Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary is pleased to welcome His Grace, Bishop John (Abdalah) of Worcester and New England, Antiochian Archdiocese, who will present a lecture titled “Pastoral Care in a Complex Time.”  

Bishop John (Abdalah) holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in Pastoral Care from Pittsburgh Theological School, a Master of Divinity from St. Vladimir’s Seminary, a Master’s equivalency certificate in Pastoral Counseling from Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. Throughout Seminary and following his studies, he also studied Arabic.

Bishop John is a clinical member of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. He taught Pastoral Counseling in the graduate program at the St. John of Damascus Institute at the Balamand in Lebanon. For 33 years, he served as a priest of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America; he has been Dean of St. George Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the past 16 of those years. Before that, he served 16 years in New Kensington, and one year in Little Falls.

With experience both as an Orthodox Christian pastor and as a trained professional in Pastoral Counseling, HTOS seminarians will gain insight into the question: How useful is contemporary counseling training for Orthodox pastors?  In what ways could it augment or hinder the work of pastoral care in the Church?

This lecture is open to all Orthodox clergymen and seminarians but closed to the public.