ByWard Market and a ludicrous number of stairs (and bear puns).

The next morning, we set out on a magical mystery tour of various architecturally significant buildings in the city, thanks to the Doors Open weekend. Our first stop was a mosque down the street from the parish. I have never been in a mosque before, so I had no idea what to expect. Upon entering (and taking off my shoes), I was struck by the bare interior of the mosque. Underneath the white dome, the walls of the mosque were whitewashed. There were no chairs or pews, but a simple carpet, and a seat in the front for the imam to give his sermons. It was as if someone had taken an Orthodox church, stripped it of all decoration and the iconostasis, and painted the walls white. (This is not without precedent.) The complete lack of decoration is in order for the worshipping Muslim to completely submit himself to an absolutely transcendent (and un-incarnate) Allah.

The next stop was the Christ the Savior Bukowinian Orthodox Church, under the Patriarch of Constantinople. We spent our time in the car wondering what a Bukowinian was; the kind priest explained that Bukovina was a part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire now split between Romania and Ukraine. We of course felt much more home at this church than at the mosque. (“I can feel the blagodat coming back to me!”) Our last stop was Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, who acts as the Queen's representative. It was as expected: beautiful, and quite regal. I was very excited to see one of Glenn Gould's pianos (not the famous CD 318, but another of his Steinways) in one of the great halls of the mansion.

After coming back to our friends’ house, we were treated to some delicious souvlaki barbecued by the paterfamilias (who also happens to be pater of the church). We played some games with the sisters and their little brother, and then prepared for the Vigil. Coming from Jordanville, I am always surprised (or is it relieved?) by the shortness of parish vigils.

After the Sunday liturgy, we wrapped up the weekend in the early afternoon. We reluctantly said good-bye to our Canadian friends, but look forward to our next visit. In the meantime, I will be praying for the fate of the Ottawa parish of the Protection of the Mother of God, which is going through some legal trouble. I am very thankful to our Canadian friends up north and their family for hosting us Americans this weekend! The experience was anything but unbearable.

School's. Out. For. Summer.

2011-05-31T17:16:00.000-04:00

Christ is Risen!

Many apologies for the very long delay in posting. It has been a very busy semester. So much has happened over the past few months and weeks that it would take a while to catch up. To make things short, I'm rather sad that the school year has finally come to an end, and am looking forward to the next installment of seminary life.

Last Sunday, we had our graduation. This year's graduating class was quite large for Jordanville: seven in all received the medallions proudly showing their status as having successfully run the gauntlet of seminary life. Quite a few more also received recognition for their academic efforts.

The real fun, however, came in the evening, at a party hosted by one of the graduates. The centerpiece was a roasting lamb, freshly killed by the man himself.

“It's winking at me,” said somebody looking at the spit.

A good time was had by all, but at the dawning of the day, I realized that I would be spending a long, hot, and lonely two weeks in the dormitory: many had already high-tailed it out of town.

Right now, I'm writing in one of the only places on site that has internet access: the attic computer lab. The unique properties of this drafty attic make it impossible to heat in the Winter or cool in the Summer, making it an additional test of endurance for seminarians who want to Skype their girlfriends. I recommend bringing a space heater and a portable fan for the former and latter cases.

But the heat and humidity are yet foretastes for my upcoming Summer plans. Yes, I am returning to Hawaii for a good portion (seven weeks) of my vacation. Afterwards, I will be in San Francisco, before briefly coming back to Jordanville before the last leg of my travels: the Holy Land.

O Lord and Master of my Life…

2011-03-14T17:28:00.000-04:00

To-talanton, to-talanton, to-talan-talan-talanton…

I awoke at five in the morning to the sounds of the mallet hitting the semandron, that ancient instrument used to rouse monks to prayer. The potent sound of wood against wood is a call to prayer: a call to rouse oneself in preparation for the long prayers during the first week of Great Lent.

At Jordanville, we begin the season of fasting with fervor, making a good beginning to the forty days leading up to the Resurrection of our Lord. During the first week everything is focused on the church. There are no classes or obediences. We eat only one meal a day, made simply, without oil. The services are long and filled with readings from the fathers, and punctuated often with the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, which encapsulates the Lenten spirit:

O Lord and Master of my life, a spirit of idleness, despondency, ambition, and idle talking give me not.
But rather a spirit of chastity, humble-mindedness, patience, and love bestow upon me Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my failings and not condemn my brother; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The first week is when a seminarian can find the time to experience all the divine services of the day. The cycle of services begins with Midnight Office at 5am (5:30am on Monday), followed by Matins, the Hours, and Vespers. There is a short break between the First and Third Hours. For the Lenten services, the choir is divided in two, and sing on the left and right klirosi of the church. At most of the services part of the Psalter is read; during the weeks of Lent the entire Psalter is read twice. Archimandrite Luke, our Abbot, comes out during each of the services and reads from such spiritual works as the Ladder of St. John of Sinai and the Lausaic History. On Wednesday and Friday, we augment Vespers with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. After Vespers, which ends around 1pm, we have lunch—the only meal of the day—which consists of boiled potatoes, vegetables, and fruit. We rest until 6pm, when we have Great Compline with the Great Canon of Repentance by St. Andrew of Crete. After this we retire in preparation for the next day, though some seminarians (myself included) go to the kitchen to relieve our hunger with a little bread.

The tradition here is for all in the community, including monastics and seminarians, to commune on Saturday morning. Although Holy Communion is given on Wednesday and Friday because of the Presanctified Liturgy, we do not usually communicate until the end of the week, making all five days a preparation. On Friday evening, we say instead of the Great Canon the Three Canons for Holy Communion, and all go to confession. On Saturday morning, we read the Canon and Prayers for Holy Communion. Through receiving the precious Body and Blood of Christ, we are then prepared for the rest of the Lent, refocusing on spiritual life and refraining from unnecessary activities, like this blog. So, this will in all likelihood be the last post before Pascha. May you have a blessed Lent. Pray for us.

Inter-Seminarian Hijinks

2011-02-28T17:59:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, a group of us went to St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary, near New York City, for a meeting of the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement, or OISM. For those of you who do not know about “St. Vlad's,” it is considered the flagship seminary of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). It has a reputation for excellent academics, among other things. OISM was formed by seminarians from different Orthodox jurisdictions, who, while sharing the same Orthodox faith, are connected to different Orthodox hierarchies due to an unfortunate historical development. The idea is that by getting together and becoming united in fellowship we can overcome various issues which separate us. There is also beer involved, in moderate amounts.

We set out from Jordanville in the middle of a snowstorm. Thankfully, the storm was very much localized, and the atmosphere cleared about an hour out of the monastery; the snowstorm only added half-an-hour to our ETA. On the way, I watched “Batman Begins” with one of my classmates. We got there, ate a hearty dinner, and settled down a bit. I was very happy to see some people I haven't seen in a while, including Abbot Gerasim, formerly of St. Herman's Monastery in Platina, who is studying at SVS.

