Here's an excerpt from Dr Vigen Guroian's paper "Youth, Unity and Orthodoxy in America." It's food for thought for any Orthodox Christian who is going to attend University or College. We pray that Parishes and Dioceses also support OCF jointly (not only supported or sponsored by one Jurisdiction but perhaps have joint sponsorship of OCF Chapters with Chaplains rotating monthly from among the various jurisdictions in the area). Orthodoxy is....
Orthodox Christian Student Fellowships
Dr. Vigen Guroian
Professor of Orthodox Christianity, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
Several weeks ago, I received an invitation to deliver a pair of annual lectures at Davidson College, some twenty or thirty miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The colleague who contacted me explained that I would be the first Orthodox theologian to deliver these lectures. When I asked what prompted this invitation, he mentioned that there now exists an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship at Davidson, and that it, therefore, seemed fitting to schedule lectures informative to the entire college community regarding the Orthodox faith.Forty years ago, when I was attending college, this would not have been thought possible—certainly not at a college like Davidson, which is in the South and was founded by Presbyterians. I asked my colleague whether there was a particular ethnic complexion to the Orthodox student group, and he answered that so far as he understood, it was made up of young men and women from a variety of ethnic and jurisdictional backgrounds. I was not surprised. The same holds true at the University of Virginia, which I attended as an undergraduate, taught at in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and to which I will return in the fall of 2008. A former student of mine at the University of Virginia, now a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church, founded an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship at the University. In recent years, I have gotten acquainted with the young Orthodox men and women who continue that organization. And upon my return to the University, I will seize the opportunity to deepen my relationship with them.The Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship of the University of Virginia is distinctively pan-Orthodox in character. This pan-Orthodox character carries through to many such fellowships at our colleges and universities. And it is often the case that the students seek out an Orthodox priest as their advisor, not on the basis of jurisdictional identity, but rather, his proximity and his interest in acting in such a capacity. Thus, for example, at the University of Virginia, a priest of the Ukrainian Church advises, and he does so not as a representative of his jurisdiction but as a pastor to all Orthodox students. These student fellowships are pan-Orthodox not so much by design as “by accident,” similar to how all of our churches landed on this North American continent, thrown together, as it were, by forces of history.The college or university is a synecdoche—a metaphor—representing, in microcosm, the diverseness and pluralism of America. Likewise, the Orthodox students who arrive at our colleges and universities represent a microcosm of the entire Orthodox presence in America in all of its variety They come to college for many reasons, but with little thought, however, about joining in the great experiment of pan-Orthodoxy and church unity. Unlike their immigrant forebears who came to America, these young people do not bring to college all cf the institutional paraphernalia of their churches. They do carry, however, an Orthodox identity that they feel a need to share and explain to others. Ethnic or jurisdictional belonging does not inhibit them. They act out of a sense of pluralism and voluntarism that is also distinctively American. They voluntarily join together as Americans to form not a Greek Christian fellowship or a Ukrainian Christian fellowship, but an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship.How did they get that idea? I don’t think we taught it to them in our parishes. Rather, they learned it from the culture, from the presence of all of us in this American culture. They read it out of the culture, as Americans. I cannot stress this enough, because this is also a clue to the future of Orthodoxy in North America.The statement of the Orthodox bishops at the Ligonier Conference of 1994 addressed regional and local models for cooperation among the churches and between jurisdictions. The bishops’ concerns were primarily ecclesiastical and institutional. They made no mention of youth—in retrospect, a telling omission. Yet, you and I know that the Christian faith overflows the bounds of historical ecclesiastical forms. The Spirit blows where it wishes, and it blows in these Orthodox Christian Student Fellowships at our colleges and universities.This brings to mind several questions whose answers we should be seeking from these college youth. As I look around, I do not see many of them. And that, too, is telling, for they might well be doing more in their situations to create Orthodox unity in America than we are here. We ought to be preparing the ground for them in our parishes, so that the church is more hospitable to their experiences and hopes. But I do not see much evidence of that either.Here are some questions: What moved you to join with other Orthodox youth to form or join an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship? Why did you choose to belong to this pan-Orthodox association rather than a Greek Orthodox or Serbian Orthodox student fellowship? What did you hope to gain for yourself by establishing or joining such a fellowship? What needs of yours did this fellowship meet? What did you learn? What do you want to happen in your parish having had this experience? Maybe we should have had a student panel here and asked these questions.Now I ask you, what will these young men and women who are not here with us today do with their pan-Orthodox experience and taste of church unity when they leave college and re-enter parish life? Three possibilities occur to me. First, they will become the agents of real change toward unity, because we are ready for them, because we have prepared the ground for them in our parishes. And if this is so, there is also a good chance that Orthodoxy in America will remain a truly churchly Christianity. Or second, out of frustration, they themselves will lapse into old habits and patterns of ethnic segregation and a divisive jurisdictional mindset. They will just relent. Or third, frustrated, they will leave the church, in part because there is no fertile ground for unity in it, and in part because an almost instinctive American voluntarism and denominational mentality blesses the status quo and permits them to join another church or to not belong at all. You name what they will do.
[...]
Emil Brunner, a great Protestant theologian of the past century, wrote: “The Church exists for mission, just as fire exists for burning. Where there is no mission there is no Church; and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.” Not for one minute do I believe that we Orthodox Greeks, Serbs, Russians, and Armenians landed here by accident. The Lord brought us here for a purpose. The Lord swept us all together in one place so that we might heal the divisions that wound and cripple the Body of Christ. God has prepared an American Pentecost. And we have resisted it, even if in the face of our own diminishment under divine judgement. Some years ago, I published an article in the Armenian press titled “What Does God Want from the Armenian Church? Or Why Did God Send Jonah to Nineveh?” We will recall that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh to prophesy to the heathens. Even when he finally relented, Jonah resented where God had put him; he was even embittered over his own success at bringing the Ninevites to repentance, and he brooded. So God planted a vine that shaded Jonah from the hot sun. Jonah luxuriated beneath it. But just as suddenly, God caused a worm to attack the vine and cause it to wither. Jonah was left unprotected to endure the unrelenting heat and the harsh wind, and he was moved to exclaim: “It is better that I should die than be here.”Heaven forbid that we endure a similar fate and lose the protection of our churches. Unlike Jonah, we need to gain inspiration from what small accomplishments toward unity we have made. I have argued here that one place to begin is with the model of pan-Orthodoxy that the Spirit has raised up in the lives of young Orthodox Christians in our colleges and universities. No matter the relatively small numbers who have been involved in Orthodox Christian Student Fellowships, let us remember our Lord's parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in the field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when it is grown is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come to nest in its branches” (Matt. 13:31-32).
SOURCE: Guroian, Vigen. "Youth, Unity, and Orthodoxy in America." in "Orthodox Christianity at the Crossroad." Ed. George E. Matsoukas. (Bloomington: iUniverse books, 2009) 51-59.
Also by Dr Vigen, Melody of Faith http://www.amazon.com/The-Melody-Faith-Theology-Orthodox/dp/0802864961 an excellent book that gives an overview and survey of Orthodox Theology.
For more information on Orthodox Christian Fellowship browse to http://www.ocf.net/
Forgive and pray for me.
