The World Council of Churches celebrated its jubilee anniversary at the eighth assembly, held this past December in Harare, Zimbabwe. The theme of the assembly was "Turn to God - Rejoice in Hope." Members of the WOMEN's network and the St. Nina Quarterly board were invited to participate in the padare - a forum for dialogue that ran concurrently with the assembly.
Journal: Most Recent
From the Editorial Board
How do we begin to know God using all of our faculties, intellect, body, and heart? Does questioning reveal a lack of faith? Are secular intellectual pursuits devoid of Truth? We are sometimes told that we should not think in church; that somehow it is not pious or shows a lack of faith. Yet we know that many of the saints of the Church were great thinkers, often trained in such secular disciplines as philosophy and science. Our bodies, especially womens' bodies, so often used as objects to sell products, are sometimes thought to be unclean or to provide a distraction. How can they be used to serve God? As women, we are unsure sometimes of our place in the community, whether within our own family, in our relationships with our spouse, children, parents, and loved ones or in the worshipping community. We are called to bring our whole selves before God, intellect, body, and heart. The challenge lies in how we are able to maintain a balance of these parts of the whole.
The Ecumenical Decade: A Memory
I greet you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Book Profile: Living in Christ
"Prayer and silence, faith and obedience, purity and maturity, family and celibacy, building and responsibility, and most especially and most excellently, the way of love, are for every human being. This is the teaching of Christ. . . ."
- Fr. Thomas Hopko, Foreword
Living in Christ is a collection of insightful essays on the Christian life. Written by Mother Raphaela, Abbess of the Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery in Otego, New York, the book is excellent material for reflective reading.
Body, Intellect, Heart: Prayer of the Total Self
There is a story told in the Gerontikon, the sayings of the desert Fathers, about a visitor who goes to see three monks. And they talked all the afternoon. Suddenly the visitor realizes that the sun has set. "It is time for vespers;" says the visitor, "it is time for us to pray together." And the monks answered, "But we have been praying together all the last four hours." Prayer, in their experience, was not just occasional but continual; not just one activity among others, but the activity of their entire lives. It was a dimension present in
An Interview with Anna Gerotheou Gallos
Helen Theodoropoulos: Thank you for graciously agreeing to share your experiences with the St. Nina readership. Presbytera Gallos, what was your earliest experience of Church life and how did you become involved as such an active participant?
An Interview with Eva Catafygiotu Topping
Nancy Holloway: How would you describe your experience growing up in a Greek Orthodox family in the first half of this century?
Rublev's Trinity
Nowhere is the mystery of the three-in-one Godhead more clearly grasped than in St. Andrei Rublev's icon of the Trinity. Also known as the "Hospitality of Abraham," this icon is based on the Old Testament story in Genesis 18, where Abraham is visited by three young men (later identified as angels) presaging Trinitarian doctrine. It has become the image par excellence of the Holy Trinity for the Church.
An Interview with Magdaline Bovis
Suzanne Magerko: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for this issue of the St. Nina Quarterly, Maggie. Are you familiar with the publication and do you receive it?
Maggie Bovis: Absolutely, I do.
S.M.: Let's begin then, with your telling a bit about yourself. Where were you born, and what was the Church like at that time?
Poem: Hymn to the Theotokos
Now the female sex is gladdened.
Now sorrow has ended.
Because Mary gave birth to joy,
the Savior and Lord,
Now the female sex is gladdened.
Now sorrow has ended.
Because Mary gave birth to joy,
the Savior and Lord,
Joy has blossomed.
Sylvia Muntean: Dedicated to Faith, Knowledge, and Good Works
As is evidenced in the numerous interviews and articles in this issue of the Quarterly, many of us are indebted to those women whose work and perseverance have helped to blaze the trail for the participation of women in the life of the Church. For me, one such woman is Sylvia Muntean.
A Tribute to our Foremothers
Today in America we enjoy a Church life enriched in a multitude of ways: with beautiful choirs and liturgical music, religious education programs for children and adults, charitable programs, youth programs, seminaries, a growing enthusiasm for spiritual and theological writings and journals, and much more. Virtually none of this existed at the beginning of the twentieth century.
WOMENViews - Women in Society
Since its founding in 1994, WOMEN has developed a grass roots membership of over fifteen-hundred women, men, and clergy worldwide who receive the St. Nina Quarterly, and who have set up a network via letters and e-mail to support each other and their ministries in their service to Christ and His Church. During that time, the WOMEN Board has discovered a fascinating diversity in women's experience in the Church. As a result, WOMEN's vision has evolved to recognize the distinct emphases in Orthodox women's needs in these different settings.