I managed to get my own room for the night, and discovered to my delight that there was a wifi connection in the dormitory. The room itself was also quite comfortable.

That night, several of us took a short trip to Manhattan, where it was quite cold and windy, and I, hatless and hapless, strode toward Times Square rubbing my ears. Times Square itself reminded me of the time when I was in Shibuya, the ultra-hip section of Tokyo. Giant telescreens, some of which captured us on video, towered over us. Although I am prone to being distracted by shiny objects, Times Square did not take hold over me, and we soon went back to the train station.

The next day, we had liturgy in the chapel, and then a brunch featuring ham (meat!) and potatoes. Then, we had a tour of the monastery. Fr. Killian, our tour-guide, showed us around:

Fr. Killian: And there we have rooms for the single female students, an area we affectionately call the Feminary.

After the tour, we got to get french pastries from the ritzy bakery in the neighborhood, before attending a lecture by one of the professors at the seminary. Next we had an official OISM meeting (done [more-or-less] according to Robert) and chose new officials, which included one of my classmates. Then we Jordanvillians went home, due to the fact that it was a Saturday night and the Metropolitan of the Czech Lands and Slovakia was at the monastery.

The next OISM meeting will be in the Fall at Jordanville. I am looking forward to meeting all those great OISM people here!

Still Alive

2011-02-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

It's been a rather busy second semester, but here's a brief news update:

Although it's been nearly a month, I still have very fond memories of my time in San Francisco. It proved to be a very satisfying two weeks, and I hope to come back to see my friends once again.
This Saturday, we first-years will be going to St. Nektarios Monastery in Roscoe, NY. St. Nektarios is one of Elder Ephraim's monasteries, so I'm very much looking forward to making a pilgrimage.
Next weekend, I am also going to St. Vladimir's Seminary for a meeting of the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement. This is my first OISM event, and I will of course be covering it in this blog. ("What's OISM?" you may ask. Well, dear reader, that will have to wait until the update!)
I also have been writing articles for the Seminary website. My last update was on our patronal feast-day (and my semi-namesday) of the Three Holy Hierarchs.

More to come!

New Semester!

2011-02-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

It's the middle of the second week, so it's a little odd to have a “New Semester” post right now. But since I was preoccupied during the first week with not setting myself on fire in the altar, I haven't had much time to do anything productive in regards to this blog. Today our Russian teacher is snowed in, which means we don't have class until 10, thus giving me opportunity for this post.

Besides, the final class schedule was not actually finalized until yesterday. The new schedule switches around the classes a little bit, allowing us a little more study time before lunch. Last semester it was six hours; now it is eight. Unlike most universities, here at Jordanville we don't have electives, and it's pretty hard to change the schedule to please everyone. For example, Mondays last semester was free in the mornings for me, because I didn't have to take the scheduled English classes. Now that Church Slavonic and Russian start at 8, my fellow classmates have to now get used to my groggy face.

Patristic Anthropology was shifted to the afternoons (thus giving us two more hours before lunch) which means that more students can take the class. We first years are now joined by the fifth years, which should make the questions more interesting.

Meanwhile, we are stuck in the middle of a on-again, off-again snowstorm, and I am not-so-eagerly awaiting the day when I'm assigned to shovel snow.

Preliminary Remarks on Serving in the Altar (2)

2011-01-31T09:47:00.000-05:00

Last week I served in the altar. It also happened to be the first week of classes. Here are some new things I've picked up:

If you are closest to the curtain, you are expected to open and close it at the correct times, including: before the beginning of sixth hour, at the exclamation of "The doors, the doors!" and before communion.
When in doubt, pay attention to what the other altar server is doing, especially if you are outside the sanctuary. During the times you are entering the altar, make sure to match the movement/speed of the other server.
From the beginning of the Anaphora to the end of "It is truly meet," drop everything you're doing and quietly pray with the priest.
Also make sure to be very quiet and not distract the priest when he's communing.
And remember: Don't Panic!

Hitting the Ground Running

2011-01-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

Last week Thursday, I returned to Jordanville from San Francisco. I had a wonderful time there with friends old and new, but it feels great to be back. Actually, right now I'm feeling more of a fatigue, because I was assigned to serve this week from Monday to Saturday. That means getting up every morning at five and stumbling through the Divine Liturgy.

The semester also started, so that means that I don't have much time to update until things calm down this weekend…but wait! I was also assigned to clean the basement on Saturday. And of course there's Saturday night vigil and Sunday liturgy…well, I'm sure there's time somewhere for an update. Right?

Съ нами Богъ!

2011-01-09T20:26:00.000-05:00

One of the most trying times for a seminarian, in my inexperienced opinion, is the period leading up to a great feast; the Home Stretch. For all Christians, there are of course temptations, but at a monastery, they seem to be especially magnified. Thankfully, by the time the feast comes along, everything is okay in the end.

After winter exams and before the Nativity of Our Lord we seminarians have to do a number of things in preparation for the feast. One of them is cleaning, known throughout the seminary as uborka, which my Serbian friend says sounds like the name of a scary Russian lady.

For my uborka, I was first assigned to clean and wax the monastic quarters, but then I got transferred over to cleaning the Seminary hall, which was relatively easy. However, I then found out that I also had to do the monastic quarters after all. Since we worked in teams, it turned out that the time that was most convenient for us was the night before Christmas Eve, or rather the very early morning thereof. We worked through the night, and (kinda) finished sometime around two in the morning. I went to my bed exhausted, and (un)fortunately slept through the liturgy of Christmas Eve.

That day, I also was assigned to work in the kitchen, where I managed to make the salad all by myself. According to Orthodox custom, on Christmas Eve we don't eat until nightfall, or specifically when the first star appears in the sky. I was working on an empty stomach, sustained only by a cup of juice or two. However, thanks be to God, people who work in the kitchen usually don't get very hungry, and I managed to work, standing up, for four hours preparing the festal meal.

After supper (which consisted of vegetables, mashed potatoes, soup, my salad, and kutia, a mixture of boiled wheat grains, raisins, and nuts) we went to church to serve the vigil service, which was a combination of Great Compline and Matins. It was another four hours of mostly standing; I was singing in the choir.

I was, to say the least, a bit tired. But then we sang the triumphal words:

God is with us!

Understand, O ye nations,

And submit yourselves,

For God is with us!

And then I began to feel that the Nativity was here, that the forty days of fasting and preparation were coming to an end, and that the time for celebrating the Incarnation of the Word made flesh was finally here. The suffering, the temptation, and the falls became as nothing. For God is with us!

Christ is born, glorify Him!

