“I, for One, Welcome Our New Syosset Overlords”

simpsonsTwo examples of how The Regime is gong to intensify its stranglehold over the “masses.”

File these under “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Source: Pokrov

Bishop Matthias Moriak Tentatively Scheduled to Preach in April

Date Published: 2/6/2013

Related Document: 2013 Chicago Deanery Sunday Evening Lenten Vespers

According to the Diocese of the Midwest’s website, Bishop Matthias Moriak is tentatively scheduled to preach at one of a series of Lenten services. Moriak is currently assigned to speak on Palm Sunday, April 28th, at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois. A flyer for the series is linked above.

In 2012 the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) bishop was placed on a leave of absence while allegations that he had sent inappropriate text messages and emails to a young woman were investigated. Despite finding that Moriak had engaged in sexual misconduct, the OCA announced that it would consider returning the hierarch to active ministry after treatment and a period of “mentoring” by another bishop.

Source: OCA

Department of Continuing Education FAQ’s

Q: What is Continuing Clergy Development (CCD)?

CCD is the pastoral continuing education program of the Orthodox Church in America. As of February 2013, every priest and deacon serving in the Orthodox Church in America must fulfill the Continuing Education requirement adopted by the Holy Synod of Bishops, by participating in the Continuing Clergy Development (CCD) program and taking twenty hours of continuing education each year.

Q: What is the basis of the 20-hour annual CCD requirement? Is that the standard for continuing education requirements by professional societies?

The 20 hr standard is consistent with clergy CE requirements in other denominations.. Some require as much as 24 hrs/yr. Other professions may require as little as 24 every two years or as much as 30 annually.

Q: Will clergy be required to take all 20 hours from among the offerings of the Department of Continuing Education?

No. The CE Department will offer certain required classes. In 2013, for instance, 5 hours on Sexual Misconduct are required. The remainder of CE hours may be taken from other providers. These might include a diocese, a seminary, a professional or community organization, or a local college. In all cases, the hours to be taken must be accredited in advance by the Department of Continuing Education.

Q: How are outside offerings accredited?

  1. If you are a CE provider, you may send a copy of your course syllabus to the Department of Continuing Education. The Department may then grant accreditation for the course.
  2. If you are a priest or deacon wishing to enroll in an outside CE offering, you may send a copy of the course description, the provider’s contact information and other relevant material to the Department of Continuing Education. The Department may then accredit the course.

Q: As an example: If “Sexual Misconduct” is a required 5-hour course, can I substitute an equivalent course from an outside provider?

No. Required courses must be taken from the Department of Continuing Education, in order to ensure that all clergy receive the same training and information.

Q: What if I hit the 20-hour mark without taking a required course?

You are to be commended for your commitment to learning! However, you must still take the required course in addition to the ones you’ve already taken.

Q: Can my extra hours be credited to the following year?

At this point, no. One of the goals of CCD is to foster an ongoing habit of participation in learning and growth experiences.

Q: Why is tuition being charged for CE?

The Department of Continuing Education is self-funded. As such, it must collect revenue for the services it provides. Normally the parish or mission would cover tuition as part of its care for the pastor. A priest or deacon is not excused from the CCD requirement if his parish fails in its responsibility.

The typical annual cost of tuition is more than offset by the recent reduction in the annual assessment due from each parish. This is part of building a more efficient and cost effective infrastructure.

On the other hand, not every course will require tuition. A diocese or local clergy brotherhood may offer a seminar free of charge, for instance. The CE Department may accredit such offerings, according to the procedure described above and in consultation with the local bishop.

I guess irony is lost on these people.

Comments

  1. Irony in spades.
    And does anyone else wonder whether the OCA apparatchiks are taking their governance cues from the old Soviet Union? Appropriate, in a way, given that the OCA (as distinct from the old Metropolia) is a creation of the Cold War era Soviet machine.

  2. Is this practice consistent with what other Orthodox Jurisdictions do? Does the GOA or ROCOR require their priests to take CE courses? Personally I would think it more useful and relevant to have our priests spend 20 quality hours per year at a monastery.

