FIRST MISSIONARIES SCHOLARSHIP FUND We didn't have much in the way of material possessions when my brother and I were growing up, but we were raised by parents who taught us what was truly valuable in life. Growing up during the Depression had a profound affect on our parents. While Mom was grateful for having been able to graduate high school, our dad, the oldest of four, had to quit school in order to help support his family. Both he and Mom hoped for much more for their offspring. As Dad once told me, "We want you to have something that no one can take from you an education." Although there were some lean years while we were both in college, there were summer jobs and even some small scholarships and grants to help with our college expenses. But that was over 30 years ago, when an education was attainable for the average person in the U.S. Today it is a different story. Despite the skyrocketing costs of education in America, one Orthodox seminary is taking positive steps to ensure that its students continue to receive high quality educations without financial burden. St. Herman Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska, provides full scholarships to all seminarians, including room, board, and books. Unemployment is high (80%+) in villages throughout Alaska. Graduates of St. Herman Seminary are often sent to these areas where subsistence living (living off the land by hunting and fishing) is a way of life. Instead of being overwhelmed by debt, priests and lay church leaders can begin their ministry without added financial concern. The First Missionaries Scholarship Fund was established in honor of St. Herman and the first missionaries who came to Kodiak Island 212 years ago. Like those first missionaries, St. Herman Seminary graduates go throughout Alaska to share the Faith and establish new missions. While 39 priests are presently serving in the Diocese of Alaska, many more are still needed for its 103 parishes. Please consider making a donation, large or small, to the First Missionaries Scholarship Fund to continue the work begun 212 years ago. Please contact: St. Herman Theological Seminary 414 Mission Road Kodiak, AK 99615 (907) 486-3524 or go online @: www.sthermanseminary.org Margaret Pysarchyk |
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JUNE 2008 |
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MEMORIES MY POP I can remember when, during the days of World War II, shoes were rationed. Everyone was allowed two pairs a year and, along with paying for the shoes, we had to give a coupon from our ration book. The best gift you could give a friend was a shoe coupon from your book. My brother was in the army and he wanted a pair of civilian shoes. Pop gave him his shoe ration. You see my father was the boss of our household. He was the main income earner. He was also the disciplinarian, the banker, the keeper of the "spolok" books, and the spiritual leader of our family. I didn't think of it at the time, but Pop was really a Renaissance man. Maybe he didn't paint pictures, but he was the one who painted the house, did the plumbing repairs (always fixing the leak in the kitchen faucet), planted the victory garden, took care of the cow and chickens he kept to offset the meager items you could buy with again ration coupons, prayed before the ikon each morning and night and attended church regularly. On Father's Day, I remember him in so many ways. There are things he taught me that have helped me these many decades later. He taught his children so much using the on-the-job training method. Pop was a manual worker who could and did recite poetry for hours. He was a quiet man, perhaps he would better be defined as a peaceful man, who had left his family in the Old Country. I know he missed them. In those days there was no way other than the occasional letter that he could use to communicate with them. The war went over his homeland back and forth many times. He looked in the paper to see whether they were affected and cried in private when he read that the battle had again crossed his home territory. I miss him but the wisdom he has handed down to me is used almost every day. Lydia Rodca Please submit your stories and anecdotes to: MEMORIES: Margaret Pysarchyk 2125 Garfield St. Loraine, OH 44055 or E-mail: mpysarchyk@hotmail.com |
SOBORNOST (The laity also had a real place in the formulation and proclamation of the truth of salvation and the true faith in the Synods of the Church.) To substantiate this, one needs only to consider the fact that the decisions of many councils, especially the first, fourth and seventh ecumenical ones, were not received by the whole Church immediately and were not without opposition and vigorous discussions from a large number of those who were critical of the truths defined. In the end, the Truth prevailed, even after much difficulty. Metropolitan Emilianos tells us: The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the synods whose decisions were so violently attacked were not sufficiently informed and clear about the thought of the people concerning the doctrines they defined. Only later was it manifested incontestably, for no other reason than that they had defined the truth. The holy synods thus defined of their own volition and with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Their reception and endorsement by the whole Churchare a very official and unassailable external testimony to the sacred character