End-of-Semester Reflections

2011-01-01T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Orthodox Church actually begins her year with September 1, following the tradition of the Byzantine Empire. Russia also rung in the new year in September until Peter the Great, who moved the date of the civil new year to January 1. As an Orthodox seminarian, I didn't quite feel the same way was most of you all in the secular world. Nevertheless, we did have last night a short prayer service (moleben) for the beginning of the civil new year.

One thing that still remains with me psychologically is the sense of the new year being a blank slate, an opportunity for renewal. So, taking advantage of the new year, I will wax reminiscent about the last semester.

I entered Jordanville with a great deal of expectations and fears, mostly involving getting up at 5:30 in the morning. My original intention was actually just to stay for two years and move on to whatever comes next. Whatever the case, my entire life seemed to be shifting gears and changing course.

When I got here, I quickly realized that coming here had not automatically changed me, and the Uncreated Light didn't suddenly burst out of my face the day I stepped into my dorm-room. The same thing applied to my schoolmates: everyone was here with their own strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes they got on my nerves, and sometimes I got on theirs. But in the end, I think of my fellow seminarians as “a happy few,” a band of brothers.

Academically, I did fine, though I'm still waiting on my grades. Socially, I have to interact with people on a regular basis, something I haven't really done before. And I think I'm doing okay. Spiritually? Oh, I can't be good with judging myself in that department. However, I will say that I feel better off here than anywhere else. So much for my planned brief sojourn—God willing, I will be here for a few years more.

In a few days, we will be celebrating the Nativity of our Lord. May His light guide you throughout this new year.

Orthodox Elders (Youtube Playlist)

2010-12-30T13:54:00.001-05:00

I spent some time searching for videos of Orthodox elders in English. Greek, Romanian, and Serbian elders are represented here. I haven't found any Russian elders on Youtube, but I'll add them when they come available.

I also include a 5-part documentary on the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos.

Special Report: St. Herman's Youth Conference 2010

2010-12-29T12:44:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, 150 young people of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad descended on Holy Trinity Monastery for the annual St. Herman's Youth Conference (or, as we just call it, Syezd). I was on official assignment at the conference as one of the English correspondents; our collaborative efforts resulted in this (partially complete) news update. Since all the main details (and lots of pictures) from the conference are on the Seminary website, I'll give my inside perspective on what went down at the conference.

I went to last year's conference in Methuen, but I had a rough night staying at the hotel and was surrounded by unfamiliar faces; I ended up leaving early. So, I was pretty stoked for this year's conference, especially since I didn't have to go anywhere.

Friday
There wasn't much social interaction on Friday, which was dominated mainly by eating supper and going to Matins for St. Herman. At dinner, we had the usual trapeza fare, which was (no offense to the cook) a little disappointing, somewhat like having turkey sandwiches on Thanksgiving. However, later on I tagged along with Ephraim and went to the hotel, where they had very, very delicious cookies baked by Natalia.

Saturday
The morning liturgy was very nice, and it was a pleasure hearing so many young voices fill our church. After the liturgy, Vladika Gabriel gave a short welcome address to all of us, including the immortal lines: “There are 150 of you, and I hope to see 75 marriages.”

Lunch was provided by the conference, and it was pretty good and Chinese-y. Then we met in the seminary hall, where Fr. Seraphim Gan gave a great lecture on the symbolism of the wedding ceremony, using two volunteers (who happened to be related). In the course of the presentation, he suddenly whirled around and pointed to the first seminarian he could see: me.

Fr. Seraphim: “What does a ring symbolize?”
Me: (deer-in-headlights look) “Uhhhhhhhhhh ETERNITY!!!!”
Fr. Seraphim: “Yes!!!”

Dodged a bullet there.

Later on, when it was time for discussions, I had to sneak out with Anthony to write up the latest update for the website. Coming back, I kind of floated around the discussion groups, stopping at one when I randomly heard the words: “This guy had his thumb bit off in a fight…”

Sunday
On Sunday, we used the Liturgy of St. James*, which was very different from the liturgies we use today. The first thing I noticed was the deacons facing the people while doing the litanies, perhaps a leftover from the congregational singing of ancient times. Vladika was dressed in a phelonion and omophorion, making him look like an ancient bishop. Apparently, the altar was pretty chaotic, but I'm sure that hardly anyone really noticed.

After the lectures, we had free time. I was being pulled in multiple directions, because I had to both man the book kiosk and write updates. But, I managed to make it to the Face in the Snow competition being held outside.

The rules of the competition are simple. No hats or gloves. Pious girls can wear a headscarf. Put your face and hands in the snow. Last one to get up wins. I felt that I had to represent Hawaii, and was one of the first to raise my hand to volunteer. I lasted for about a minute, the others, for nearly six. It took a while for the feeling to return to my fingers.

Later, we hopped in cars and went to Cooperstown for some Christmas caroling (half-price because it was the day after Western Christmas). Gathering in a warm coffee shop, I made some new friends, and sipped hot cider.

That night, we hung out at the hotel, where we played a great many party games, my favorite being Silent Ninja. The Russians taught us some Greek dancing, and we also did some other activities designed to tire us out.

Monday
We had the usual sandwich of lecture-discussion-lecture, but before that we had a tour of the monastery, meeting in the seminary hall. On the way, I took some people down through the not-so-creepy basement. It was only later on that I found out that girls weren't allowed down there. Oops! After the tour, we met again in the hall, where Fr. Roman gave a really interesting talk about how his spiritual father, Archimandrite Cyprian the iconographer, would chew him out over his choice of music, among other things.

I was rushing around before the banquet in a mad dash to wrap some presents for friends. I went, presents and all, to the Radisson. After having the usual hotel fare, we were treated to three hours of talent show. Some acts were good, some were really, really good, and some left me scratching my head. One of my favorite acts was the rendition of “Traveling Soldier” by Jojo and Daria, as well as Misha's creative recital of “Jabberwocky.” I was also drafted at the last minute to do “Wagon Wheel” with Anthony and Sergei.

The last act was a send-up of “Amen,” which appeared in the film “Lilies of the Field,” entitled “Amin.” Three seminarians (and one graduate) came up and sang some great verses, including:

Eating more potatoes (Amin)
Gotta find a bigger belt (Amin!)
Gonna be a deacon! (Amin! Amin! Amen!)

The next day, as I was walking to the Computer Lab to complete one of my papers, I noticed a little reminder of the good times we had, and composed this post-Syezd haiku:

An empty courtyard.
Traces remain in the snow
Of faces and hands.

All in all, this year's Syezd was really memorable, and it felt like a pilgrimage as well, owing to its location. I am very glad to have made new friends, and am looking forward to next year in Ottawa (God willing) so I can see you all!

*Usually done only on the feast of St. James (October 23). Because of all the preparation needed to do this liturgy, it was postponed until the Syezd.

It's the most (?!?) wonderful time of the year.

2010-12-21T10:35:00.000-05:00

The (outdated) Schedule of Exams.

