Holy Cross and Boston

I flew in and out of Boston, and I was fortunate in the brief time I was in Boston before going to New Skete to be able to attend, and participate in, the baptism of the first child of my good friend Razvan, whom I know from our time together at Brown University. Razvan and I helped re-establish the OCF program at Brown and the neighboring colleges. Click here for some photos from his blog.

When I returned to Boston from New Skete, we had a busy three days at Holy Cross School of Theology for the Graduate Student Patristics Conference at the Pappas Patristic Institute. Click here for a PDF with abstracts of all the papers that were presented. Above is a photo of me presenting my paper, which is a small part of my doctoral dissertation on St. Paul's view of ministry.

During my time in Boston, I was blessed to stay with the family of my friend Michael Tishel, another American studying here in Thessaloniki. I also had the chance to attend his parish, Holy Resurrection Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which is also the home of a wonderful Orthodox school, which I also had a chance to visit. After Vigil on Saturday evening, Popadija Paula, Michael's mom, took a few of us out to a nearby Cambodian restaurant for something to eat. I really enjoyed all the variety of food options in Boston. (I also had Indian and Ethiopian while I was there.) Although I love Greek food, it is nice to have something else once in a while. :)

On Sunday morning, I served Divine Liturgy with Fr. Patrick (center) and another presenter at the conference, Fr. Stefan (left), a Romanian priest currently studying in Belgium. (In the Russian tradition, they were purple on weekends in Lent, while in the Greek tradition we wear white.)

Boston is truly a beautiful city, with lots of parks. One day we took a walk through a park near the Tishel's house.

Thus ends my quick trip to the U.S., my first in three years.