Psalm 38
Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
(Psalm 38: 21-22)
We hear Psalm 38 regularly as the second of the six matins psalms. It’s a prayer for healing from sickness and sin, for deliverance from enemies and injustice, for times of feeling abandoned. It is also associated with Holy Week and Christ’s suffering, and so is used on Holy Friday at the Third Hour. Verse 17 (LXX) is especially relevant: “I am ready for wounds (beatings) and my pain is ever with me.”
The last two verses in themselves are a prayer at those desperate moments when we don’t have many words to offer.
Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
Chancery Update
The Preconciliar Commission will finish its first meeting today. Yesterday we had an overview of all the steps required to plan the 2015 All-American Council, but we also spent a good amount of time brainstorming about all aspects of the council and how to engage the entire church around the emerging theme.
Some time ago Bishop Michael of New York suggested we consider using the theme of the very first Council of our Church in North America, held in 1907 in Mayfield, PA in the presence of Archbishop Tikhon (Bellavin): “How to Expand the Mission.”
This question remains crucial for us a hundred years later. Saint Tikhon’s guidance at the opening of that council also remains fresh:
For my part, I would just like to say that in order for our work to be truly fruitful—we must be guided not so much by self interest or personal advantage, but rather by what benefits our common work.
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When the meeting closes I’ll be going to the airport to fly to Paris to represent His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon at the enthronement of Archbishop Job (Getcha) of Telmessos as the new head of the Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe (under the Patriarch of Constantinople). Archbishop Job has a strong North American connection (more on this below). Father Chad Hatfield and Father Alexander Rentel will be attending as well, representing Saint Vladimir’s Seminary. Bishop Irénée and Protodeacon Nazari Polataiko of the Archdiocese of Canada participated in Archbishop Job’s consecration by Patriarch Bartholomeos last weekend at the Phanar in Constantinople (Istanbul). (Bishop Irénée and Protodeacon Nazari are now in Moscow to celebrate the patronal feast of the OCA’s representation church, Saint Catherine’s.)
The Exarchate of Western Europe grew out of the Russian emigration following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and goes back to Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgiyevsky) of Paris who in 1921 had been entrusted by Saint Tikhon to head the “Provisional administration of the Russian parishes in Western Europe.”
Disputes with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in the 1920’s led Metropolitan Evology and his diocese to be received seek into the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an exarchate in 1931. From the beginning, while continuing to serve the pastoral needs of immigrants, the Exarchate under Metropolitan Evlogy and his successors also desired to reach out to the local community and society in France and Western Europe and to other Christian churches.
Archbishop Job is a Canadian of Ukrainian background, born in Montreal in 1974. He studied at the College Francais (Montreal) and The University of Manitoba (Winnipeg). He went on to study theology at Saint Andrew’s College in Winnipeg (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada) and Saint Sergius Institute in Paris, where he specialized in liturgy and received a doctorate in 2003 (jointly with the Institut Catholique de Paris.) His doctoral dissertation was translated into English by Prof Paul Meyendorff and published by Saint Vladimir’s Seminary press as The Typikon Decoded: An explanation of Byzantine liturgical practice (2012).
Archbishop Job has worked as a lecturer and professor of church history, liturgy and canon law at various academic institutions including Saint Sergius, of which he was dean from 2005 to 2007, the Institut Catholique, the University of Fribourg and the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambesy, Switzerland.
He was tonsured a monk in 1996 in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, and after his studies in France was ordained priest in 2003 by the late Archbishop Gabriel of the Patriarchal Exarchate, whom he now succeeds.
Day 10: Recruiting 300 Stewards for the Orthodox Church in America
The Department of Liturgical Music headed by Prof David Drillock is another OCA-wide ministry that Stewards support. The Department is very usefully using the website to provide resources and training. Whether you are a choir member of not, take a look at what they are doing at https://www.oca.org/liturgics.
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I hope you will consider adding your name as a Steward of the Orthodox Church in America (a list of Stewards will be published on the last day of this campaign, December 13th, the feast of Saint Herman of Alaska). To find out more about this effort to recruit stewards please see https://www.oca.org/news/headline-news/stewardship-appeal-enters-second-week. Thank you for your support!