Archive for September, 2010

The Eve of the Battle of Pacific Street

2 years ago
by Matthew Namee in

"The Syrian Colony, Washington Street," by W. Bengough

Last week, we left the two New York Syrian camps — Orthodox and Maronite — on the brink of war. Each side’s partisan newspaper attacked the other, and the Maronites took particular aim at St. Raphael, the Orthodox bishop of Brooklyn, accusing him of all sorts of outlandish offenses. Various parties received anonymous threats, and things came to a head in late August, when a Maronite group known as the Champagne Glass Club (CGC) told the police that St. Raphael had called on his followers to use violence against their Maronite enemies.

For the next few weeks, the Syrian community was balanced on the edge of a knife. The war of words continued in the papers, to the point that many Syrian men tried to forbid their wives from reading them. (Whether the wives followed this command is an open question.) The police seemed to think that this was all rather harmless, and even amusing.

That is, until September 15. That afternoon, about 20 Syrian men, representing both the Orthodox and Maronite parties, came to blows in the business center of the Syrian enclave. They were armed with guns and knives, but, thankfully, only one shot was fired, and it missed its target. A policeman bravely rushed into the fracas, breaking up the fight and arresting three men. One of the arrested Syrians, Haiss Nahas, had a slight head wound — the day’s only injury, caused when he was knocked to the ground by Navis Harris. Harris, for his part, claimed that Nahas has fired a shot at him.

Nahas, Harris, and another man were hauled into police court. Harris appears to have been Orthodox, and he was represented by the prominent attorney Charles Le Barbier. Just as the case came up before the magistrate, the other party — Nahas, he of the head wound — was brought in. Le Barbier’s jaw dropped when he realized that he had represented Nahas in a previous case, and thus had an unavoidable conflict of interest. Both prisoners were locked up, with bail set at $500 apiece. When another Syrian tried to bail out Harris, the police recognized him as one of the men involved in the fight. He was arrested, but was soon set free by the merciful magistrate.

The street fight took place in broad daylight on Friday afternoon, August 15, in the heart of the Syrian colony. But this incident was more of a skirmish than an actual battle. The combatants apparently took the weekend off, although St. Raphael reportedly accused Naoum Mokarzel, editor of Al Hoda and leader of the Maronite Champagne Glass Club (CGC), of attacking him in print (New York Times, 9/19/1905). This would hardly have been the first time Al Hoda had gone after Raphael, and the Times reference isn’t terribly clear, but it’s possible (probable, even) that St. Raphael addressed the controversy in his Sunday homily.

Anyway, come Monday, the Syrian colony was a powder keg. In my next article in this series, I’ll discuss full-blown outbreak of war that took place on August 18. Before I do that, though, I want to point out a few other facts that I haven’t yet mentioned, which contributed to the hostility in the Syrian colony.

One of the richest Syrian merchants in New York was a man named John Abdulnour (in fact, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of August 19 describes him as “the wealthiest Syrian in America” and “the leader of the Syrians”). Abdulnour was apparently a Maronite, but his wife was Orthodox, and she would occasionally travel from their “palatial” home in Staten Island to attend St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn. Late in the summer of 1905, Mrs. Abdulnour filed for a divorce — with the apparent encouragement of St. Raphael (Tribune, 9/20).

Another issue, which I’ve briefly touched on already, is the fact that St. Raphael did not simply remain silent in the face of slander. No, he didn’t call for vengeance like the CGC claimed, but he also didn’t just take the attacks lying down. According to the Eagle, Raphael sued a Maronite editor named Maloof for libel. The amount? $23,000 — that is, over half a million dollars today. Now, I wouldn’t be too harsh on St. Raphael, as libel suits were exceedingly popular at the turn of the last century. In any event, St. Raphael agreed to accept an apology and drop the case, but that did nothing to quell the ever-increasing resentment that each side felt for the other.

Finally, there is the issue of Lebanese nationalism. Of course, back in 1905, there was no state called “Lebanon” — today’s Lebanon and Syria were, at that time, still a part of the Ottoman Empire. But Naoum Mokarzel aimed to change all that. He was as passionate a Lebanese nationalist as there ever has been, and according to an article in Arab Studies Quarterly, he was directly instrumental in the eventual establishment of the Lebanese state. But Lebanese nationalism was far more of a Maronite sentiment than an Orthodox one, and Mokarzel no doubt felt that St. Raphael’s relative tolerance of the Ottomans and out-and-out loyalty to the Russians was a betrayal of his heritage. To Mokarzel and his ilk, all things were subordinate to the ideal of Lebanon; to St. Raphael, fidelity to one’s faith always trumped the idea of national identity.