Sophie Shidlovsky Koulomzin: An Extraordinary Life
One of the most extraordinary Orthodox women of the twentieth century, Sophie Shidlovsky Koulomzin, experienced and helped to shape the life of the Orthodox Church throughout some of its most turbulent decades and critical periods. Although she counts herself first as mother and grandmother, she is also known and loved as teacher and educator, responsible for the religious education of countless Orthodox children both in the United States and abroad.
An Interview with Elizabeth Mitchell
Gayle Woloschak: How would you describe the situation and activity of the Church when you first became an active participant in Church life?
Elizabeth Mitchell: Life was difficult in our parish when I was young. At the turn of the century many Latin practices crept into our local church. As a result, a split developed in which some members believed the parish should be Greek Catholic and others believed we were Orthodox.
Holy Trinity Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Holy Trinity Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is a non-profit community-based facility located in Worcester, Massachusetts. It provides a broad range of skilled nursing and rehabilitation services, while maintaining the highest standard of personal care for residents. Each person is treated with dignity and respect, in keeping with the values and traditions of the Orthodox Christian faith.
Joy, Gratitude, Freedom: An Interview with Juliana Schmemann
Masha Tkachuk: Although you have spent more than half your life in North America, your childhood and youth were spent in Paris, where you grew up and were educated. How did your life as an Orthodox Christian mix with your secular education? Were the two completely separate, or did your Orthodoxy influence the direction that your education took?
From the Editorial Board
We are pleased to bring you this issue of the St. Nina Quarterly that is dedicated to those senior women among us in honor of their lives, accomplishments, and service to the Church. In many ways, these stories represent a written record of an oral history that might be otherwise lost. We hope that this issue is only the beginning and that others will take the time to document the lives of those women who have given so much to the Church. Please submit their stories to the Quarterly. Submissions should be between 1600-1800 words, and, if possible, be accompanied by a photo. We are hoping be able to publish an anthology in the future.
Book Profile: Sacred Songs: Studies in Byzantine Hymnography
Eva Topping's book brings together seventeen important studies which examine in careful detail the rich bounty of Byzantine hymns. Her studies address who the Byzantine hymnographers were - including significant women hymnographers. These chapters treat in depth specific Orthodox hymns for major feast days, Lent and Holy Week, and specific saints, with a sensitive, yet analytical presentation. Ms.
The Mystery of the Trinity Revealed and Experienced
It is common today to assume that theological arguments regarding the nature of the Trinity are of interest only in abstruse academic circles. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The Holy Trinity - one God in three Persons - is at the core of our belief and faith as Christians. The Trinity is not some abstraction to be philosophically debated by scholars. It is the source and meaning of our lives.
An Interview with Fr. Nicholas Apostola
Teva: First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time for this interview and for sharing your thoughts with the readers of the St. Nina Quarterly.
You grew up in an enclave made up primarily of Romanian immigrants in a small town in New England - a type of environment that is increasingly rare for many Orthodox Christians living in non-Orthodox countries. How did the experience of growing up in an ethnic "village" help to shape your life in the Church?
Women in the Syrian Tradition: Holy Images
The Acts of Thomas is one of our earliest documents for the history of Syrian Christianity. In it, the first person to recognize God's messenger is a woman; the first person to heed the Gospel message and to leave the familiar world of marriage, family, and political loyalties for the sake of the Gospel is a woman. Women are the first to receive and the first to pursue the Gospel.
Sermon: On the Dormition
St. Gregory the Theologian says that as Christians we undergo three births. The first is our physical birth from our mother, when we are born into the life of this world. The second is our baptism, when we are reborn through water and the Holy Spirit as members of the body of Christ. The third birth is the resurrection, when all of us hope to be born anew into the Kingdom of Heaven.1 At this glorious feast we honor the most holy Mother of God and celebrate her new birth into the resurrection.
A Reflection on Saint Christina
I always thought my parents named me after my grandmothers. Being especially fond of them both, I told everyone with no small amount of joy and pride that I was named after both my father's and my mother's mother: Christina Marie. Yet my family rarely called me Christina when I was growing up. They all thought it was "too big a name for such a tiny person" and nicknamed me Tina. This was fine by me; I never liked my name until I got to college and learned that Christina means "one who is of or follows Christ." It was at this time that I took my name
Romanian American Symposium on Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children
The U.S. Department of Justice is in the process of organizing symposia with partners from Central and Eastern Europe, and with a number of Asian countries, in an attempt to reduce and, gradually, to eliminate trafficking in and sexual exploitation of women and children.
