Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary
August 31, 2023
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is in our midst!
On behalf of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America and the Board of Trustees of the Orthodox Theological Seminary of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, I welcome all of you, the new and returning seminarians, as you begin the academic year at this sacred institution, together with the alumni who have gathered here as well.
I know that you have all spent a few days of orientation and reorientation under the guidance of our Rector, His Eminence, Archbishop Michael, and of our Dean, Archpriest John Parker. Together with the members of the Administration and the Staff, you have probably received more than your fill of policies and procedures, rules and regulations. Do not neglect these or think that they are simply things to be heard once and forgotten. All things in the Church must be done decently and in order, and this applies both to lofty canonical principles and to the expectations placed on you for community service, for example. You must look to the Rector, the Dean, and all who work with them in the administration, as well as Archimandrite Sergius and his monks, as your guides during your journey here at the Seminary. Ultimately, all the rules and regulations of seminary life are there to provide you with a more pleasant and productive experience, that is, to allow you to dedicate your time to the one things needful, which is in this context, is the offering of yourself as clay to be formed into servants of the Church.
Never forget that each day is a new beginning. The most difficult part of the spiritual struggle is often simply to begin. As the Psalmist says: Now have I made a beginning; this change hath been wrought by the right hand of the Most High (76:11). When he was preparing for his own death, Anthony the Great gathered his disciples and told them: “I am going the way of the Fathers, as it is written (Josh 23:14), for I see myself summoned by the Lord. Be watchful and do not destroy your lengthy discipline, but as if you were making a beginning now, strive to preserve your enthusiasm. You know the treacherous demons—you know how savage they are, even though weakened in strength. Therefore do not fear them, but rather draw inspiration from Christ always, and trust in Him. And live as though dying daily, paying heed to yourselves and remembering what you heard from my preaching.”
Saint Anthony rightly points to the unfailing source of our inspiration, whether we are ascetics in the desert or seminarians at a theological school, which is Christ Himself. Our life is short and we must make use of every minute given to us in order to strive for one thing: our eternal salvation. But more than this, we ought to take heed to the constant renewal that must take place within our heart. We can never become satisfied with whatever progress we have made, but must rise higher. And so, as the Apostle Paul also exhorts us, having made a beginning, and set out already on the way of virtue, let us press forward to what lies ahead (Phil. 3:13) and let us not turn back as Lot’s wife did, for our Lord tells us that No one who puts his hands to the plow and turns back is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. (Luke 9:62).
It is therefore fitting that today we stand at the brink of a new school year and also at the turning point of the Ecclesiastical New Year. Whenever we celebrate a new year—academic, ecclesiastical, civil, fiscal, lunar, or any other sort—this provides us with a good opportunity, a reminder, to step back and take stock, to refocus and renew.
Many of the hymns that we will hear at the service this evening speak of the “crown of the year,” a phrase taken from the psalms. In the Greek and Slavonic versions of the Psalter, Psalm 64, verse 12 reads, in part: “Thou dost bless the crown of the year with thy goodness.”
This phrase, “the crown of the year,” suggests the yearly round: God blesses the whole cycle of the seasons with his goodness. And this of course is true.
However, in the Church, this phrase has taken on a specific meaning, referring to the liturgical cycle, made up of its many smaller cycles. Some of you may be familiar with the recently canonized elder Saint Gerasimus the Hymnographer of Little Saint Anne’s Skete on Mount Athos. Perhaps his most famous work is a book of troparia and kontakia for the entire year, a book aptly titled The Crown of the Year.
And so, as we step back and refocus at the beginning of the Ecclesiastical New Year, we find ourselves repeatedly reminded of the blessedness, the beatitude, we encounter in and through the divine services. “Thou, O Lord, dost bless the crown of the year—the whole cycle of the Church’s sacred services—with thy goodness.”
If we wish to know the goodness of the Lord, we would do well to attend the services, and to do so attentively, listening for his voice, listening with all our soul and all our mind and all our strength and all our heart. There is a reason that we hear so often those words: “Wisdom! Let us attend.”