The second half of December is set aside for final exams. The schedule presents no big surprises: almost all the finals begin at 9 o'clock in the morning.* All the seminarians gather in the seminary hall and sit in order of seniority: the first-years on the far right, and the fifth-years on the far left. After singing “O Heavenly King,” the watchful proctors then distribute our exams, which we are given three hours to complete.

Exams can be a stressful time, especially for seminarians taking advanced subjects. However, we only have exams on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Moreover, we are freed for the most part from our regular obediences and other obligations that would hinder our study time. Thus, we actually end up with a lot of free time on our hands. This can be either a good or a bad thing. It seems that it has increased the number of posts on this blog!

As of this writing, I have completed all but one of my exams, though I have two term papers to complete. Soon, my thoughts will be turning to other things–to the upcoming St. Herman's Conference, and to a visit out West!

*Classes which have a mix of students from different years have exams in the afternoon.

Вечная память: Archimandrite Joasaph (McLellan)

2010-12-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Fr. Joasaph (then Reader Joseph) at the Summer School of Liturgical Music.

Today marks the first anniversary of the repose of Archimandrite Joasaph McLellan, the former head of the Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. Fr. Joasaph graduated from Jordanville in the 80s, and then went on to graduate studies at Brown University, becoming an expert in Church Slavonic (and singing in an a capella group). He then had a successful academic career, while at the same time teaching at the Summer School for Liturgical Music. Later in life he was tonsured a monk, made an archimandrite, and sent to Jerusalem. Soon, however, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, which he endured for a brief time before falling asleep in the Lord.

I knew Fr. Joasaph from taking his classes in Church Slavonic and Typikon at the Summer School. Fr. Joasaph was a very good teacher, and I consider his influence and example one of the major reasons why I am studying here at Jordanville. May his memory be eternal!

Free Stuff I Found (1)

2010-12-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

I've developed a knack for finding stuff on the Free Table. For example, I found this navy pea coat about a month ago; it keeps me toasty warm.

About a week ago, Fr. Cyprian (our dorm inspector) ordered that the attic be cleaned out, and that everything piling up in it should be divided among the students. There were quite a few books, including this Medieval art book. However, this was nothing compared to what my classmate found: an entire encyclopedia set!

However, I think my favorite find (again from the attic) are these leather boots, which I believe are actually Russian military boots. I tested them out in church, and they turned out to be very comfortable, providing even support for my feet. And my posture's improved as well! All these need are a little touch-up, and they'll be good as new.

Thanksgiving in Vacationland (3)

2010-12-08T14:25:00.000-05:00

Note 1: For the first two days of my trip, I kept a meticulous diary of events. However, for the Maine part of my journey, I had little time to sit down and record what happened. So, what follows is a short account of the rest of my Thanksgiving. Which is good, because we're just a month away from Christmas!
Note 2: Again, for the purpose of maintaining privacy (from Google) I've changed some of the names. Even though, really now, it's pretty obvious who these people are.

Days 3–7: The Last Homely House

“…a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.” –Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring

The next morning, we awoke, had breakfast, and engaged in a long and fascinating discussion with Fr. Alexander, which included references to Kurt Gödel, St. Gregory Palamas, and apophatic theology. This conversation induced my brain to engage in morning calisthenics. As the sun passed its high point, we began to begin the process of departing, though this time we did not follow the Russian tradition of sitting on our bags. Fr. Alex led us with his car to the Field where the Shot Heard Round the World was fired, though nowadays it looks quite tranquil.

He then followed us to the Interstate, where we parted ways. Now was the last leg of our journey North. Several hours later, we encountered a sign saying: “Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be.” Coming from the Aloha State, I was quite skeptical. However, it did not take too long to convince me!

About an hour later we arrived at the Woodlawn homestead. The warmly-lit house, which looked as if blanketed in mist, prompted me to utter: “I feel like I've arrived at Rivendell!”

We entered to a fine welcome, and thus began the first of many moments we shared at that house. There are too many of them to describe them all, but they include:

Feeding chickens (and picking one up!)
Going on walks and watching for wild turkeys and pheasants
Seeing a bald eagle for the first time
Watching “Gilligan's Island” with the family
Of course, Thanksgiving!
Celebrating my namesday (St. John Chrysostom) with my dear friends
Attending and singing vigil and liturgy at the parish

Right now, I'm fighting the urge to turn this post into a novel, so I will stop here. This trip may seem somewhat tangential to seminary life, but it just goes to show that as a seminarian, you have the opportunity to meet and befriend many interesting and wonderful people. I am very thankful to the three families with whom I had the pleasure of spending my Thanksgiving vacation, and I look forward to the time when I can meet them again.

Icicles

2010-12-07T11:48:00.000-05:00

Although I've been through a little Winter in Japan, and got a taste of it on the East Coast, I've never really seen icicles, much less these huge things which grow on the sides of our dormitory.

Yesterday, I broke off one of them. Here it is on the kitchen counter, with my hand to show how big it is. Actually, this is more medium-sized.

While I took pictures of the icicles, I also practiced for my Church Music I test this afternoon. Fr. Roman is having us do all of Tone 2.

Monday Morning Photos

2010-12-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome, General Winter, to your new home.

This is the first evening prayer, in Church Slavonic. For my homework, I have to know and recite this by heart. For our final exam, we have to be able to recite from memory a number of church prayers.

Thanksgiving in Vacationland (2)

2010-12-04T18:02:00.000-05:00

Day 2 - Manhattan to Massachusetts

We awoke the next morning, collected our stuff, and drove North to Manhattan. Our plan was to attend Liturgy at the Synodal Cathedral, because a recent seminary grad, Sergio Silva, was being ordained a deacon.

Parking in Manhattan, even on a Sunday, seems to be very hard to find. Even the paid parking lot that Big Jack frequently uses was full. So, we resorted to appealing to divine intervention. And the heavenly answer was not long in coming–we found a parking space just two blocks away from Synod, right on 5th Avenue next to Central Park.

If one didn't notice the sign saying "Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia" one could easily mistake the building for any common mansion, which it basically was. We entered rather awkwardly through the kliros, which was in an adjoining space next to the nave, which was actually a converted ballroom. We sang with the choir. I was happy to sing with Anatoly Ivanovich Panchoshny, who was my vocal teacher in the music summer school.

After the liturgy, we congratulated Fr. Sergio (who, as of this writing, has just been ordained a priest) and then proceeded to the trapeza, where we sat and listened to speeches about Metropolitan Philaret.

It was soon time to get going, so we went back to the car and put away our podryasniks. Jack taught me a special way to fold a cassock, which will make for a good post. Then, we started walking through Central Park.

It was my first time in Central Park, not to mention Manhattan. I was completely bowled over by the sheer scale of the park, as well as how accommodating it was to all the people walking therein. It was a nice, sunny afternoon, and we got to see all sorts of talented individuals on our walk. There were some black street performers who called themselves the “Afrobats” as well as a very talented young boy who could juggle while riding a unicycle.

