Though it is an academic institution the priority or as the Greeks say, the protos, is the spiritual life; worship services, private prayer, the communal life of the seminary. I was reminded in one of the talks that the Masters of Divinity is a 'professional' degree not an academic one. It is preparation for work, a sacred work.
This week has been as follows: prayer every morning at 6:30 am, breakfast at 8:30am, meetings and talks until the evening prayer with the day ending at 5:30pm. It would be modest to say the week has been busy; its been intense. I've been thrown into a drastically different lifestyle than I'm used to. I think it would be better to describe seminary as spiritual boot camp. In one of the talks the dean said, “you are in training to be the militia Christi (military of Christ).” Orthodox seminary is more like training for the Marines than it is mere scholarship.
Classes start next week; I've registered for: Early Church History, Dogmatic Theology, Sacred Music, Spirituality, Greek (though I will likely be able to test out of it), Old Testament Scriptures, and Liturgics (the 'how to' of performing the worship services).
Going forward a typical week will consist of the following:
15 hours a week of Divine Services (the Orthodox term for our liturgical worship services) and my own private prayer rule.
20 hours a week of instruction plus whatever study is needed for homework.
4 hours a week of community service around the seminary such as cleaning bathrooms or working in the library.
Field work, such as hospital visitations, and prison ministry. That doesn't start until our Middler year.
Finally, confession at least once a month.
In short seminary will consume no less than 60 hours a week of my life. Bring it on!
Sounds awesome :-)! Totally jealous of your liturgics class btw - send me your textbook list :-)?
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