As I said, in my next article on this subject, I’ll finally get to the big event — what one newspaper called the “Battle of Pacific Street” — and the resulting arrest of one of the greatest saints in American Orthodox history.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 4: Children and the Church

2 years ago
by Matthew Namee in
 

Fr. Michael Gelsinger

Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. We’ve serialized the book’s introduction, and have been running it in a four-part series. Today, we’re publishing the final section of the essay, in which Gelsinger discusses Sunday School students and how to keep children in the Orthodox Church. (Click here for Part 1, click here for Part 2, and click here for Part 3.)

This book contains Bible Stories, Memory Passages, and a Catechism. The Bible Stories are first in importance, and the other materials are to be regarded as supplementary.

Every Lesson in every class must be a Bible Story until all the stories have been thoroughly learned. With every Story something should be learned from the collection of Memory Passages. When a class has thoroughly learned all the Memory Passages, then — and not until then — it may give the whole of its time to a thorough and systematic study of the Catechism alone.

It is often advantageous to offer prizes to pupils for work conspicuously well done. A small prize may be given for each Memory Passage learned; or a token for each Passage memorized may be given, with an attractive prize for the completion of the whole collection. Public oral examinations may be given by the Priest or the Superintendent at a Sunday School Rally, and the best pupils may be given prizes. It is also well to reward both Teachers and pupils who complete a year without absence or tardiness. A copy of the Bible is an admirable prize for pupils who have none already, and suggestions for other prizes are to be found in the catalogue of the David C. Cook Publishing Company, Elgin, Illinois.

The youngest members of the Sunday School should be the babies of the Cradle Roll; and for them, of course, no formal instruction needs to be provided. Every Sunday School should have a Cradle Roll, and should designate someone to be Superintendent of the Cradle Roll Department. On the very day a child is born in the Parish its name should be entered on the Cradle Department Roll; when the child is baptized, the fact should be entered on the Roll, together with the names of the Sponsors; and the Superintendent of the Department should see to it that the child begins attending the Kindergarten class at the age of four.

Pupils above the age of four should be assigned to classes before the year’s work begins. Kindergarten classes may be quite large without being burdensome, for several Teachers may work together in conducting them; but all other classes should be limited to eight or ten pupils at most, and each class should be made up of pupils of about the same age.

Planning for instruction should be guided first of all by the fact that the pupils fall into two main groups: those who cannot yet read well enough to study the lesson book for themselves, and those who can work with the book more or less independently.

Pupils who cannot read a Lesson Story for themselves must have it told to them. Teachers should never read the Story to their pupils, but should tell it to them in simple language with the repetition and expansion that children love. When they have heard the Story, the children should be given a chance to tell it in their own words.

Some children may begin to learn Memory Passages before they enter the Kindergarten class; but in any case some part of every lesson period must be given to memorizing. Passages can be learned from the lips of the Teacher. A group of children easily learns to repeat a Memory Passage in unison, and constant repetition led by those who learn fastest will teach the Passage to those who learn slowly.

Moral training must also have attention in the Kindergarten as in all the years of training that follow. Until pupils are old enough to receive systematic instruction in Christian Ethics, moral training must be managed incidentally; but that does not mean “accidentally” or “occasionally”. Moral training is one of our chief aims, and we must always be on the watch for opportunities to promote it. With never wearied perisistence every Teacher should impress indelibly upon his pupils these fundamentals at least:

  1. We can be happy only if we love God and obey all His Laws.
  2. It is wicked to stay away from Liturgy.
  3. It is wicked to have a dirty body, or a dirty mind, or a dirty heart.
  4. It is wicked to hate anyone, or to provoke anyone to anger.
  5. It is wicked to swear, to lie, and to steal.
  6. It is wicked to harm another’s reputation or to bring him to shame.

These matters must be brought up at every opportunity, and the children must be made to repeat the substance of them to the Teacher so that they will surely learn. If a child says often, “I must never tell a lie, for it is wicked and sinful and evil to lie”, the words will take root in his heart as well as in his mind to make him a man known and respected for truth and honesty.

