Metropolitan Tikhon presides at celebration honoring St. Sergius at OCA Chancery Chapel

Chancery

On Saturday, September 19, 2015, in anticipation of the Feast of Saint Sergius of Radonezh on September 25, His Beatitude, Metropolitan presided at celebrations honoring the saint at the Chancery of the Orthodox Church in America here, where the chapel is dedicated to Saint Sergius.

For the third year, the day opened with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the walled garden in front of the chapel.

“The tradition of celebrating Saint Sergius’ feast on a Saturday began in 2013 as a way of marking the 75th anniversaries of Saint Tikhon’s Seminary and Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, with invitations to the schools’ respective faculties and student bodies to attend,” said Archpriest Eric G. Tosi, OCA Secretary. “This year, all area clergy and faithful also were invited to join the students from both seminaries and Chancery staff members at the celebration, which took on the character of an ‘open house’ during which attendees were treated to tours of the Chancery and its archives.”

Concelebrating clergy included Archpriest Dr. John Behr and Archpriest Dr. Chad Hatfield, Dean and Chancellor of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary respectively; Archpriest Dr. Alexander Rentel, Professor at Saint Vladimir’s; Archpriests John Jillions and Eric G. Tosi, Chancellor and Secretary of the OCA respectively; Archpriests Daniel Skvir and John Klingel; Priest Nathan Preston; Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak; and Deacons Gregory Hatrak, Joseph Ramos, Michael Rozdilski and Tikhon Bishop. Seminarians formed the choir that sang the liturgical responses under the direction of Hierodeacon Herman [Majkrzak].

At the conclusion of the Liturgy, Metropolitan Tikhon presented Alexis Liberovsky, OCA Archivist, with a gramota “for his dedication to the history and patrimony of the Orthodox Church in America; for his many years of labor as Archivist of the Church; for his outstanding contributions to the Archives Advisory Committee and the Statute Revision Committee; and for his personal preservation of the institutional memory of the Church.”

He also presented “challenge coins”—commemorative medallions—to Barry Migyanko in gratitude for his work as a member of the Chancery staff and Hierodeacon Herman in recognition of his contributions in the field of liturgical music.

In addressing the gathering, Metropolitan Tikhon reflected on the work of the Assembly of Bishops that had concluded its sixth annual meeting two days earlier and the important contributions of the OCA’s seminaries to the past, present and especially future of the Church. The complete text appears below.

A photo gallery of the celebration may be viewed on the OCA web site and Facebook page.

Metropolitan Tikhon’s Greetings at the Conclusion of the Divine Liturgy at Saint Sergius Chapel
September 19, 2015

Christ is in our midst!

We should be grateful to God for the opportunity to come together from the seminaries and local parishes to celebrate this Liturgy together.

Being united in Christ is what you might call a particular theme this past week, when the Orthodox bishops were gathered in Chicago for the Assembly of Bishops’ meeting. Our main focus was to look at proposals for concretely working toward full canonical unity. There are many hurdles and diverse opinions about the path to get there, but the Orthodox Church in America remains committed to this goal.

Our Holy Synod submits that the most clear and direct path to the goal of canonical unity at this stage is to transform the Assembly into a truly ecclesial body, a Synod of Bishops. We have recommended this to the Assembly and we recommend it to the Patriarchs and Primates of the Orthodox Churches for their consideration as the most effective way to fulfill the exhortation of His All-Holiness in his video address to our Assembly in Dallas last year, when he said that we need “to move beyond what is mine and yours to what is ours.” As the bishops of the OCA, we hope that in this period of transition—whether three years or ten years—the Patriarchs and Primates will show flexibility in blessing and overseeing the Assembly to form and oversee such a synod in the United States for the building up of the witness and mission of the Orthodox Church in this country.

Greater collaboration and unity is also on my mind when I consider our seminaries, which again is why today’s Liturgy is important. At the All-American Council this past summer in Atlanta, I made specific mention of my intention to call for a joint meeting of the members of all three Boards of our schools for the precise purpose of overcoming unhealthy competition and working towards greater unity.

I am fully aware of the many challenges that face all of our seminaries, and I also am painfully aware of the tensions that have hindered us, particularly Saint Tikhon’s and Saint Vladimir’s seminaries, over the past 75 years. These tensions continue in the present as all of our schools compete for students, for benefactors to fund their visions and for funding to support their operations.

I am personally concerned that this competition, which is manifested in many ways, has become an unhealthy one and, at this point, is in danger of leading to deeper division as our schools struggle to recruit students, to operate their schools, to maintain ATS accreditation and to raise the funds necessary to run the institutions.

We need to reflect upon and celebrate the accomplishment of all three of our seminaries and recognize that they are the foundation upon which the Apostolic work of the Church takes place in our lands, especially through the labor of the faculty and staff at each seminary, who sacrificially offer themselves for the education and formation of our students; through the students, who make the effort to uproot their families and come to seminary to immerse themselves in the wonderful but difficult experience of the seminary community; and through the alumni who, with the formation they receive, undertake the long labor of pastoring their flocks and sharing the Gospel, visiting the sick and feeding the spiritually and physically hungry.

I will be proposing that an initial dialogue between myself and two to three members of each of our Boards takes place over the next three months. The purpose of this dialogue would be a simple one: to determine the willingness of each Board to enter into a dialogue. I will also be looking to set up a meeting with the Alumni Boards of our schools to receive the input of our alumni on the state of theological education. In addition, I will be looking to solicit the contributions of our talented faculties in addressing topics of concern to the modern Christian.