It was getting late, so we had to start hitting the road again. Big Jack got invited by a Russian family in Massachusetts, the Donskoys, to have Thanksgiving dinner with them. Jack graciously declined, but asked if we could stay the night. So, we started the four-hour drive. This time, we took the scenic route, making sure the GPS had us avoid toll roads. It turned out to be a rather nice drive. On the way, we listened to Glenn Gould play Bach's French Suites. Pretty soon, we were in Concord.

Fr. and Mrs. Donskoy welcomed us with open arms. Over a steaming hot bowl of chili, Fr. Alex regaled us with various stories, including the tale of how "Silent Night" came to be written in a secluded Alpine town. I was becoming very exhausted, so he lent me his arm to lean on. I took a shower, got ready for bed, and went to sleep a little after 11:30 pm.

Thanksgiving in Vacationland (1)

2010-12-02T11:12:00.000-05:00

Note: In keeping with my personal blogging philosophy, I have changed some of the names to protect the innocent...and the guilty!

Day 1 - Jordanville to JFK

The air was crisp, the day was fine, and I woke up way too early for my own good. I was excited because we were going to embark on an epic road trip across several states along the eastern seaboard. Our final destination was somewhere in Southern Maine, but first we had to go South in order to drop off our friend Tom Woodlawn, who was going to give a presentation on Pushkin somewhere in the frozen side of Europe.

So, we set off: Tom, Big Jack (a fifth-year), and me. We drove five hours, through quaint Upstate New York towns, and into the heart of New York City. The tension level increased accordingly, especially because we were having difficulties finding a place to stay, and it was starting to get dark. I resigned myself to the fate of having to go back to Jordanville, at least for that night. Meanwhile, Big Jack and I dropped off Tom at JFK International, and prayed that he would travel safely, and that they would not make Minsk-meat out of him.

Living on a prayer, we started South, to New Jersey, where a priest-friend of Jack's lived. After some lively back-and-forth before and after we dropped off Tom at the airport, Jack's friend, Fr. Seraphim, got us some accomodations at his parish in Howell. So, about an hour and a half after we dropped off Anthony we arrived at St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

Finally, I thought, time to get some rest! After nearly eight hours of sitting in a car, I was ready to crash. But then, I checked the time: it was six o'clock. Time for Vigil!

We went up to the choir loft of the beautifully-frescoed church, and stood and sang for about two-and-a-half hours, which actually gave some remedy to all the sitting we did. After the Vigil, Fr. Valery, the venerable protopresbyter and rector of the parish, had us do a pannikhida for Metropolitan Philaret, whose 25th anniversary of his repose was the following day.

That night, we ate supper at Fr. Seraphim's, and met his amiable family. His sister-in-law Tanya served us a very delicious meal, and we spent our evening chatting about seminary life. In particular, Tanya told us about some marital advice she recieved from one of our protodeacons:

Tanya: He told me to line up all the guys I'm interested in, and pick the one with the shined shoes.
Jack: But how are you going to line up all those guys?
Me: Call the police!

When it was time for Big Jack and I to rest, we were shown to our guest rooms in the Russian School with some bedding. The first day was eventful, but it was merely the beginning of our saga.

εὐχαριστία

2010-11-20T08:28:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

I'm going to be out for the next week on an extended holiday for Thanksgiving. I hope that you all have a joyful Thanksgiving, being grateful for all that God has given you.

John

3 days. 2 seminarians. 100 books. Gallons of honey.

2010-11-18T11:11:00.000-05:00

I went on a book-selling junket last weekend to Mayfield, Pennsylvania. My senior colleague in the bookstore chose me to help him load the van and convince the residents of Northeastern Pennsylvania to unload their wallets. So, we drove three scenic hours south to Mayfield, where St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral was having their annual Christmas Bazaar.

The cathedral is one of the oldest Orthodox parishes in the United States, formed in 1878 by Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants. At first an Eastern Rite Catholic parish, the hostility of local Roman Catholics led to the church's acceptance into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1903. St. John's parishioners helped establish St. Tikhon's Monastery. Since the two monks that founded our monastery were from St. Tikhon's, one could say that St. John's is like Jordanville's spiritual grandfather!

After arriving at the church, we hauled in our goods (mainly books and honey) into the parish hall. Our booth was located right next to a kielbossa [sic] maker's. “Iskushenie [temptation],” I kept saying, as it was a Friday night. The sausage-maker was apparently an old friend of Metropolitan Herman of the OCA, and his business card bore the epithet “The Picasso of Kielbossa.” After the bazaar closed down, we were welcomed by the local parish priest and his son in the parish house, where we feasted on leftovers from that night's dinner and settled down for some R&R.

The next day moved on steadily. I got to sing that evening for Great Vespers in the church. The interior of the parish is quite striking, and reminiscent of 19th century Russian Church interiors. The high ceiling provides perfect acoustics for the choir, which sing very beautifully. After Vespers, I returned to our booth, which my colleague was manning for the both of us. Before we closed shop, we had several interesting theological conversations with a Maronite Catholic concerning the Immaculate Conception and a Pentecostal bathroom remodeling salesman. Apparently, Pentecostal services need to have three, not two or four (five is right out), messages in “tongues”, with interpreters. Glossolalic discussions finished, we returned to the house to rest. Or at least one of us did; my sensitivity to sounds caused me to stay up to early morning, to no little consternation.

On Sunday, we both went to Matins in the morning (what a concept!) and then Divine Liturgy, and sang both services. Although it was a short business day, the presence of parishioners and a sudden attack of gregariousness on our part led to decent sales. As we finally packed up, we were gifted with many, many, boxes of food from the kindly church ladies, who even gave us green beans because we were growing boys. Thus we left with the fleshpots of Mayfield.

Many thanks to all the wonderful people in Mayfield, especially Fr. John Sorochka and his family!

A Day in the Life of a Seminarian: Classes

2010-11-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

This part of a seminarian's day is probably one of the most varied, since of course he has different classes each day. For example, I'm able to write this post because I don't have to take English, and thus have free time until 10 am. But, I will try to draw a little sketch of what classes are like.

Our seminary building is two-storied, with a basement. On the first floor is a large hall, used for choir practice, lectures, and the like. On the second floor are the classrooms and offices. The basement is mainly taken up by our library. The second floor has classrooms for each of the years of seminary. We first-years stay in one room basically the entire year, while the teachers move around. The rooms are big enough to fit all of us (and a few more) comfortably, while small enough to prevent anyone from hiding or sleeping.