A book specially prepared for use in the Kindergarten is ready for publication and should be available before long. Meantime, Kindergarten Teachers should use the Lesson Stories given here and teach Memory Passages. Instruction should be varied with instructive games and play so that the children may learn how to get along with each other. They should never be allowed to be boisterous or rowdy, but neither should they be subdued to a rigid and unchildish order. The Kindergarten will be a failure if the children do not thoroughly enjoy being there. The chief business of the Kindergarten, of course, is to teach; but a devoted Teacher who loves children will teach them without making them unhappy.

For pupils who study the Stories a second time the Teacher should provide additional details from the fuller version of the Bible. Work on the Memory Passages must continue, of course, until all are learned; and in the Catechism the Ten Commandments may be begun.

Pupils who can read the Stories will show a considerable range of maturity. Instruction may be planned for two groups of them: for those who are mature enough to use the Bible in developing the Stories further, and for those who are so young that they cannot be expected to do more than to study the Story in the Lesson Book.

The younger group will, of course, be almost as dependent on the Teachers as though they could not read. But since they can study an assigned Story at home, more of the lesson period can be spent on the Memory Passages and the Catechism can be begun sooner.

The older group should be required to read with each Story the chapters in the Bible which contain it or which bear upon it; and they should keep note books to record their reading and to show all they can find out about each Story they study. The Teacher should bring in background material so that the pupils may come to realize that all the Stories they have learned are only chapters in a greater Story which explains God’s Plan for mankind.

It is difficult at present to provide effective instruction for pupils above the age of twelve or thirteen who have completed the Lesson Stories and the Memory Passages, for in America youngsters of that age have access to many attractive substitutes for the pleasures offered by Church and Sunday School. If some way can be found to interest them in continuing their attendance, their restlessness will pass; they will at last be gripped by habit, and thereafter will participate as junior adults in the life and activities of the Parish.

For the present we have no books prepared especially for adolescents. Each Parish will have to study the problem for itself and do the best it can. In another part of this discussion of Sunday School work it is suggested that the Priest may use adolescent boys in considerable number as Altar boys, the idea being not only to teach them Religion but also to accustom them to work collectively in a group which is founded on a connection with the Church. If the boys were bound together by merely social ties their interest in recreations would surely continue, but their organization would as surly disintegrate when one after another would be drawn into association with some other group of friends. But organized activity founded upon the Church has real promise of continuing vitality, inasmuch as the Church is always at hand and is always the same. And if the boys continue their association with each other by entering the Orthodox Frontier, the Church will still be their common concern; and by so much their permanent attachment to the Parish may be regarded as reasonably certain.

Adolescent girls and young women, of course, must be managed somewhat differently; but they too must be encouraged to form organizations based on a common devotion to the Church. Some of them may prepare to become Teachers, and in that way develop a lasting connection with the Parish. Others of them may form Societies which will undertake responsibility for various kinds of necessary work. One group may devote itself to providing flowers or needed comforts for the sick; another group may take a special interest in the children of the poorer families of the Parish, remembering them particularly at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter; another group may be interested in sewing, and could take charge of the making and repair of vestments for the Choir and the Altar boys; and still another group may undertake to provide incense and oil, and any other things that may be required in the Sanctuary. All of these groups might well come to Communion in a body at stated intervals, to remind themselves that Religion rather than some worldly interest unites them.

Scattered all over America are groups of Orthodox people who either have lost their Priest or have always been so weak in numbers that they have never been able to organize a Parish. The youth and the children of these Orthodox families have in many cases taken up foreign Religions. Instead of being Orthodox they are Methodist Episcopalians, Protestant Episcopalians (sometimes called Anglicans), Baptist, or something else; and their parents are heavy hearted because it has been impossible to keep them in the Orthodox Church.

The Sunday School Lesson Books are intended as much for these people as for those fortunate enough to be living in an active Parish. If in any community there is only one Orthodox family, let the head of that household teach the Lessons to the children. In any community where there are as many as two Orthodox families, let them join together to found a Sunday School. If in some community the few Orthodox families are of different origins, — some of them Syrian, others of them Greek or Russian or of some other language, — let them join together to found a Sunday School and, if possible, a Parish. To belong to the Orthodox Church is the greatest blessing anyone can have in this world, and to share this blessing with our children is worth any sacrifice. Before long a complete graded series of Lesson Books will be available, so that those who begin with the present book may continue with the others as they appear. Isolated families who have long felt the need of English books for teaching their children can have them now; and they should begin to use them without delay.

