An early Pascha and an unusually long winter combined this year to frame a snow-white Paschal celebration.

Beginning with Great and Holy Thursday's foot-washing service conducted by our Rector, Archimandrite Luke, the final days of Lent were filled with liturgical services, including Passion Matins (with the readings of the Twelve Gospels), Royal Hours, Great Friday Vespers (with the procession with the Holy Winding Sheet), Holy Saturday Lamentations at 2:00 a.m., the reading of the entire New Testament book of Acts of the Apostles on Holy Saturday evening followed by Midnight Office. Since heavy snow fell as a backdrop to these services, monks were clearing the snow as priests, other monastics, seminarians, and the faithful were processing around the Church for the 2:00 a.m. Lamentations!

To link the beginning with the end, Holy Saturday 2018 marked the rare correspondence of the Great Feast of the Annunciation with Holy Saturday, a juxtaposition inspiring mystical contemplation of the beginning of the Son of God’s economy of salvation in the womb of the Theotokos and the culmination of His earthly ministry His death on the Cross and Resurrection from the tomb.

The wintry weather made a poignant ending to Great Lent and a delightful Pasha!

After the rigors of Passion Week with its intense but prayerful focus on the sacrifice of Christ, Pascha broke forth into joyful triumph at precisely midnight on April 7. Following the procession around the church, we celebrated the Paschal Matins and Divine Liturgy for the Feast of Feasts, proclaiming “Hristos Voskrese!” and “Christ is risen,” and singing the Paschal troparion repeatedly. The Pascal breakfast that followed around 4:30 a.m. was festively complete with kulich, holodetz, and cheese paskha.

We thank the Risen Christ, and we thank you, our supporters, during this Bright Week!  

Hristos Voskrese!  Christ is Risen!  Christos Anesti!

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the repose of our beloved Met. Laurus (Škurla), clergy from across the United States and Canada joined Bishop Nicholas at Holy Trinity on Friday, March 16, 2018, for a Hierarchal Presanctified Liturgy & Pannikhida.

After the Liturgy, monastics, clergy, seminarians, and guests continued the commemoration with a shellfish feast in the trapeza. That special, festive meal was followed by a two-hour Pannikhida in the cathedral.

A decade ago, Vladyka Laurus reposed on the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, a symbol of his life-long struggle to preserve the true faith while maintaining harmony within the Church. That difficult and delicate work culminated with his successful efforts to bring ROCOR back into communion with the Moscow Patriarchate through the Act of Canonical Communion, which he and Patriarch Alexei II signed in Moscow.

Vladyka Laurus served as dean of our Seminary, as well as the First Hierarch of ROCOR and the abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery. In fact, he was so beloved by the students that a majority of the clergy who came to Jordanville for the weekend's festivities are Seminary alumni, ranging from the class of 1964 to the class of 2014.

Click here to read reflections on the life of Met. Laurus

Christ is in our midst!
 
I am delighted to announce that Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, New York, has met our goal of raising a record $91,000 in contributions to our Giving Tuesday campaign! 

The Seminary choir travelled to Washington, DC, during the first weekend in March, with the blessing of Archimandrite Luke, Rector, and at the invitation of Mitred Archpriest Victor Potapov, Rector of St John the Baptist Cathedral in DC. The choir sang the responses during both the English and Church Slavonic Divine Liturgies under the direction of Deacon Nicholas Kotar, Seminary Choir Director and Lecturer in Church Music. Priest Ephraim Willmarth, Asst. Dean and Director of Admissions, and Deacon Michael Pavuk, Director of Development, led the delegation, which was accompanied by Dr. Vitaly Permiakov, Asst. Professor of Dogmatic and Liturgical Theology.

Elena Nelson’s recent book, Tradition and Innovation in Russian Church Slavonic Hymnography, was published by Academica Press in November 2017. The publisher designated it a Featured Book.  

A delegation from Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary (HTOS) traveled to St Basil’s Orthodox Church (OCA) on February 25 to participate in a Pan-Orthodox Vespers to commemorate the Sunday of Orthodoxy. The delegation was led by Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster, Dean and Professor of Moral Theology.

Following Russian tradition, monastics, faculty, seminarians, and staff began their Lenten purgation with an intensive week saturated with between 9 and 10 hours of church services each day, including Midnight Office, Matins, a Panikhida for all the names submitted to the Monastery for memorials, the four Canonical Hours, Vespers, Typica, and Great Compline with the Canon of St. Andrew, spiritual readings and councils.

With the blessing of His Grace, Bishop Basil (Essey), Deacon Michael Pavuk, the Seminary’s Director of Development traveled to Wichita Kansas in mid-February to address the attendees at the clergy retreat of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid America of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

With God's grace, the help of our generous benefactors, and the diligence of our faculty and staff, Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary was once again blessed to celebrate our patronal feast day of the Three Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom. On February 11 and 12, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, the monastic community, the seminarians, faculty, staff, and friends gathered to praise God the Holy Trinity, honor those great saints of the fourth century, and extol the virtues of the Seminary.

Deacon Michael Pavuk, HTOS Director of Development, brought the Jordanville Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, with the blessing of Archimandrite Luke and at the invitation of Archpriest Serge Lukianov, Rector, to the parish of the New Martyrs & Confessors of Russia on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, for their patronal feast, which occurred this year on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.

On March 11, 2017 Assistant Professor of Canon Law and Russian Church History, Deacon Andrei Psarev concelebrated at the All-Night Vigil with Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, rector of the Church of the the Renewal of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem  (in the Briusov Pereulok) in Moscow, in the church’s main side chapel, and at the Divine Liturgy on the following day.  This was followed by a talk in the parish house on Pivotal Points in History of the Russian Church Outside Russia accompanied by infographics.  Fr. Nikolai, formerly secretary of the Commission on the Restoration of Unity in the Russian Church, added to the talk with living recollections of the process of restoring relations, of which he was a direct participant.  This was already the third appearance by Deacon Andrei before the hospitable parish family of the Voskresenie Slovushchego Church na Uspenskom vrazhke over the past year.