Here's a selection of our classes:

Russian I: Natch. We have Russian every day, including scheduled ~~Facebook checking~~ independent study hours in the library.
Church Slavonic I: Actually takes up a good deal of my time, since we have to memorize parts of the Small Compline service. Помилуй мя, Боже...
Russian History: A prelude to the Russian Church History classes. Fr. Andrei Psarev leads us through Russian History from Ryurik through Rachmaninoff. Also, there are many interesting side-conversations, mostly involving monastic footwear, coming from one of our more animated classmates.
Patristic Anthropology: Our professor, Fr. George Dragas, a disciple of Fr. George Florovsky and one of the greatest living Orthodox theologians, presents the anthropological view of the Church Fathers, a great deal of which is over my head. Fr. George is rector of a Greek parish in Boston, and a professor of the seminary there, which means he is with us only once a fortnight. I was going to make a reference to My Big Fat Greek Wedding*, but that would be too clichéd.

Most of our class-hours in the first year are devoted to Russian, which I should be studying now. For the next post in this series, I will write about the afternoon.

*They should make more movies with Orthodox people in them, because I'm starting to get tired of references to the Greek origin of the word “kimono.”

Forget about it!

2010-11-02T17:29:00.000-04:00

I found this little gem in one of my many old (and hopefully forgotten) blogs. Fr. Michael Pomazansky was one of the greatest theologians to have taught at Jordanville. His magnum opus Orthodox Dogmatic Theology is still required reading for seminarians. Fr. Michael reposed several days shy of his hundredth birthday.

Like everything in the world, our human nature is wisely constructed. We are capable of acquiring and preserving knowledge, and we are capable of forgetting. Often even forgetfulness is useful and laudable.

Have you met with failure? Don't be too long in lamenting. Forget it! Chalk it up as a lesson for the future.

You lost something and can't find it? In this transitory world there's nothing eternal. Forget it!

Someone offended you without cause, they hurt your feelings? Don't let your memory hang onto it. Humble yourself; it will be good for you. You have a bad habit? In our souls a constant process of renewal is in effect. Determine to turn away from your bad habit and nature itself will help you to forget it.

Are you troubled or attracted by seductive memories or desires? Join your heart to the words of the prayer: "Guard me, O Lord, from vain thoughts and evil desires"... It will be fulfilled, and you will forget them.

Forgetting what is useless, acquire positive knowledge and preserve it. Don't think: I'll never find that useful. "Give here that bit of rope; even a bit of rope can come in handy" (from Gogol's Inspector General). In the course of your life each item in the storehouse of your memory will prove useful, even if it's only once.

Look ahead. Choose what's best. Think of that moral countenance which you would like to see on yourself in the last decade of your life. You've heard a lot of what is good, and you've read a fair amount. If you're acquainted with Church history, imagine to yourself the images of those people whom you find most attractive and close to your soul by nature. Don't strive to race ahead prematurely.

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. (Phil. 3:13)

Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky

Special Report: The Iveron-Hawaii Icon visits Jordanville

2010-11-01T11:55:00.001-04:00

Last weekend, a miraculous icon of the Mother of God visited our monastery. This icon, which came from such an unlikely place as Hawaii, began streaming myrrh three years ago. With an ecclesiastical blessing, the icon has been traveling, with its guardian, Reader Nectarios Yangson, to many parishes in North America.

The timing was quite auspicious: yesterday was the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, as well as the namesday of our abbot, Archimandrite Luke. Also, it was the anniversary of the death of Jose Muñoz-Cortes, who was the guardian of the Montreal Icon of the Mother of God. This icon, of which the Hawaiian icon is a copy, also streamed myrrh and visited parishes. Thus, the stage was set for a very busy and intense weekend.

The weekend began with a panikhida (memorial service) for Br. Jose, served by Metropolitan Hilarion, our church's chief prelate. A whole busload of pilgrims from Washington DC surrounded the grave, and sang the refrains in the panikhida: Grant rest, O Lord, to the soul of Thy servant who has fallen asleep! Many of these pilgrims venerate Br. Jose as a martyr, on account of his violent murder in Athens.

Several hours later, the icon came to the church for the Vigil. It was met outside by the priests and acolytes, and was escorted inside to the singing of hymns. A moleben was sung, and then Vigil started. I was in the kliros* with the rest of the choir, so my view of the congregation behind me was obscured. However, I could see that the church was quite packed.

Since both the Icon and our First Hierarch were present for this Vigil, it was destined to be a very long and elaborate service. Fr. Roman, our choirmaster, chose the most beautiful pieces befitting the Mother of God, including a Bogoroditse Dyevo (O Mother of God and Virgin…) arranged by Archimandrite Matfei, and a Great Doxology harmonized from the znamenny chant by Chesnokov. The beauty of the service kept us energized until the end of the Vigil, around 11 pm.

The next day, I was assigned to help prepare food in the kitchen. Since there were about 200 people to be served, it was a very physically demanding task. I worked from about 6:30am to nearly 3pm, with some pausing for breakfast and lunch. Among the things I did were: setting tables, cutting fish, and washing extremely large pots and pans. The sinks that we use for washing big pots got clogged-up at one point, and attempts to unplug one sink would just push the excess water into the other. So, with the help of my friend and co-worker, we used two plungers for both sinks, unplugging the drains. I looked outside. It was snowing!

Lunch was successfully served on time. Afterwards, Fr. Luke had a short reception in his office for his namesday; the Icon was also brought there. Because of the long day, I had to take some rest, but I got up in time to go to the upper cemetery for another service in front of the icon.

The next day, the icon was present for liturgy, but then it had to go to Utica for their parish feast. I said goodbye to Reader Nectarios, who had given me some icons for distribution.

This weekend was very long and tiring, but ultimately very grace-filled. The Hawaiian myrrhstreaming icon was a very important factor in my conversion to Orthodoxy, and I am very happy to see it again. Please remember in your prayers our little parish in Honolulu, and especially Reader Nectarios.

*A partitioned section outside the sanctuary where the choir sings.

Preliminary Remarks on Serving in the Altar

2010-10-30T16:33:00.000-04:00

This past week, I was assigned to serve in the church altar from Monday through Saturday. It was the first time in my life that I had ever served as an acolyte (altar boy) in any Orthodox church.

Acolytes are an important part of Orthodox worship. They help the priest and deacons move gracefully through the service, making it easier for everyone to pray. An incompetent altar server is worse than none for a priest. Of course, since it was my first time, I was very nervous: what if I forget to hand over the censer? What if I trip over myself going down the stairs? What if I set myself on fire?

Well, the last one was not likely, though not impossible. I was still a little worried. Thankfully, seminarians are assigned in pairs to serve during the week, and I had several, more experienced people telling me what to do.