    This idea is just absurd on its face. The Orthodox Church and it’s priesthood are not secular institutions…and the CE thing is nothing more than a mushrooming money making racket in many modern professions…just ask teachers about their Continuing Educational requirements, and how many are actually useful and worth the 65 to 500 bucks that get sucked out of their wallets.

    Would to God our priests would petition their bishops and just say no to Syosset and its schemes. If enough refused what could they do, close all the churches except at Syosset? The training of priests and deacons belongs to Bishops, not CE granting institutions…especially secular ones.

    Failing that maybe some enterprising Traditional priests and deacons can create their on free set of CE courses that are basically just online forum discussions on a given topic. Participate at some modest level in the discussion and get your ce accreditation.

    • Community Service says

      Our priests are not, for the most part (There are Fathers Jillion and Tosi as exceptions), well paid enough to require of them to pay for continuing education, unless that continuing education were to be for free.

      I have a better idea, and that is to require every cleric, Deacon and above, to host an Orthodox Christian Fellowship chapter. We have very few chapters and many schools. These need not be schools of higher education, but could also be trade schools, and an emphasis might even be placed on junior colleges. cross the United States there are 1,655 community colleges. Of these, 1,047 are public institutions and 415 private. 2,774 four year degree granting institutions. Do we have that many Orthodox clerics, all jurisdictions put together? Hey, we can’t even look up minor clergy on the OCA website. There is no central SCOBA type Orthodox website listing all clergy. Many someone could do his community service to God compiling and coding that! Our churches are lacking young adults, especially young adults who are not converts. All it takes to start an OCL chapter is one Orthodox student associated with a given campus and one cleric as chaplain. What better way to increase the possibility of our Faith lasting at least one more generation than to have our clergy care about our young people – to get to know them individually, to keep in touch with them, even after they get on with their lives, to HELP them get on with their lives, to get parishes to help them get on with their lives, to continue to be a part of their lives. It is so sad that anyone over the age of twelve is supposed to somehow disappear except for some graduation icon. Many of our young people are even discouraged from serving in our parishes. How many young people are encouraged to read, for example?

      Another continuing part of community service could be random visits to nursing homes by every cleric subdeacon and above to visit both Orthodox and others.

      I’ve got more ideas in this vein.

      O yes! Next week I will be serving dinner at a shelter. Wouldn’t it be interesting if alongside me also dishing out the vegetables and chicken would be, hmmm, a monk?

      • Agreed. Formal education and the focus on credentials that results are over-rated in our time and place, especially when they are regulated by bureaucracies committed to mediocrity in outcomes. Community service is much more valuable both to the community and the individual involved in it. If I had my youth over again, I would devote it to studying medicine or similar, something that would directly benefit mankind, and use my spare time to study the humanities apart from the input of contemporary academe, which is spiritually moribund, philosophically bankrupt and morally corrupt beyond your wildest imaginings. In short, your OCA priests would spend their time better and learn more about humanity going about their ordinary minsterial duties. I suspect they can ill afford the time or the fees for CE anyway.

        • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

          I agree with Basil and “Community Service.” And, yes, credentialism always threatens intelligent discourse.
          A modern re-telling of “the Rich Man and Lazarus”, might have the rich man living in the house called USA, and behind high walls, having such a surplus of one hundred per cent pure drinking water, that he uses it to wash his cars and as a depository for his faeces and urine, which he dispenses in an antiseptically pure room called ‘BATHROOM.” He’s a devout Christian, perhaps outside the mainline, and a pillar of the community with the right opinions on all public matters. Outside the walls of the USA, however, there’s a five year-old child who’s never ever seen purified water. The dogs don’t look after her: they are rivals for the water running in the gutter. The rich man is a fervent opponent of abortion by others who use drinking water to defecate in, but he doesn’t know a thing about those millions of children sufffering from drought and famine and filth and neglect OUTSIDE his house. And he certainly doesn’t want “others” to help anyone with HIS money i.e.,evil taxes.