CONCLUSION

The preceding discussion is intended not only to offer practical suggestions for conducting Sunday Schools in the English language, but also to show that a program for Religious Education cannot be limited to plans for instruction. The leading idea is this: Although the chief purpose of a program for Religious Education in any Parish is the Salvation of our children, the immediate purpose is to insure the survival of the Parish. Accordingly, as our children grow older they must be brought by gradual stages into ever closer connection with the active life of the Parish, until at last as adults they share equally with their elders the responsibilities of adult membership.

For we must prepare our children to take our places. Some of these children must be Priests some day; some of them must be Presidents and Wardens of Parishes; and the least that we expect of any of them — to put it bluntly — is that they shall grow up to be dues-paying members and the parents of still another generation of children.

Accordingly, no Parish can safely limit its program for Religious Education to the instruction offered in Sunday School. It must employ every resource it can devise to awaken personal loyalty to our Religion, and must provide opportunities to express that loyalty in appropriate activities which demand cooperative effort.

The only kind of cooperative effort that can serve either the Parish or the young people themselves is effort that intends to serve the Church directly. We must never forget this fundamental fact: The Orthodox Religion which unites our children as Orthodox Christians is the only interest which they all share unreservedly with us and with one another; and on their enlightened common concern for the prospering of our Religion every Parish must found its hope for continued existence.

The Case Against Agapius Honcharenko

2 years ago
by Nicholas Chapman in

Editor’s note: Over the past several weeks, we have been publishing some historical documents which Nicholas Chapman recently discovered in London. Here are the relevant links:

Today, we’re publishing the final document in this series — a report detailing the case against Honcharenko. We don’t know who wrote this report, but it provides previously unknown details on Honcharenko’s life prior to his arrival in America. This document was translated from Russian by Matushka Marie Meyendorff.

From 1857 to 1860 at the church of our mission in Athens there served the Hierodeacon Agafy. He was the son of a priest. Agafy had completed a course of studies at the Seminary in Kiev in 1853.

He entered the Kievo-Pechersk Lavra. In 1856 he was ordained to the hiero-deaconate. In 1857, according to the testimony of the deceased Metropolitan of Kiev, Philaret, Agafy was sent by the Holy Synod to the post which had opened of Hierodeacon at our church in Athens.

From the beginning of his arrival in Athens, Agafy (as was reported in 1860 by the previous rector of the Church in Athens, Archimandrite Antonin) showed a tendency against the fulfilment of the rules of the life of a monk. He lacked friendliness towards the persons who formed his parish and had an especially negative attitude towards the rector. In January 1860 a boy of around 16 declared to Archimandrite Antonin that Agafy, for a long time, had hounded him with impolite words and at last made an improper proposition. When confronted with the accuser, Agafy agreed and said that he did it with the aim to learn if the rector himself did not have a similar relationship with the named person. After that it was declared to Agafy that he should find another place of work, This is why he was given a position that removed him from the church in Athens. Soon after that was found, glued to the wall of the tower adjacent to the church of the embassy a slander against Archimandrite Antonin. When it was found that a similar slander was written also in the bell; Agafy was sent to Russia. He left on February 2, 1860.

In that same year, 1860, the former ambassador to Greece wrote in a secret letter [?], to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the basic idea directing Agafy’s life was that all in the world is a convention and that everything can be understood whatever way one wants to. As a result of this, Agafy had a secret opposition to everything legal and generally accepted. He rejected all order and was repulsed by every constraint. This attitude brought him to the deepest and dirtiest amorality. He showed a noticeable pleasure in the degrading of the motherland, of spiritual knowledge, and of everything in general which is respected. He showed a sympathy to the …….; he presented ideas for the independence of “Little Russia” [Left bank Ukraine]; he expressed a clear dissatisfaction with Orthodoxy; and he rejected the need for confession. In the last period,[xx?] he displayed an unorthodox conviction toward a rapprochement with the American proselytiser of Lutherism in Greece, Ioan Kinlom. With his help, Agafy was supplied at his arrival from Athens with many letters of recommendation.

On his trip to Russia from Constantinople, he xx Malta and from there he removed his diaconal clothing and left for London. In August 1861 the Holy Synod took into consideration this above described action of the former hierodeacon Agafy (the fact that from February 1860 he was in a self decided absence) and decided to consider the designated hierodeacon Agafy as being defrocked and excluded from the clergy.