Seminarians usually are assigned to serve once a semester, for the morning liturgies. Among their main tasks:

Arrive 30 minutes before the liturgy begins, which means 5:30 am. This actually improved my sleeping schedule, since I had to stick to consistent sleep-wake times.
Read as many Russian names as possible for the commemoration. Parishioners usually leave lists of names to pray for, either in books or on slips. The names, written in Russian cursive, can be quite hard for gringos like me to decipher, but by the end of the week I was doing all right.
Cut prosphora (blessed bread) into bite-size pieces.*
Carry out candles at the proper times.
Light the charcoal in the censer, place incense in the censer, and give it to the priest/deacon at the appropriate times.
Generally follow whatever the priest/deacon/senior people tell them to do.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Acolytes need to also be practically unnoticeable; otherwise it will again be distracting. They kind of remind me of the black-garbed stagehands in kabuki, who come out into the scenes, but because of their graceful, inconspicuous behavior, fade into the background.

For me, serving in the altar is a very humbling experience; seven-year-olds serve in the altar better than I do! But the altar is a remarkable and holy place, and those who serve humbly and reverently receive a great reward.

*This is different from the actual communion bread, which is cut by the priest himself. The people receive bread at the end of the Orthodox liturgy. As this was traditionally for those who did not receive Holy Communion, it is referred to “antidoron” or “instead of the gifts”.

A Day in the Life of a Seminarian: Early Morning

2010-10-20T14:56:00.000-04:00

There's no such thing as a typical day for a Jordanville seminarian; every day, though having the same basic structure, has its own unique challenges. Moreover, these challenges vary from person to person. Here I present my own basic early morning schedule, based on a whole month-and-a-half of experience.

The first thing I usually hear in the morning is the sound of a bell and a light knock on my door, the customary wake-up call in the dorm. The bell-and-knock, considered by some to be the bane of their existence, actually seems to be too gentle for some people. I usually acknowledge the reveille by turning over in bed.

What really gets me up (after several hits of the snooze button) is my cell-phone alarm, set to a funky ringtone. It's about 5:45 am or so, which makes me a little late for Liturgy. Oh well: I throw on my podryasnik and coat, and brave the elements.

Divine liturgy is served nearly every day at Jordanville. In former times, seminarians had to attend Liturgy every day; now, we only have to attend every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, along with (naturally) the Sunday Liturgy.* On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we can get up around 7 am and attend communal prayers in the dormitory hall. This new schedule has its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, we might be losing spiritual benefit from not attending Liturgy every day. On the other hand, the extra hour does give us the chance to catch up on sleep, which, like money, is a dear commodity for a seminarian.

The length of the liturgy depends on the priest serving, but usually it ends around 7:15. The language of worship is Church Slavonic. Recently, I've been singing on kliros, despite my novice abilities in the language. Singing, besides its spiritual benefits, helps a sleepy seminarian stay alert.

After the liturgy, we then go to breakfast in the trapeza (refectory). Breakfast is usually hot and cold cereal with milk. We also have bread, cheese, and if people are getting fancy, french toast and the like. On fasting days, we get rid of everything dairy and have soy milk instead.

Having written all this, I realize that my day seems a little busy in the morning. However, this is just the beginning...

* Of course, if one is assigned to serve in the altar during the week, he has to get up early every day.

Raindrops on Roses

2010-10-11T16:46:00.000-04:00

I‘ll admit it: I‘m feeling sentimental.

Here at Jordanville, we seminarians have to live a relatively simple life, free of the fetters of much of what modern society has to offer, like Youtube, wifi, and medium-rare prime rib. Of course, our lives aren‘t easy—we have many of the same trials and temptations that everyone has. But, when I feel depressed, I turn to many of the simple things that I‘ve learned to enjoy, such as:

The pulsing ring of the bells at Matins.
The taste of fresh bread.
Cherry tomatoes.
A quiet walk to the Cross on the hill.
Incense.
Understanding something Lev Ivanovich says.
The fresh taste of Jordanville tap-water.
In-jokes with friends.

Nope, never a dull moment.

Five-Finger Discount

2010-10-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

Let's say you move to Jordanville from somewhere more tropical than not, like (for the sake of example) Hawaii. And, like most other residents of the 50th State, you have no idea what it means for there to be 12 feet, let alone 12 inches, of snow. So, you bring a jacket, maybe a coat, but lack some other essentials, like gloves, a hat, scarves, snow shoes, etc.

Of course, you can go to the local Wal-Mart or other sporting goods store to get these things. But you're a seminarian, which means that money does not come easy. Never fear: the free table is here!

The free table is a long-standing Jordanville tradition. Locals drop off unneeded items for the benefit of the brotherhood, including:

Books (spiritual works, etc.)
Winter coats and jackets
Gloves
Lamps
Unused socks and toothbrushes (Before the owner realizes it's a free table!)
Nail clippers (like 20 of them)
Prayer ropes
A telephone
And much, much more!

Warning: do not leave items on the free table if you do not want a monk or seminarian to take them within thirty seconds.

Before Thy Cross…

2010-09-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

On this day, 1,675 years ago, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was dedicated. The Holy Cross, upon which hung Him Who hung the earth upon the waters, was taken outside the church and venerated by the faithful. Three centuries later, the Byzantine emperor Heraclitus recovered the Cross from the Persians, who had captured it in battle. Today, we celebrate these two events with the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

The Exaltation, one of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church, is unique in that it includes a special ceremony at the end of the Vigil service where the main officiating priest raises and lowers a cross five times, literally exalting it, while the chanters sing “Lord, have mercy” a hundred times each. Rose water is poured over the cross (which includes a relic of the True Cross) while it is being exalted.

Also on this day, 1,603 years ago, Archbishop John of Constantinople, called Chrysostom, died in exile in Armenia. His last words at the end of his via dolorosa were “Glory to God for all things.” However, since he reposed on a major feast, his feast-day (and my namesday) is on November 13/26.

Today also happens to be my birthday. However, since the Exaltation of the Cross is a fast day (which means no meat or milk) the celebration of my birthday is transferred (like my namesday) to the next non-fasting day after the Exaltation.

That would be hard to explain to the waitresses at Applebee’s, however.

Somebody's gotta do it.

2010-09-22T17:36:00.000-04:00

It has been two weeks since classes started. We seminarians are starting to get into the groove. And we're already making quick escapes into town. Pretty soon we'll be stashing beef jerky under our beds and furtively listening to rock music. But for now, I'm safe.