  3. “other denominations”???

    • Yeah I saw that too. Orthodoxy is not a denomination. It’s down right insulting to say something like that.

      • You cannot unilaterally change the English language. Unless you want to claim Orthodoxy is not “a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices” (link to Webster’s definition here), then you have to accept that it is a denomination. Religious scholars consider the Orthodox churches to be either one denomination or several denominations. Perhaps you lean toward the latter perspective, but this does not make the former insulting to anyone. A denomination is simply a religious body, as opposed to a set of religious teachings in the abstract. It is not a pejorative term, and it would be unnecessarily cumbersome to do away with the term altogether.

        • In the case you cite the definition is overly broad, and while you may be technically correct, the implication in our society is that there is the RCC and then there are various Protestant “Denominations”. The RCC is NEVER called a denomination because the implied meaning is that a denomination is a subset or former constituent of something larger. A good example is receiving a payment of say $100 and receiving said payment in denominations of 5’s and 10’s. In this context one would never say that the $5 bills are wholly independent of the total payment of $100. One also has to consider the cultural meaning as opposed to the scholarly meaning and the second reply to my comment is closer.

      • It’s not just insulting, it’s heretical. “Denominations,” when used in reference to Christian bodies, refers to the many independent Protestant groups, such as the UCC, PCUSA, UM, ABC, SBC, and the like. To call the Roman Catholics a “denomination” is inaccurate; to call the Orthodox Church a “denomination” is either ignorance of or rejection of the Orthodox Faith.

        • You are using the term as an abbreviation for “Protestant denomination.” It is good that you at least recognize what you are doing, but it is very silly of you to condemn others for preferring the dictionary definition over your private definition. I think I can understand why several in the Orthodox churches might prefer your approach. It allows you to talk about Protestant churches without using the word “church,” and it expressive a kind of passive aggressive contempt for the divisions among the Christian denominations. Ironically, there is a so-called “non-denominational” movement within Evangelical and Pentacostal groups that shares your aversion to the term “denomination” … but their problems with the English language and church governance are otherwise very different from yours.

          To an extent, your misunderstanding of the term makes sense. In a nation with an exclusive state church, there are less geographically overlapping religious bodies and so less need for the term in daily life (aside from the fact that English itself is probably not the language used to discuss religion). But here in the US, a nation that has had no state church and that has historically welcomed all Protestant Christian groups with open arms, the term has served a valuable function. Stepping from the first kind of situation into the latter, one can be forgiven for making the inferential error that you have made. But you really have no grounds for condemning others who choose not to adopt your inferential error. The rest of the English speaking world will go on using the word the way the dictionary has consistently defined it.

          You might find these Wikipedia articles on Religious Denominations (link) and Christian Denominations (link) to be of interest.

          I’m sorry for my patronizing tone, but I really do think you want to stop calling folks heretics for using the English language correctly. To your credit, there are Catholics, including leaders in the Roman Catholic Church who misuse the English language in the same way that you are choosing to misuse it.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Um, the Church is one. Those who set themselves apart from that oneness are first schismatics and usually heretical in belief. The trouble with accepting the term ‘denomination’ for the Church is that it gives a moral and spiritual equivalence to all beliefs. The Church is not a denomination. She is the pillar and ground of the truth.

            The passive and unconscious use of that term in this instance clearly indicates an abdication of that knowledge and identity. The leaders of the OCA show their accommodation to the worldly idea of a church as simply a human organization of preference by using the word as they do.

            Sorry, your wrong on this one.

          • Um, ok, I see how you are using this term and it fits in most circles, but in an Orthodox world we don’t use it. It has another meaning. Like the term icon. I realize art historians and computer geeks use the term differently, but we use it specifically to us, and so with this word “denominations”. . . . it hurts our ears-or eyes in this case.

