SCOBA Hierarchs' message for College Student
Sunday
“advise... the young
as brothers"
(1 Timothy 5:1)
OCF
Sunday - September 21, 2003
To
the Most Reverend Hierarchs, Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics and
The Devout Faithful of our Holy Orthodox Churches
Dearly
Beloved in the Lord,
From
the days of the Apostles until now, the followers of Christ have experienced
the life of faith in the context of community. By its very definition, the
Church is a community; and not at all a mere collection of individuals who
share a common set of beliefs. It is also a community beyond geographical or
time limitations.
Today,
as we gather in the nearly 2,000 parishes of our SCOBA jurisdictions to
celebrate the Lord’s Day, we pause to offer support and
encouragement to the approximately 40,000 Orthodox college students currently
studying on North American campuses, who are members of our communities
although they may live miles away from them. Our college students are blessed
with unprecedented educational opportunities, but, at the same time, they face
many difficult challenges in the extremely secular environment of the college
campus. They are barraged with the contradictory views of a variety of
religious, philosophical, and atheistic teachings, and with a pervasive relativism
that challenges their faith. To add to the confusion offered in the class-room,
the self-indulgent culture of most of our campuses is guided blindly by an
appalling absence of morals. For many years, unfortunately, we have not paid
attention to the fact that thousands of our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews
and grandchildren left our loving homes and parishes to go off to receive their
education in this environment.
We,
the hierarchs of the Standing Conference, invite you to join us in a
rededicated effort to min-ister to our college students, and to advise them as
brothers as St. Paul says. It has been over 30 years since a viable national
ministry to our college students was maintained. This year, we have
commissioned a full time staff to establish an Orthodox presence on our college
campuses. The mission of Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) is to ensure that
every Orthodox Christian college student stays connected with the Church during
these crucial, challenging college years.
We
call upon our priests to dedicate themselves to the all-important work of
outreach on campus. We call upon our parishes to support the work of OCF, and
we encourage all dedicated parents, godparents and grandparents of college
students to make their young people aware of the oppor-tunities offered by OCF
and its programs. We stand firmly alongside our college students, and encourage
them to maintain their faith, in the face of any challenge that comes their
way.
We
hereby request that this day, the Sunday following the Elevation of the Holy
Cross, be observed annually in all our parishes as Orthodox Christian College
Student Sunday. As the new ecclesiastical year gets underway, may we all begin
a new effort, working together as a commu-nity to support the ministry of OCF and
all college students who are members of our Church, the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church.
May
the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior be with all of you.
+Archbishop DEMETRIOS, Chairman |
+Metropolitan HERMAN |
Greek
Orthodox Archdiocese of America |
Orthodox
Church in America |
+Metropolitan PHILIP, Vice Chairman |
+Archbishop NICOLAE |
Antiochian
Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America |
Romanian
Orthodox Archdiocese in America and Canada |
+Metropolitan CHRISTOPHER, Secretary |
+Metropolitan JOSEPH |
Serbian
Orthodox Church in the USA and Canada |
Bulgarian
Eastern Orthodox Church |
+Metropolitan NICHOLAS OF Amissos |
+Metropolitan CONSTANTINE |
American
Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese in the USA |
Ukrainian
Orthodox Church in the USA |
+Bishop ILIA |
|
Albanian
Orthodox Diocese of America |
|