About the information received in 1864 that Agafy having returned to Athens in the Spring of 1863 continued, by anonymous letters, to bring shame on Archimandrite Antonin, there was a contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting Agafy be sent from Athens to Russia. The decision was transmitted to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in April 28, 1861 No. 4899.

The ministry responded that they do not have the possibility to forcibly return Agafy to Russia. It asked our Ambassador in Athens to look for ways to remove Agafy from Greece.

In Athens our representative informed us that Agafy (who was living then in Athens in the Greek monastery of Tendely) forcefully denies the anonymous letters about which Fr Antonin complained.

Trouble in Syrian New York

2 years ago
by Matthew Namee in

St. Raphael Hawaweeny

Way back in January, I began what I intended to be a series on the 1905 arrest and trial of St. Raphael Hawaweeny. I wrote only one article on the subject, though, and even that article was more of a collection of quotations from contemporary newspapers than an actual piece of historical work. I confess to getting sidetracked, and also to not really knowing how to best present the material. You see, New York had numerous newspapers in 1905, and all of them seem to have found the whole affair to be really fascinating. The result is a great volume of fascinating, lively newspaper articles, all of which I wanted to share with my readers. I just couldn’t figure out what to cut, and when to paraphrase. So rather than deal with the problem, I just moved on to other things.

Today, though, I’m going to begin anew my admittedly meager attempt to summarize the crisis that afflicted Brooklyn’s Syrian community and its great Orthodox bishop. I’m going to go all the way back to the beginning, re-presenting material that I originally published on January 5. This time, though, I’m going to restrict myself to relatively brief quotations from the original sources. I will try, as best I can, to sift through the primary sources and give you the basic story, as best I can understand it.

New York’s Syrians were divided into two main camps — Orthodox and Maronite (often called “Greek Catholic”). Each group had a corresponding newspaper — Miraat Ul Gharb (The Mirror of the West) for the Orthodox, and Al Hoda for the Maronites. Miraat Ul Gharb was clearly the weaker of the two publications, appearing only once a week and having a smaller circulation than the daily Al Hoda. The papers were engaged in a war of words, and slanderous articles appeared in both. Finally, St. Raphael could stand no more of it, and he called for the editors to stop publishing such trash. The Al Hoda crowd, which called itself the “Champagne Glass Club,” told him to shut up — that “his place was in the church” (New York Sun, 8/27/1905). In speaking up, St. Raphael made himself a target, and Al Hoda‘s editor, Naoum Mokarzel, took direct aim at the bishop. He accused St. Raphael of numerous offenses, including trying to incite the Orthodox to violence against the Maronites. Miraat Ul Gharb responded, and the back-and-forth attacks continued. Rather than stopping the battle, St. Raphael’s intervention unwittingly made things worse.

In late August, the leaders of the Champagne Glass Club (we’ll call them the CGC from here on out) went to the police with a remarkable story. According to the CGC, on August 15, St. Raphael assembled his congregation and told them that they needed to defend his name with their lives — that, if one or two of them might have to die in defense of his honor, then so be it. On August 20 — again, according to the CGC — Raphael claimed that he was “as great as Grand Duke Sergius of Russia,” and needed to be defended accordingly (the Grand Duke had been assassinated earlier that year). I am convinced that both of these claims are utter fabrications, but if you’re in doubt, just listen to the next allegation of the CGC. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (8/28/1905):

Another speech was made on Wednesday, August 23, in which the bishop made a statement to the effect that he was wounded by the attack of certain Syrian papers which attempted to stain his morality, and that if such a fact be established and he were proved to be immoral, every marriage that he had performed during the last twelve years among the Syrians in New York and elsewhere would be annulled. Thereupon he called the younger element of his congregation to rise in his defense and several of them who were present provided with arms took such arms and deposited them on a table in the church, in accordance with an established Oriental custom, saying they would defend him with the last drop of their blood.

This is just plain absurd; the CGC overreached. It is unimaginable that St. Raphael, an extremely well-educated Orthodox theologian, would claim that sacraments administered by an immoral clergyman are invalid. We covered that ground back in the early third century, when the Church recognized Donatism to be heretical. No doubt the CGC would respond by saying that, even if Raphael didn’t believe it, he would have made such a claim to incite his flock to violence. But that’s even more absurd — the two Syrian camps already hated each other, and the Orthodox didn’t exactly need any encouragement to fight their Maronite counterparts. Even a hypothetically wicked bishop would have gained nothing for his cause with public pronouncements and actions like the ones Raphael was accused of.