          • Um,
            Words matter, but words are often changed, even by supposedly “objective” and “official” resources, to fit an agenda. Everyone, whether they realize it or not, has an agenda and uses their words according to that worldview. In the Orthodox Church, we have an agenda, too, and we use our words to reflect that agenda and teach and promote that agenda, which we believe to be the truth of God. What the Church teaches, is the worldview we should employ our language to use. To call the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Orthodox Church one of many “denominations” is a betrayal of Orthodox teaching. Those who use such language reveal what their true beliefs are.

          • Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald says

            Well, Um, you’re not ALL wrong. But just out of common courtesy, you should recognize that American Orthodox in particular, especially the ones who try to show they are not “of the Old World”, have left no stone unturned in trying to look normal: I.E. just as normal as ANY of the “denominations.” Whether it’s calling a convention whether or not there’s a pressing doctrinal or survival issue, incorporating as non-profit corporations with boards of trustees, and joining in gratefully with all the non-Orthodox on ANY important issue of COMMON concern and joining such conglomerations of outright denominations as the NCC. By using the WORD ‘denomination” you cause a kind of schizophrenia. it’s like Uniates that insist they are not Roman Catholics of this or that Eastern Rite, but “Greek’ Catholics. They ARE Roman Catholics.
            A complicating factor too, Um, is that in America there ARE denominations of the Orthodox Church. First there are the heretical Orthodox, such as the Copts, Armenians, etc. Then there is what I call the Great Schismatic Miscellany (GSM), i.e., Calendarists of various varieties, “True” Orthodox of various varieties, sometimes called “Genuine” or else adding a capital letter in parentheses to their title,as in “ROCOR(V)”. So it would not be unfair or wrong for a curious outsider to ask, “If you are Orthodox, which Orthodox denomination do you belong to?”
            Once we get our act together, like the Church of Russia, or Greece, then we can begin to say we are NOT another American denomination.

  4. Wow Wee, just like a “real Church”

    Impeach the clueless mitered bums!

  5. Lord, have mercy!

    Another indication that the OCA has moved totally into the secular world by taking a noble idea and turning into an elitist, top-down, totally unfunded mandate. More central control…..”we will approve what you must learn and read and you have no choice, sex classes are mandatory.”

    An organization with no credibility does not gain it by mandating things they can’t enforce. What are they going to do if a priest or deacon does not participate? Retire them? Yes, the program is based on the “good-will” of the participants who must pay for a forced program. “Good-will” by the elitist leaders of the OCA?

    Oh wait, the OCA AAC passed this idea and at the same Council blocked the attempt to listen to the voice of the people to leave the WCC and NCC!

    If you want to take a good idea and screw it up, give it to the OCA!

  6. Disgusted With It says

    I think some refresher course for clergy could be a good thing if executed with proper direction and guidance. I saw the press release on the OCA website and read that the Department Director is Archpriest Ian G. Pac-Urar. Does anyone know, is he a graduate of St. Vladimir’s or St. Tikhon’s?

  7. The silver lining in all the incompetence on display is that the mandatory sexual misconduct training might teach the synod about the problematic behavior of the bishop it is about to re-instate.

    SAM

    • George Michalopulos says

      Fat chance of that happening. The Revered Protosbyterians have long ago made their accommodation with episcopal immorality. The better to control them.

      • Perhaps. Although, I do find it hard to believe that the clerics at Main OCA could muster enough intelligence to enact a such a plan. No, I think what we are seeing is the work of intellectual light-weights who are overmatched by the challenges facing them. Or, if not intellectual light-weights, one of those curious situations in which the whole is much, much less than the sum of its parts.

        What action taken by Main OCA in the past decade could you look at and say, “that, that is impressive”? None. From personnel decisions to policy decisions, the constant result is mediocrity. I am not naive enough to think that administering the OCA is an easy task. But at some point it would be encouraging to see one thing, just one thing, that the church as whole could look at and say, “well done!”.

