By Br Brennan Just over a year ago I was planning an early retirement with an eye to monastic life. While I can’t say that I had one of those great careers and was at the top of my game, I had come to know some really amazing people over my years in the last job. Among those, I always enjoyed truly close relationships marked by great mutual respect. However, I was also one of those artists with a day job, and as a dancer/instructor/choreographer I had come to notice in recent years a certain status of “esteemed eldership” of sorts (at least in my particular genre, that of East European ethnic dance), however awkward I felt about it. After numerous visits to New Skete over the years, I knew the transition to postulancy and novitiate would involve quite a shake-up in my sense of self. And I was correct. First, I was not going to jump in and wow anyone with any diligence, knowledge, or finesse, as I might try to do in a new job. All I could do was pay attention, and learn what this
Father Paul
Nicholas Harrilchak,
priest of Holy Trinity Parish (OCA), Reston, Virginia, and long-time friend of
New Skete’s Communities, gave an evening lecture during his visit, accompanied
by Mrs. Sharon Lefchik of College Park, Maryland, for the monks, nuns, and
members of our parish Tuesday, November 5. He spoke very entertainingly and
most informatively about the thematic and calendar unfolding of the celebration
of the Nativity of Christ in the Orthodox East from the time of St. John
Chrysostom. The Eastern tradition has no Advent except in the adoption of a
forty-day fast to mirror the Great Fast in preparation for Pascha, but it is
nonetheless rich in biblical mysteriology expanded by the related theophanies
also brought to the fore by the Church from the original new year on September
23 (the empire’s commemoration of the birth of Caesar Augustus) up to the
Encounter on February 2. In the course of his discussion, there were ample
instances to refer to a book he has just published in its 20th edition, The Divine Liturgy. This revision is
replete with details of liturgical and biblical history embedded in the texts.
Father
Harrilchak with Brothers Peter and John, Stavros and Marc. The latter two were
classmates with Father Harrilchak at Saint Basil’s Ukrainian Catholic
Seminary in the early sixties. He was also familiar with Fr. Laurence at
Holy Protection Monastery of the Byzantine Franciscans in adjoining towns in
southwestern Connecticut. Fr. Paul and Br. Stavros and the deceased Br. Elias
were also together at the Catholic University of America at St. Josephat’s
Ukrainian Seminary in Washington, D.C. in 1964 and 1965. He preceded the monks in
becoming part of the OCA after his years at St. Vladimir’s and friendship with
Fathers Schmemann and Meyendorff [the founder of the Reston parish.]
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