of these decisions and acts. Such acceptance is sufficient in itself for the definitive recognition that a synod is holy and ecumenical. Such is the case, for example, of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the ecumenicity of which was called in question by the Synod of Frankfort in 794 and the English Church in the same year. It remained unassailable based on its acceptance by the ecclesial pleroma and not on the approval of a new ecumenical council, since it was the last of them. So high an estimation of the people's endorsement of a synod is easily explained by Eastern theologians when we consider that the definitions and formulas of the holy synods are taken in accord with the written and unwritten Apostolic Tradition, which is the living thought of the whole body of the Church, attested and shaped by the practical faith of all its members. The treasure of faith, contained in the Holy Scriptures and in the Apostolic Tradition, is meant to be the possession of every Christian and to be lived in the life of each one of us. The decisions of the holy synods concerning this treasure, made when heretics were opposing the truth in a struggle which was followed with consuming interest by active members of the Church, cannot therefore be a matter of indifference to the faithful. The spontaneous judgment of synodical decisions by the ecclesial pleroma, while not always temperate, showed the general thought of the Church, which has never ceased to be attested by this judgment. Fr. Michael Dahulich, PhD Dean of St. Tikhon's Seminary South Canaan, PA 18459 |
FIRST MISSIONARIES SCHOLARSHIP FUND We didn't have much in the way of material possessions when my brother and I were growing up, but we were raised by parents who taught us what was truly valuable in life. Growing up during the Depression had a profound affect on our parents. While Mom was grateful for having been able to graduate high school, our dad, the oldest of four, had to quit school in order to help support his family. Both he and Mom hoped for much more for their offspring. As Dad once told me, "We want you to have something that no one can take from you an education." Although there were some lean years while we were both in college, there were summer jobs and even some small scholarships and grants to help with our college expenses. But that was over 30 years ago, when an education was attainable for the average person in the U.S. Today it is a different story. Despite the skyrocketing costs of education in America, one Orthodox seminary is taking positive steps to ensure that its students continue to receive high quality educations without financial burden. St. Herman Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska, provides full scholarships to all seminarians, including room, board, and books. Unemployment is high (80%+) in villages throughout Alaska. Graduates of St. Herman Seminary are often sent to these areas where subsistence living (living off the land by hunting and fishing) is a way of life. Instead of being overwhelmed by debt, priests and lay church leaders can begin their ministry without added financial concern. The First Missionaries Scholarship Fund was established in honor of St. Herman and the first missionaries who came to Kodiak Island 212 years ago. Like those first missionaries, St. Herman Seminary graduates go throughout Alaska to share the Faith and establish new missions. While 39 priests are presently serving in the Diocese of Alaska, many more are still needed for its 103 parishes. Please consider making a donation, large or small, to the First Missionaries Scholarship Fund to continue the work begun 212 years ago. Please contact: St. Herman Theological Seminary 414 Mission Road Kodiak, AK 99615 (907) 486-3524 or go online @: www.sthermanseminary.org Margaret Pysarchyk |
THE CHURCH IN ALASKA DURING WORLD WAR II Part I During the 1950s, World War II was still fresh in the minds of the people, so it was natural that our father reminisced about his experiences. Although he told G-rated stories that were suitable for the ears of his young children, he never sugar-coated or glamorized the war. We enjoyed hearing about Dad riding horses in the Calvary and his tour of duty in Italy at the end of the war, but it was the stories he shared of the two years he spent on Umnak in the Aleutian Islands that most intrigued me as a child. My brother and I learned about caribou, vegetation on the island, and the severe weather conditions. But it was the memory Dad had of a church that has stayed with me a half a century later. Now as an adult, I can only imagine how he felt all those years ago being so far from home and for such a long time. From his base on Umnak, he could see a Russian Orthodox Church in the distance. I'm sure he wanted to go inside the church to say a prayer and possibly light a candle. But this never happened. The church was "off limits" due to looting. He said no more about this to us, but it was obvious that our dad, a quiet and gentle man, was upset about what had happened to the church. Over the years, I've often wondered about this church and the parishioners who had cared for and loved it. Almost fifty years after first hearing about it, I learned why this and other churches were left unattended during the war and the fate of the Orthodox faithful in the Aleutian Islands. Next month Part II of The Church in Alaska During World War II Margaret Pysarchyk |