        SAM

        • We could argue all day on here about how this ultimately turned out, but I remember distinctly that people did actually have that happily-surprised, “well done!” reaction to something the OCA did once. It was the election of Metropolitan Jonah.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Helga, WHO said “Well done?”
            What I heard was “What the….?”
            Of course, you may be right. No one said “Well done” when the Bishops rejected Bishop Vladimir Nagossky, did they? No one said “Well done’ when they rejected Bishop Seraphim, did they?
            But experience of the OCA would indicate a “Well Done” for the OCA in both those cases, no? f
            It’s much too early, by the way, to decide, after he resigned, that Metropolitan Jonah would not have proved to be a disaster if left incumbent. I recognize your steadfastly and typically maternal feelings toward Metropolitan Jonah; however, if you are an archpriest, they might prove to be problematic. Metropolitan Jonah HAS a mother.

            • Well, Your Grace, I can remember quite a number of those pleased reactions – including that of Mark Stokoe himself.

              We will never know what kind of tenure Metropolitan Jonah would have had if he had been allowed to stay in office. But he certainly has a lot of people who grew to love and care about him through his ministry as our Metropolitan, so maybe he was doing something right.

              • Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald says

                Well,Helga, I was not at the Council, but I was informed by a person I believe and trust that he stood next to Mark Stokoe waiting for an elevator right after the election, when Mark exclaimed loudly and sadly, ‘This was NOT supposed to happen!” You obviously remember something unlike that?

          • Helga, you are most certainly right-what a pleasant surprise– a feeling of excitement about one’s faith and hope for the future when +Jonah was elected. At this point your Grace, I don’t care what the administration of the OCA said or thought when he was elected. I clearly have no confidence in what they think or do at this point.

          • Carl Kraeff says

            Helga–I have to agree with you. At that time, I had been following the OCA crisis and was very pleased when the Holy Synod made the decision to elect +Jonah. I liked what I heard, to include his push back against Constantinople. Mark’s January 15, 2011 article “The More Things Change” was a complete surprise to me; I remember e-mailing him my disappointment with his negativism and unwarranted criticism. However, over time, I realized that Mark was right. My Rubicon was when +Jonah went back on his word after Santa Fe. Everything that has come to light since then has been a prophetic confirmation of +Jonah’s own admissions at Seattle and his resignation letter.

    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

      SAM. Is Bishop Matthias’s behavior more problematic or less problematic than that of his brethren in the Holy Synod? Which brethren, exactly? I feel that Metropolitan Tikhon’s behavior is less problematic than that of any of the other diocesan bishops in the OCA, (but after almost a decade of obsession with “accountability and transparency” has kept the foibles of most of them out of the papers). WHICH of the diocesan bishops are you willing to go out on a limb for and say “their behavior is morally superior to that of Bishop Matthias”?.

  8. Sean Richardson says

    I’ve worked in several educational institutions in the past few decades and they all required similar continuing education classes. Yes, we all grumbled about it, but in retrospect it turned out to be something that was both useful and productive. Many local churches are requiring sexual misconduct training for their clergy and also for those who hold positions within their local churches (Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, etc.) and it is not a bad idea for Orthodox clergy and workers to understand the laws of their state, and to receive additional academic training as well. I know this seems over-bearing and dictatorial, but having gone through many secular programs similar to this, from my own experience, I think it’s a good idea.

    • George Michalopulos says

      I’ve been doing C E for close to 30 years now. In the old days it was fun –ski trips, Vegas nites, Super Bowl parties, etc. Now since the IRS tightened up on the fringes, it’s become a drudgery.

    • I’m not opposed to the idea of gathering the clergy and furthering education, although funding is a problem, but more so I don’t trust What they will be encouraging. I would have a different plan for this, one not so expensive and more natural to Orthodoxy.

