The Dean

There's a new dean at St. Tikhon's; Father Alexander Atty. He graduated from St. Vladimir's Seminary, another Orthodox Seminary located in New York City, over 30 years ago. Back then there were only half a dozen or so Orthodox books in English. Seriously. It is easy to forget for us younger generations but it is a reminder how young Orthodoxy still is on this continent. And how much the Church here in America has changed in the past few decades.

Father Alexander is from the Antiochian Archdiocese (an archdiocese Arab in origin, but today encompassing those of many ethnic backgrounds) He is Lebanese in ethnicity and is married to a woman of Russian heritage, Khouria Olga. Khouria jokes that when she was young no one else was named Olga except old ladies, and now she is an old lady! Father has only served in one parish in his priesthood, St. Michael's in Louisville Kentucky.

When he arrived at the parish 30 years ago there were less than 100 in attendance on a Sunday (at one point the church had had hundreds of members) and had been through 20 some priests in its already 40 year history. Today its has over 900 in Sunday attendance and built a free standing chapel (in an Anthonite style) in which the parish conducts daily services; matins in the morning and vespers at night.

So far Father Alexander has brought some welcomed order and improvement of facilities. For example, the seminary is in the process of purchasing some much needed married student housing less than a mile from campus. I think St. Tikhon's has a bright future. I look forward to seeing where the school is in three-years time.

I think I am fortunate, as is all the student body, to have a man with so much pastoral experience. It will be good to learn from someone who has labored and suffered for many years, who knows how to build a community, and Shepard souls.

If you want to check out Father Alexander's old church in Louisville go to www.stmichaelorthodoxchurch.org  

What it Looks Like on My Way to Seminary

Praying with Elias and Playing with Genevieve

Every night we pray with Elias. He is a creature of habit and loves routine. If you deviate from the norm he lets you know. Part of his bedtime routine is nightly prayer. We say the Lord's prayer and St. Symeon's prayer (Lord now let thy servant depart in peace... Luke 2:29-32). Then we pray for family by name, but recently Elias has been in the habit of praying for things, like snack, the car, the school bus. Lord have mercy on snack, lord have mercy on the car, lord have mercy on the school bus. Somehow praying for others has turned into a litany of his favorite things.

Genevieve has been crawling, climbing, and chewing on everything. She is now nine months old and is still bald, but with five chompers in her mouth. Because of a lack of space her room is a bedroom/pantry/exercise room. O the joy of living in a small house!

A Visit to St. Vladimir's for Fr. Maximus' Ordination

Left to Right: Matthew, Abraham, Fr. Maximus, Dn. John

Left to Right: Jessi, Matushka Photini, Stephani, Elizabeth, Genevieve

Elias saying cheese for the camera

 Father Joshua in the center

Fr. Maximus as a Deacon. He had not yet been ordained in the service. 

Fr. Maximus crossing himself and Bishop Maxim giving the blessing

The newly ordained Father Maximus reading the dismissal prayers

Photos of New Home

The road in front of our house.

The barn in our side yard. Built in the 1930s, moved to its current location in the 1960s.

The Student Body

There is great variety among the student body. In total there are about 60 to 70 students at the seminary and they come from a variety of nations and ethnicity. There are Canadians, Mexicans, English, Ukrainians, Russians, and Kuwaites. There are those of Jewish ancestry, Palestinian, Lebanese, European, Greek, Romanian, and Indian ancestry. Those from India are from a region in the sub-continent known as Kerala. Kerala was evangelized by Saint Thomas in the 1^st Century. Therefore they are sometimes known as St. Thomas Christians.

Most of the students attending were not born into the Orthodox Church. Rather the majority have entered the Church from other Christian traditions. They are as follows: Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and all varieties of Protestants.

About half of the students are married and the other half are single. Of those married nearly all have children. It makes for very full, and lively services on Sunday. Imagine it. 60 seminarian students, their wives, about 40 kids, plus the faculty and staff of the seminary, and lastly the monks from the monastery. And I can't forget the regular presence of pilgrims who are visiting the monastery.

The student body is of all ages too. There are some that are fresh out of college and some who are in their 40's and have teenagers. But most are in their late 20's to early 30's. It is only men. Except, the one nun who is attending from a nearby woman's monastery.

No less diverse are the educational backgrounds. Some students already have a master's in something else such as engineering and one student has his doctorate in English. But most just have their Bachelors. There are students with geology degrees, mathematics, engineering, English, music, and philosophy degrees. In short a broad selection from the humanities and the sciences.

Almost everyone attending has abandoned their previous careers; some with very lucrative jobs in corporate America. It has been more than a few times that I have heard the story from fellow seminarians that they heard the Gospel reading on Sunday which says, “What does it prophet a man if he gains the whole earth, but looses his soul.” One seminarian described his soul as shriveling up in his comfortable corporate finance job and decided leave it all for the priesthood.

Labor Day Seminary BBQ

I am in the orange hat. To my left is Fr. Nilus the Dean of Students and to his left is Bishop Tikhon.

Video from Seminary Retreat

Below is a video link from last Friday. After three days of orientation, the new seminarians were joined by the Middlers and Seniors for a two day retreat. At the end of the retreat, all the new seminarians were blessed to wear the cassock by Bishop Tikhon. There are about 60 to 70 seminarians in total; 20 from our class.

Blessing of New Seminarians

Elias' First Day of School

This past Wednesday Elias started his second year of pre-school. We met the teacher prior to the start of the year and were impressed by the school. They have their act together.

We've been talking with Elias for the past month about his 'new school' and his 'new house'. In fact he is still calling them his 'new school' and his 'new house'. I wonder when he will drop the adjective? Up till now he has shown an excitement about his new school. All that excitement came to a culmination when his school bus came cruising over the hill to pick him up on his first day. Elias performed a little dance wiggling his arms, twisting his hands and marching in place; his typical 'I'm so excited I don't know what to do but move all around.' Its as if his little body is filled to the rim with expectation and he has to shake it all out.

When he got home I asked him what he did. He sang songs, ate snack, and colored; at least that's his account. That same evening I heard him singing some song. I couldn't quite make out the words, but it was clear he had memorized whatever song they sang that day in school. When I asked him about it he stopped and wouldn't sing the words for me. You have to catch him in the moment, he's a true artist and doesn't perform lest when the muse invokes.

Betsy was home when Elias was dropped off. He walked to the steps of the bus and wouldn't get off. Instead he shouted “Go back to school!” Apparently he likes school. The next day he wouldn't get out of his seat and said he wanted to stay at school. I hope its that the school is so wonderful and not that home is so boring!

Seminary Schedule

Classes haven't started yet but I've been busy. We have ended an intense week of orientation and a retreat. All the new students showed up on Monday and spent the next three days in morning and evening prayer, in individual meetings with the dean, in registration of classes, and various talk on seminary life.

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!