Shortly after we moved to Southbridge a new family joined our community (2016). It was the first family with more than two children, respectively with four, three of which passed through adolescence. Since then, we started thinking about the fact that our young Orthodox people need to socialize, and to have fellowship with other young Orthodox in order to survive the pressure from society and their secular peers. The only way to help them (our church was small, with an elderly population) was to organize activities for young people and to invite other parishes.
Unfortunately, along with this aspect, we started realizing that Orthodoxy in America is a lot different from what we know in Romania, Russia and Greece. Putting together these realities, we concentrated all in the Young Adults Retreat mission and the vision:
Our YAR mission is to create the right environment and foundation for Pan-Orthodox young adults, where they can rediscover the authentic Orthodox spirit, receive the right teachings, and revive the old ethnic traditions, build sound fellowship, and support each other during these difficult times.
Our YAR vision: The future of the Orthodox Church is not about adapting to the times and being cool; it is about being authentic, living in truth and love, and becoming the temple of the Holy Spirit. Without the right teaching, inspiration, support, and communion with other Orthodox Christians our young adults will be confused, weak, and lost. This will impact the whole Orthodox Church in its assembly and jeopardize its future.
We succeeded to launch the first edition of a retreat for young adults between 18 and 35 years old – St. Siluoan Young Adults Retreat (YAR) on September 17th, 2022. Twenty-eight young adults joined the YAR.
It was intense work, but it was worth doing. We added a special section for the Retreat (https://www.stmichaelorthodox.com/about-3) to the church site. We created a mission and vision for this program, a poster, a brochure and we started its promotion. Those who organize events of any kind know that the most difficult part is not the organization of an event, but its effective promotion which brings participants. And above all we asked our patron St. Siluoan for help, who sent us abundantly both resources and young people.
Following the mission of the St. Siluoan YAR, we tried to create a mix of spiritual activities, relaxation, and fun. The Divine Liturgy started our journey, and Fr. John, host of YAR, opened the day with a word about the teaching of St. Siluoan, emphasizing the love for enemies, even enemies of the church. Some ice breaker games helped the participants to get to know each other and have some fun. We continued with two interesting workshops (How to prepare koliva and Wood Sculpture with the famous wood sculptor Dimitrios Klitsas who among many other incredible works sculpted Mariah Carry’s wooden mantle piece). The day ended with a bonfire and friendly discussions warmed by the playfull shadows cast by the fire. Although almost twelve hours had passed since starting the program, the youth, inspired by the hosts, joined in Greek and Romanian traditional dances.
The climax of the event was the spiritual talk with the theme Confession and the Spiritual Father in the Orthodox Church, delivered by Protosingelos Jeremiah (Berbec), the abbot of St. Dumitru Monastery, from Middletown, NY. Father Jeremiah was a good choice for our young audience, intellectual and desirous of knowledge (he obtained a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Berkley, CA).
The Abbot of Middletown reached the heart of the audience through simplicity, but the spiritual depth of the dialogue was built up gradually around the Holy Fathers and contemporary Saints. The presentation, structured following mathematical logic, began with the explanation of the indisputable truth that we, people, are selfish and that selfishness is so well hidden in our inner being that we need another person to bring it to light. Along the same lines, using the words of the Psalmist, the speaker said "that every man is a liar" and that's why we cannot trust our own judgment, and a second person is necessary to observe us from the outside, more clearly and objectively then we can and help us in our spiritual journey. The father went farther in the spirit of St. Silouan and St. Sophrony explaining that it was through disobedience that Adam cut his umbilical cord, his living connection with God and then was expelled from Heaven. This relationship can only be restored through repentance and obedience. The living connection is only experienced through obedience towards a priest, in the mystery of confession.
Protosingelos Jeremiah introduced the personality of Fr. Arsenie Papacioc (out of the 55 participants only 5 people knew who Fr. Arsenie was, being Romanians) and the relationship he had with the Avva from Techirghiol, as his Spiritual father. He explained that the relationship of trust with the spiritual father, in which you submit completely your heart and will to him, is created in time. The talk ended with a Q & A session, in which those attendees got deep answers to the turmoil of their life.
A Pan - Orthodox Vespers followed, being served by Fr. John together with Fr. Jeremiah, and the chanting was realized through the collaboration of our cantor together with other Albanian and Greek cantors who attended the event.
The participants welcomed and appreciated the organization of such an event and in response they also participated the evening vigil for the feast of St. Silouan – September 23rd - September 24th. After the services they enjoyed having some tea and treats together, even though it was very late.
Our immediate objective, to help the young people build friendships, healthy relations based on common interests and love for God, was fulfilled. On the initiative of our cantor, Loukas Mironidis, several participants from various ethnic groups have already established plans for hiking in the Monadnock Mountains, New Hampshire. Here I have included the link in case that other people would like to join them (https://forms.gle/99B3ompLRBvqySbK8 ).
For our next Evening Vigil for Saint Porphyrios (December 1st-2nd), some of the participants have already expressed their intention to be here and we also committed to welcome them with the same hospitality and provide again warm tea and Lenten treats.
Their youth, enthusiasm and beauty have already inspired us to start working on the second editions of St. Silouan Spring Young Adults Retreat, at the end of May 2023.
But until then, because we do not want to lose our inertia and they to lose their interest, we have planned some more activities we hope will help them to strengthen the bond of fellowship that began timidly, but sure to take shape.
We hope our initiative and example serve as inspiration for other parishes. We are ready to offer support and "know-how" for those who wish.
With love in our Lord Jesus Christ,
Father John and Presbytera Camelia Downie