  9. A ten-day course of study for continuing education of the leadership staff of the Russian Orthodox church (RPTs) opened in the Russian Academy of State Service of the presidential administration of the Russian federation. Deputies and government workers will explain to the clergy how they should conduct relations between the state and church. The classes were arranged in accordance with an agreement that was signed in September by the Moscow patriarchate and the Russian Academy of State Service (RAGS) for a curriculum of continuing education for the leadership staff of RPTs.

    by Pavel Korobov, Kommersant-Daily, 13 November 2002

  10. The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church
    X. The Dioceses
    1. The Diocesan Bishop
    18. In governing the diocese the Bishop shall:
    u) care for the improvement of the spiritual and moral state of the clergy and for the enhancement of the level of their education;

    http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/3/15.aspx

    • George Michalopulos says

      Good, then let the diocesan bishops run these programs. I’m tired of all this over-centralization. This is nothing more than Syosset increasing its stranglehold over the parishes at the expense of the bishop. Sex Czar, Clergy Cop, now cajoling priests who don’t have time for their families to have to attend C E classes. It’s all smoke and mirrors, intended to fool the people in the pews that “Syosset is all over it.”

      • Exactly. I’m not against continuing education in principle, but this typical Syosset-style execution is ridiculous on its face.

        News flash, Syosset, our priests are not your guinea pigs to do experiments on, just so you can go to the WCC and look like you run a big-boy church!

      • George,

        The relatively simple solution would be for each diocese to “do the right thing” and manage themselves in a manner well-pleasing to God. But let’s just see how this is working or has worked in the OCA of late:

        Canada – Nope. The Archbishop is under investigation for child molestation.
        Midwest – Nope. The bishop is on leave for sexual harassment.
        Alaska – Nope. They don’t really have a bishop and their last one was forced to resign.
        South – Nope. They don’t have one and the last one passed away.
        Eastern PA – Barely. They have an administrator auxilliary bishop who is not well like or well respected.
        Boston – Barely. They have a bishop who is struggling just to stay alive.
        West – Barely. They have a bishop who was accused of a certain drinking problem and had some pretty serious problems with one of his own monasteries. (How’s that $70,000 loan to the monastery working out?)

        Two forced into retirement ex-metropolitans, one retired ex-metropolitan with certain proclivities. Nice leadership isn’t it?

        I honestly don’t think it’s a much a Syosset power grab as I believe you do. Rather, it is just the fact that people like Fr. Jillions and the metropolitan council see a bunch of buffoons running around trying to run dioceses into the ground.

        Certainly, having continuing education classes on sexual misconduct for priests should be an unnecessary thing. But given what just happened with the Bishop of Chicago can you blame anyone? As I’ve said in the past, until the list of people defrocked on Fr. Jillion’s executive turnstile gets longer, nothing has change or is going to change. As the bible says, “… because the days are evil.” (Eph. 5:16)

        • Carl Kraeff says

          From your post, it would seem that without having a full-time bishop a diocese is like a boat that has no motor, no sail and no oars, just drifting aimlessly in the ocean. Let me just talk about my diocese–the Diocese of the South, the one with which I am most familiar. I am sure that similar circumstances are also present in the others.

          Metropolitan Tikhon and our locum tenens, Archbishop Nikon, have been most supportive and attended our last Clergy Retreat. We are blessed with great priests, outstanding deans and a wonderful Chancellor. We have probably the best diocesan treasurer in the OCA. We are running missions. We are growing our parishes everywhere. In short, we seem to be doing the right thing and managing ourselves in a manner pleasing to God, to use your phraseology. This fact does not lessen our ardent desire to have a permanent bishop for our diocese and God willing we shall have one in His time. In the meantime, His laos, clergy and laity alike, are carrying on as good disciples.

  11. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

    The Clergy Compensation Plan for 2012

    B. BENEFITS
    In addition to the above, the parish must provide:
    5) Expenses for attending District/Metropolis Clergy-Laity Assemblies and Retreats, the Biennial
    Clergy-Laity Congress, Clergy Continuing Education Programs, and the Archdiocese Presbyters
    Council Retreat.

    http://www.renderinguntocaesar.com/Resources/Clergy%20Compensation%20Plan%20-%202012.pdf

    • George Michalopulos says

      I was in the GOA. A lot of this stuff is bogus. And anyway, why should the OCA copy the GOA in this regard? Why doesn’t Syosset insist on following the GOA’s guidelines on clergy compensation? This is nothing but trying to be relevant on the cheap.