The sacred services are of course central to the life of a seminarian. The divine services are the place where the teachings imparted in classes are contextualized, made real—it is where the abstract lessons of theology and spirituality find a place in our hearts. The divine services are our refreshment amid the trials of seminary life, both petty and serious. The divine services are our comfort, but also our call to repentance and reform.
But I would like to emphasize that the divine services should be equally central to our lives after seminary. We may be tempted to think that the full cycle of services we encounter here at Saint Tikhon’s is something extraordinary, but in fact, a life immersed in the celebration of the divine services should be the norm, both for laity and, especially, clergy, including future parish clergy.
As future leaders in the Church—whether in positions of ordained leadership or not—you are responsible for helping to foster an authentic liturgical ethos among Orthodox Christians in America. Divine services should not be limited to Saturday night, Sunday morning, and the twelve great feasts. Even small parishes and missions can offer Daily Vespers or Daily Matins once or twice a week, together with the occasional weekday or Saturday liturgy. Our communities should come together to sing joyful akathists in honor of the Lord, the Theotokos, and the saints, and to seek God’s help through the prayers of the molieben.
After all, as the services for the New Year remind us, God blesses the whole crown of the year with his goodness—not just one day in seven, give or take a few holidays. The life that is offered to us in the Church is nothing but the proper way of living out the Gospel, and a major part of that way of life is sanctifying each and every day to the Lord through observance of feast and fast and the remembrance of God’s friends, the God-pleasers, the saints who adorn each and every day of the year with their holy lives and deeds.
In this way, liturgical worship and personal piety become an integrated whole, a single way of life which we hold in common not just with our fellow believers in America and throughout the world, but with the saints and righteous ones throughout the ages.
Through frequent and attentive celebration of the divine services—saints’ feasts, services on fast days, services of supplication and need—we surround ourselves constantly with that great cloud of witnesses, in whom we behold Christ our God.
By remembering them, and, even more crucially, by imitating their way of life, we can hope to join that cloud of witnesses in the age to come.
After all, in the end, worship is the ultimate surrender of our own will, the ultimate Yes, Amen, Fiat, and Let It Be, to God’s will. In worship, we lay aside all earthly cares, and focus our whole body and mind solely on the Lord.
It could not be more clear, then, that the divine services should not be something occasional; rather, they should make up the warp and woof, the very fabric of our lives.
Indeed, if we truly long after eternity, longing for the everlasting courts of the house of the Lord, then we will naturally long after the temporal courts of the Lord’s house, the temples where we carry out the divine services. Because, in the end, the life of the saints is nothing but worship, nothing but eternal and complete surrender of every faculty to the praise, adoration, and contemplation of the divine.
So I conclude by wishing that, through the divine services, you might encounter the blessings that God pours out on the crown of this year and every year, during your time at seminary and all throughout your lives, until, in the end, your entire life becomes worship. By God’s grace, may it be so for you and for all of us, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
At the blessing of the cassocks
As you come forward to receiving the blessing to wear the cassock, the outward sign of one who is a seminarian, be mindful that this sign is both one of honor and one of humility. It is an honor to stand among the ranks of those called to serve the Lord in one capacity or another; but it is an honor that is only received through humility, that is, through the recognition that you are learning now so that, by God’s grace you might perhaps teach, preach, and lead later.
The wearing of the cassock does not magically turn you into pastors and preachers. Rather, you become more like novices in a monastery: in Greek, a dokimos – one who is tested, and in Slavonik, a poslushnik – one who listens. Your cassock is a reminder that you are being tested on many levels, sometimes in pleasant ways and sometimes in more painful ways, but it is also a reminder that the surest way to pass the test is to listen; to listen, so that you can hear, not only the voices of your instructors and spiritual fathers, but through them the voice of God and the wisdom of the saints.
Above all, you should aim for the prayerful silence of Holy Saturday, when all mortal flesh keeps silent, pondering nothing earthly minded, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes to be slain, to give himself as food to the faithful. May this cassock be a daily reminder both of these sacred acts of the Lord and your high calling as his servant and a seminarian.