To prevent any widespread outbreak of meat consumption* and other hazards, we are kept very busy by our classwork and obediences. An obedience refers to any directed task done by a monastic or, in this case, a seminarian. I won't get preachy, but the Church Fathers say that learning obedience is the most important stepping stone to salvation, since it teaches us humility. Seminarians here get several different kinds of obedience:

Dormitory maintenance. First-years have to help clean the dorm once a week. Last Saturday, I got the basement, which was actually very simple to do. I got rid of all the ruins of a once-great spider civilization, and the basement was more or less clean.
Regular obediences. Throughout the year, we aid the monastery in its various activities. Some seminarians work very hard in maintaining the grounds and making sure the place doesn't get too scruffy. Others work in more urbane settings, like in the library. As I mentioned in a previous post, I got assigned to work in the bookstore, which has gotten pretty high-tech in the last year; our system keeps track of inventory, and we even have barcodes on many of our books!
Dishwashing. First-years get assigned to wash dishes every week. One seminarian washes the small dishes/cups/etc. and the other washes the large pots and pans. I wash the big pots and pans every Wednesday after lunch and dinner. It currently takes me about an hour and a half to do the washing. By big pots and pans, I mean big. Giant. Large enough to baptize triplets in. Cooking enough food to feed thirty seminarians, twenty (more or less) monastics, and various lay workers, not to mention pilgrims, takes a lot of time and effort. Our kitchen has a very large sink divided in two for the big pots, and, opposite, an industrial-strength dishwasher.

What I've learned so far: Of earthly sentiments, the feeling of having performed a decent job ranks pretty high on my list. Also, I've made some good friends while working together on obediences. You get what you put into it.

*We're allowed to eat meat, but all our meals in the refectory are meatless.

More notes on the Podryasnik

2010-09-15T16:32:00.000-04:00

Some more things to note:

While wearing a podryasnik, it is inappropriate to cross your legs, especially when you are in church.
If you are a seminarian at Jordanville, you will be blessed to wear a cassock at the beginning of the school year. You should wear your cassock in church, in classes, and in the refectory. When you’re “off-duty,” you can wear casual clothes.
It is called a cassock, not a cossack. A Cossack is one of “a group of predominantly East Slavic martial people living in the southern steppe regions of Eastern Europe and Asian Russia” and various other parts of the world. Don’t mess with a Cossack, especially if he is in a cassock.

Podryasnik‘d

2010-09-13T09:48:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday, we new seminarians got to wear our podryasniki. For you non-Russians, a podryasnik is a (usually) black cassock that Orthodox clergy, monastics, and seminarians wear. In the Russian tradition, the podryasnik is a double-breasted, form-fitting garment. Seminarians at Jordanville wear the cassock with a black leather belt, just like the novice monks.

I‘d love to show you pictures of my cassock, but unfortunately, I am in want of a USB cord for my camera. Anyway, here are some tips for potential seminarians regarding the cassock, based on seven days of experience:

Any color will do, as long as it‘s black.
The novelty of wearing the podryasnik will wear off pretty quickly, especially if you‘re wearing a woolen cassock on a hot day.
Make sure to lift up the “skirt” when you go up stairs or make prostrations, so as not to step on your cassock and potentially cause yourself injury.
It might be a good idea to have two: one for summer (cotton) and one for winter (wool). I wear a wool cassock, which keeps me pretty warm on cool days. You can also get a cassock vest, if you want to look snazzy.
Don‘t fuss with it in church. It does not look good.
One of the novices here can sew. He might be able to adjust or repair your cassock, if he has time.

Above all, the podryasnik represents the new life of a seminarian. I pray that I wear it worthily.

Entrance Exams!

2010-09-03T17:42:00.000-04:00

Apparently, all new students have to take entrance exams before starting seminary. My fellow freshmen and I were curious about the content of the exams, but the upperclassmen we asked simply said, “If you don’t know Russian, you start at first year.” Which, as it turned out, was all we really had to know.

We assembled yesterday morning on the second floor of the seminary building, then entered one of the classrooms. Someone came in: “If you don’t know any Russian, please proceed to the next classroom.” First exam: over!

Four of us got up and transferred to a room marked “Second Year.” “Hey! We passed to the second year!” said the most gregarious of us, who we will call Tex. The woman, who turned out to be our Russian professor Karina Ross, passed us our first exam, and also briefly explained our future Russian course.

The first exam was English. I had a fun time trying to remember all the High School English grammar that I forgot. That took an hour.

The second exam, Principles of Orthodoxy, took much longer to complete, because answering the questions involved writing on various points of biblical interpretation. Thankfully, we got to use bibles (King James).

For the rest of the day I basically took a break from daily obediences and chilled out a bit. The rest of Thursday’s activities deserve their own post.

Today, we met again at eight o’clock, but this time it was only us first-year students. Our only “exam” was to meet with Fr. Vladimir Tsurikov, the dean of the seminary, and receive our class schedules. I found out that I tested out of English (as expected) but still had to take Principles (also as expected). Fr. Vladimir also told me where I was assigned for obediences: church cleaning. After telling him that I had experience working at the cathedral bookstore in SF, my assignment got changed. So, here are my first semester classes:

Russian I (5 classroom hours plus 5 hours of independent study)

Intro to Liturgics (1 hour)

Patristic Anthropology (2 hours)

Church Slavonic I (2 hours)

Church Music I (2 hours)

Russian History (2 hours)

Biblical Archeology (1 hour)

So, 20 hours of straight-up studying, plus 10 hours of obediences, and 10 hours of church, make for a very busy week. Hopefully, I will have time to update!

How to Get Here

2010-09-02T16:02:00.000-04:00

Holy Trinity Monastery is about one mile north of the drowsy hamlet of Jordanville, New York, located somewhere in the Mohawk Valley, in the center of a triangle formed by Albany, Cooperstown, and Utica. People usually get here from Utica, Syracuse, or Albany, in order of distance. There's also a shuttle service for pilgrims going to and from New York City.

I arrived at Syracuse Airport around 11:30 am, after a long, eight-hour ordeal involving a red-eye from San Francisco, a 2-hour layover in Philly, and another flight. I did not wait long; Alejandro, a 5th-year seminarian (more on him later) spotted me right away. Apparently, he was there to pick up another seminarian, and thought that I was coming an hour later. We gathered my luggage, found the other seminarian (Peter, from Ukraine) and got some lunch. Peter and I went to a “Chinese” buffet near Utica. Note the quotes.

After getting to the dormitory, I rested a bit, then went out with a Matushka from San Francisco and her brother, a priest in Rochester, to the local fancy Italian restaurant. This trend of going out to eat on fasting days would continue for the next week or so.

First Post

2010-08-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

My name is John, and I am entering my first year as a seminarian at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, New York. Jordanville is the flagship monastery/seminary for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Before I came here, I tried to find out what seminary life was like, which led me to several articles written by ROCOR clergy. They were helpful, but a little out of date. So, for the sake of my family, friends, and anyone curious about life at an Orthodox seminary, I am going to write about my experiences here. My hope is that anyone curious about going to seminary would find this blog useful.

The seminary life at Jordanville is known for its close integration with the monastic life. Seminarians eat with the monks in the refectory as well as attend services with them. Outsiders might think that this kind of life would be dull. So far, I think that living here is much more interesting than living in the city. For example, all the time spent commuting is basically eliminated. When I was living in San Francisco, it took a half-hour each going there to work/church and back again. Now it takes approximately one minute. And there's always something to do, which will be written about in detail in the posts to come!