LITURGICAL REFORM IN THE EASTERN CHURCH
This course will present a history and evaluations of liturgical reform and development. The focus is on the Eastern Churches, with some comparisons to the West. Some of the topics to be addressed: a definition of reform, the Constantinian reform, the Studite reform, the Neo-Sabbaite synthesis, the invention of printing, the Niconian reform (Russia), the consolidation of the traditional form and the Uniate reforms; modern attempts at reform: the Russian Synod (1917), the Greek Zoe movement, movements in the various churches since Vatican II (second half of the twentieth-early twenty-first centuries). (2 credits)
This course will be offered on Monday evenings from 7-9pm from January 11-April 19, 2010.
Fr. David M. Petras, Professor of Liturgy at the seminary, will teach this course.
MORAL THEOLOGY IN CHESTERTON AND BELLOC
This course is a study of the Christian moral imagination in the writings of G. K. Chesterton and of his friend Hilaire Belloc. Chesterton and Belloc are well known in the arts in general, and particularly in Christian literature. Their defenses of the Apostolic Faith are rightly famous, and they also blazed a path for Christian imagination in an age of decadence. Moreover, they reinforced the witness of Christian Orthodoxy to the inhumanity of the industrial and post-industrial world.
This course will explore some of the essays of Chesterton and Belloc, especially those that are critical of modern inhumanities and how the Church of orthodox and catholic Christianity provides the only "hearth and home" of the human spirit. The course will also explore some of the voluminous poetry of both authors, including their more boisterous numbers. The course will consist of lecture presentations and discussion. (2 credits)
This course will be offered on Monday evenings from 7-9pm from January 11-April 19, 2010.
Fr. Jonathan Tobias, Adjunct Professor of Homiletics and a fan of both these men, will teach this course.
FOUNDATIONS OF SPIRITUALITY II
Are you ready to dump the winter blahs and enrich your spiritual life this spring? Much of the spring semester coincides with the Great Fast, and so many of the topics that will be explored will parallel this season: repentance, fasting, the Fathers’ understanding of the eight principle vices. In addition, this course will look at the role of the Theotokos, the communion of the saints and then will finish with several sessions on spiritual direction and personal prayer. Students will also have the opportunity to do a meditative reading of the Conferences of John Cassian which will form the basis of weekly discussions. (2 credits)
This course will be offered on Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm January 12-April 20, 2010.
Archpriest John G. Petro, Rector of the Seminary, will teach the course.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE DIVINE OFFICE
This course examines the historical development and theology of the daily cycle of liturgical worship in the life of the Christian Church. Among the various areas covered are: the two modes of public and private prayer; the systems of prayer in the New Testament and post-Apostolic centuries; the monastic and cathedral offices of daily prayer, differences and confluences; the influence of the Sabbaite Typikon of Jerusalem; the structure and theology of the cathedral offices of Vespers and Matins, with a particular focus on the original “sung office” (asmatikos hesperinos and orthros) in Constantinople; the various systems of hymnology and psalmody; the “unsleeping” (akoimētoi) monks of Constantinople and their liturgical tradition; the Studite office and reform; and the reduction of the office to the Breviary in the West. The liturgical books of the Oktoēchos (Paraklētikē) Mēnaia, Triōdion, and Pentēkostarion will also be studied, together with a historical review of the offices of Holy Week as celebrated in the Eastern Tradition. (3 credits)
This course will be offered on Tuesday evenings from 6:30-9:30pm January 12 - April 20, 2010.
Fr. Stelyios Muksuris, Adjunct Professor of Liturgy, will teach the course.
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