Anyway, of course St. Raphael did nothing of the sort. Here is his version of what happened, as he told it to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

We held a meeting in the basement of the church so that I could calm and restrain my people. I wanted the members of my church to ignore the men who are abusing me. I wanted to advise them to keep their tempers and do nothing to any enemy of mine. I told them that I had forgiven Maluf and Markozel and that they must forgive them. I begged them to keep peace and to have nothing but brotherly love in their hearts.

Forgiving Mokarzel — shoot, even feigning forgiveness — would have been extremely difficult for most people. Listen to this lovely quote from the Al Hoda editor in the New York Times (8/28/1905):

He [Raphael] asserts that his morality has been attacked. I say nothing about his private life — his wine, his card playing. I have not put it in my paper. I respect his church and wish my church to be respected. I am a Roman Catholic. I have heard that the Bishop has said he would crush me, do me bodily and moral injury. He has called together his congregation and appointed a committee of six desperate men to take vengeance upon me and others. Well, I am willing to die for the truth.

Isn’t that great? I think it’s what they call “talking out of both sides of your mouth.” If Mokarzel is telling the truth, he’s doing a pretty lousy job of it. And apparently, in Al Hoda, he was much more slanderous than in the above quote, and his opposite number in Miraat Ul Gharb wasn’t exactly holding back, either. According to the New York Tribune (8/28/1905), it had gotten so bad that the Syrian men forbade their wives from reading the papers.

The police seem to have been more amused than anything else by all this intra-Arab bickering. From the Sun: “The big seargent behind the desk of the Church street police station last night smiled at the idea of bloodshed, and said that no extra police had been placed in the Syrian quarter, though the men on post had been told to exercise vigilance.” Unfortunately, the big seargent was wrong. Within three weeks, words gave way to violent actions, and the whole Syrian quarter was thrown into turmoil.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 3: Teachers and Altar Boys

2 years ago
by Matthew Namee in

Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. We’ve serialized the book’s introduction, and are running it in a four-part series. (Click here for Part 1, and click here for Part 2.) Today, we’re publishing Part 3, in which Gelsinger talks about Sunday School teachers, as well as how to educate adolescent boys.

Teachers of Orthodox Catholic children must necessarily be persons exceptionally loyal to our Orthodox Religion and sincerely devoted to the work of religious education. Lack of experience and training can be corrected, but nothing can make good and useful Teachers of those who are lacking in love for the Orthodox Church or who out of vanity or selfishness find more pleasure in ruling their pupils than in serving them.

When a Sunday School is first organized, some of those appointed to serve as Teachers may have little or no acquaintance with the material they are to teach. The first thing for any such Teacher to do, of course, is to study, and study hard. What he doesn’t know, he must learn; and he must learn without delay. It is not enough to study the lessons from Sunday to Sunday; from the beginning the Teacher must know all that is to be taught to his class during the whole year. The Teacher’s success or failure is of immense importance not only to his pupils but also to the whole Orthodox Church in America. There is no future for our Religion in America unless we can hold fast to our children; and we cannot hold fast to our children unless we teach them. The Teacher of a Sunday School class, therefore, should not forget that he bears a great responsibility, and that he his strictly accountable for what he does with the pupils entrusted to him for instruction.

Every Parish must develop an efficient program for improving the performance of Teachers already in service and for training new Teachers. For improving the work of Teachers already in service, one important means is to have Teachers’ meetings at least once a month so that problems of teaching and discipline may be discussed and solved. The training of new Teachers is best carried on in classes especially organized for that purpose and conducted by the Priest or under his supervision. Before new Teachers are given classes they ought to serve as assistants to Teachers already in service, so that they may see the methods of teaching and discipline practically applied in a classroom.

The training of Teachers must include not only the matters taught in the Sunday School class but also an ample amount of background material. For example, every Teacher ought to know how to find in the Service Books all the things needed for the Vespers, Orthros, and Liturgy of any given day. American conditions require that Orthodox people in general should have wider range of information than is now usual among us, and certainly our Teachers should be among the first to set the example of acquiring it.