  12. 12th All-American Council – The Orthodox Church in America (July 1999)

    Church-Wide Initiative Proposals

    Pastoral Continuing Education Seminars

    Proposal Summary: To develop and administer regional Church-wide pastoral continuing education seminars for clergy with the intent for pastors to widen their knowledge, to broaden their skills, and to deepen their understanding of their pastoral responsibilities.

    http://oca.org/PDF/12thAAC/churchwideproposals/pastoralseminars.pdf

  13. Regarding clergy continuing education, it sure likes like George’s handling of it is a tempest in a tea pot, perhaps caused by the +Jonah Derangement Syndrome.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Carl, were you staring in the mirror when you wrote the words “Jonah Derangement Syndrome”?

  14. Archpreist John W. Morris says

    I know that this is off subject, but I do not know where else to ask this question. There is a report on a continuing Anglican site that an Orthodox “Metropolitan” conducted a retreat for continuing Anglican clergy sponsored by the Diocese of Quincy, which is one of the dioceses that has left the Episcopal Church, and gave each one of them an antimension? Can this be right? I would think that it is not proper to give non Orthodox an antimension. Can anyone enlighten me on this?

  15. Freebies for Continuing Education says

    http://www.orthodoxmarketplace.com/free-downloads/youth-and-young-adult-ministries/youth-protect-manual-rev.-4-2010-pdf.html

    On the above website, several manuals of use can be downloaded at no charge

    http://www.orthodoxmarketplace.com/free-downloads/youth-and-young-adult-ministries/orthodox-christian-teen-survival-guide-series-pdf.html

    Also at the above, free downloads of use in parishes. Be sure to click on the attachments links, if necessary, to get the Pdf files for downloading. Preserving sexual purity sounds like a good booklet, for example. In fact, in this group, many of the titlescoupd be useful for our Holy Synod and for those who have had difficulty dealing with the same:

    Maintaining Sexual Purity (OSGSexualPurity.pdf, 522 Kb) [Download]

    Risks of Pornography (OSGpornography.pdf, 515 Kb) [Download]

    Managing Stress (OSGManagingStress.pdf, 516 Kb) [Download]

    Diffusing Peer Pressure (OSGPeerPressure.pdf, 539 Kb) [Download]

    Risks and Abuse of Drugs and Alcohol (OSGDrugsandAlcohol.pdf, 521 Kb) [Download]

    Suicide and Depression (suicide.pdf, 2,400 Kb) [Download]

    Life After High School (lifeafterhs.pdf, 2,579 Kb) [Download]

    Healing Body Image (bodyimage.pdf, 2,282 Kb) [Download]

    Facing Bullying (bullying.pdf, 2,397 Kb) [Download]

    Dealing With Gossip (gossip.pdf, 2,382 Kb) [Download]

    The above downloads are located at
    http://www.orthodoxmarketplace.com/free-downloads/youth-and-young-adult-ministries/orthodox-christian-teen-survival-guide-series-pdf.html

    Remember, adolescent is not simply a chronological term

  16. cynthia curran says

    2. IT IS Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans, as the religion which he introduced makes clear even unto this day. It is evident that this is the religion that is followed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity; that is, according to the apostolic discipline and the evangelic doctrine, we shall believe in the single Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, under the concept of equal majesty and of the Holy Trinity. This is the Theodosian Code, so in the lare 4th and early 5th the Bishop of Rome was first among Patriarchs, Constaninople didn’t hold that place. That doesn’t mean that I think the papacy as it is today is correct but I think the Theodosian Code shows the Patriach of Rome is first among the Patriarch from a hisotorical view, I may be wrong not an expert on theology. Pontiff the bridge builder also a term from the old pagan head Pontiff Maximus.