All Teachers must be made to understand that discipline demands skill and self control. A Teacher who shouts or scolds is a poor Teacher. Because he doesn’t know how to control his pupils, he loses control of himself. Becaues he loses control of himself, he gives way to excitement and irritation; and so having become as childish as his pupils he joins with them to make reverent attention impossible. Religion cannot be taught in anger nor learned by resentful and rebellious minds. Almost all difficult disciplinary situations have very small beginnings; there is no excuse for allowing a minor misdeed to develop into a major crisis. Teachers in training should be reminded again and again that our Orthodox children come to Sunday School gladly; that their mischievousness is innocent, not criminal or wicked, and represents energy which is useful when properly controlled and directed; and that a Teacher must know how to control without provoking resentment or antagonism.

Every Sunday School should be inspected several times a year by the Parish Priest to make sure that instruction is really effective. The best way to test the effectiveness of instruction is to ask the pupils questions about the material they are supposed to have learned. If any class falls short of a reasonable standard of achievement, an immediate inquiry ought to be made to find out why the work is not better done.

Boys and girls above the age of twelve present the most difficult problem for us at present. If they have been taught in their earlier years, the difficulty in many Parishes will be to find Teachers who can direct them in more advanced studies. If they have been poorly taught in their earlier years, or not taught at all, they will submit reluctantly to instruction that is better suited to their needs than to their years; for children of that age rebel against doing work that is being done in the same School by others who are much younger.

As far as adolescent girls are concerned, there would seem to be no solution except to entrust them to some well-bred woman who has a natural talent for guiding girls of that age. But for adolescent boys there is a plan which any Parish Priest can use. The plan is to use adolescent boys to serve at the Altar, requiring four or more to be on duty every Sunday.

In the parish of St. George in Niagara Falls, New York, a boy begins to serve in the Sanctuary as soon after his twelfth birthday as he can be used. For three months he must serve every Sunday. The Priest explains the Liturgy to him, and the older boys instruct him in his duties as Server. At the end of this period of apprenticeship most boys are trained well enough to serve without direction, and are able to describe the Liturgy from beginning to end with a fair idea of what the Service means.

The plan has in view not only the giving of instruction in Religion, but also the developing of young people who will be fitted to take a responsible part in the life and work of the Parish. Accordingly, during the three months of his apprenticeship a boy is required to obey not only the Priest but also all the older boys who may be serving. In this way a newly enlisted boy learns how to be one of the rank and file for the sake of the common good; the older boys who have latent capacity for leadership have an opportunity to develop it; and all the boys gain experience in the art of working together in harmony.

During the Proskomide of the Liturgy, boys serving their apprenticeship stand near the Priest so that they may see all that he does and may understand what he teaches them as to its meaning. Beginning with the Liturgy of the Catechumens, two boys stand to the North of the Altar and two to the South. Each pair is composed of one boy still in his apprenticeship and of an older boy; behind each pair stands another boy still older. Each pair is directed by the boy who stands behind it, so that everything may be done rightly and promptly, — as, for example, when processions are formed for the Entrances.

Carrying out this plan adds greatly to the burdens of the Priest. He must be gentle and patient if he is not to make himself unfit for his holy duties; and yet it is far from easy to train boys to serve reverently when there are so many of them serving together. But the rewards of success are worth far more than their cost. The boys learn the Service far better than would be possible under any other arrangement; they learn how to work together; and they are kept in close connection with the Church at the very age when they would be most likely to drift away.

After the period of apprenticeship a boy serves in rotation with the other older boys. On Sundays when he does not serve he is required to worship with the people. As he grows older and the number of boys available for duty increases, he serves less and less frequently; but presently he comes within the reach of still another plan, devised to give him a continuing sense of active participation in the life of the Parish.

For when a boy reaches the age of fifteen he is eligible for membership in the Orthodox Frontier. This organization, which began in St. George’s Parish in Niagara Falls and is spreading to other Parishes, is different from other organizations of young people. Although it has a rich program of recreational activities, its chief aims are to spread the Orthodox Religion and to defend the Orthodox Church against all her open and secret enemies. The Orthodox Frontier intends to be what its name implies: an aggressive army of young men who fight vigorously to extend the power and influence of the Orthodox Church. And as such a purpose cannot succeed without personal devotion, the organization requires its members to obey strictly all the laws and precepts of our Religion, — especially to attend Services regularly and to worship devoutly. The religious training of our young people is incomplete unless we can develop in them an enthusiastic love for the Church; and the Orthodox Frontier is intended to provide for our young people a way to express actively the loyalty and devotion which the Church inspires in them.

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