Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Eastern Catholic Person

Home
Catholic
Encompass us beneath the precious veil of your protection

Encompass us beneath the precious veil of your protection

Last updated on: August 19, 2016 at 5:02 pm by Justin Tse

Encompass us beneath the precious veil of your protection 2016-08-19T17:02:46-07:00 Justin Tse

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Russian icon depicting St Nicholas with scenes from his life. Late 1400s or early 1500s. National Museum, Stockholm ( NMI 272) - by Bjoertvedt, 24 November 2010 (Icon_c_1500_St_Nicholas.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Russian icon depicting St Nicholas with scenes from his life. Late 1400s or early 1500s. National Museum, Stockholm ( NMI 272) – by Bjoertvedt, 24 November 2010 (Icon_c_1500_St_Nicholas.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Chicago has always been an interesting place for me in terms of my reading in urban studies, and I suppose when I say that I’m coming to Chicago at an interesting time, most people would expect for me to talk about Black Lives Matter and all of the attendant issues wrapped up with that movement – race, class, capital, policing, gentrification, queerness, bodies. I happen to care a lot about black lives and all (and more!) of these attendant issues, and I will post on that in the future not only because what Cornel West calls the ‘black prophetic tradition’ has been integral to my intellectual formation, but also because having arrived in this city, all I feel like I can say is – it feels really complicated here.

Though there are indeed some very intriguing connections between Black Lives Matter and Eastern Christianities (as well as some awkward disjunctures), it would be dishonest for me to say that that is what I was thinking about when I was en route to Chicago – that is to say, I have thought about it, but it wasn’t what I was thinking about on the plane.

As most in the Byzantine world know (at least on the side that’s in communion with Rome), the Chicago Eparchy – the Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy which stretches from Hawai’i to Michigan – has experienced a loss. Two days ago, as I was preparing to leave Vancouver, I received word via my various social media feeds that Bishop Richard (Seminack) had reposed. The news quickly spread across Byzantine internet – indeed, so fast that my spiritual father in Richmond quipped that neophytes should not be hearing about the repose of eparchs before the presbyters.

Because I came into the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church through that little Eastern Catholic mission in Richmond (where much of our attention is focused on what Byzantine Christianity has to say to Asian Canadians), the truth is that I did not know Bishop Richard, and as I come to Chicago, I have a feeling that I’m just going to soak like a sponge in the richness of the various Eastern Catholic Churches from across the spectrum that are establishments in their own right in the Windy City.

But for some odd reason, his repose still seemed to affect me at a deeper level as I was getting ready to go. Maybe my old Anglican angstyness about bishops is showing, but one of the primary (and therefore odd) reasons that I stumbled into the Eastern Catholic Church was because I came to disagree on what bishops were for in the mess of the Anglican Communion. I suppose that bishops are also sometimes seen as sovereigns in the Latin Church too, and for me, this is somewhat of a hairy notion because I came – especially while reading St Ignatius of Antioch (especially the letters to the Ephesians and Smyrneans) – to see bishops as persons. Of course, St Ignatius’s injunctions to submit to the bishop in everything does give off a sense of episcopal power, but this authority, at least as I came to understand it, is because the people gather around the bishop as he celebrates the Eucharist, making Jesus Christ present, and where Jesus Christ is, St Ignatius says, there is the Catholic Church. The power of the bishop is therefore anything but ideological; it is, as Metropolitan John of Pergamon puts it, diaconal.

As the news came out that Bishop Richard had reposed – complete with a letter from Patriarch Sviatoslav himself – I found myself drawn into prayer for his soul, even though I did not know him and am very new to the eparchy that he shepherded. My priest in Richmond likes to emphasize that when we say eternal memory, we’re not asking to remember the reposed forever, but that like the thief asked the Lord on the cross, we are asking that Bishop Richard be remembered by the Lord in his kingdom. Lord, may Bishop Richard’s memory be eternal!

But this also spells changes for the Chicago Eparchy, ones into which I am likely entering. As I pondered the Gospel and the Protection of the Theotokos, I wondered about this as well. Knowing that the eparchy is named for St Nicholas, it reminds me of another story, one that – like the Gospel reading – involves being overwhelmed to the point of drowning, literally.

My priest in Richmond once related to us a story once told by St Philaret, Metropolitan of New York, of the icon of St Nicholas of Myra in northern China, in the province of Harbin, where the Russian Orthodox have had quite a presence (in fact, St Philaret lived in Harbin for over forty years). Everyone, even those who were not Byzantine, knew about St Nicholas because his icon was (of all places) in the train station. One day, a man was drowning – he had fallen through some thin ice – and he cried out, ‘Old Man from the Train Station, save me!’ And there he was, very suddenly, on the river bank, and he ran to the train station and fell in gratitude before the icon of St Nicholas, soaked but saved.

Our father among the saints, the hierarch Nicholas, pray to God for us! Encompass us beneath the precious veil of your protection, Most Holy Theotokos! Lord, save us!

In fact, the weird thing about calling for salvation from the waters, even to the point of edging on a mix-up between Wednesday’s Gospel and St Peter walking on the water, is that all of these watery scenarios remind me of a topography that is completely different: the desert.

Go back Continue Reading

Protection of the Theotokos

Richard Seminack

Richmond Eastern Catholic Church

St Ignatius of Antioch

St Mary of Egypt

St Nicholas of Myra

St Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy

Virgin Orans

Previous Post

August 17, 2016

Help the Byzantine monks to burn the mortgage!

Next Post

August 19, 2016 Most Holy Theotokos, save us (Catholicity: Identity and Its Discontents)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Academia Anglican Communion anti-racism Aristotle Asia-Pacific Asian American Asian Canadian BlackLivesMatter Cantonese Catholic China Chinglican church politics Church-State Politics Civil Society Conservative Eastern Christianity Evangelical Evangelical Left Feminist/Womanist Theology Food Greek-Catholic Church of Kyiv Hong Kong Housekeeping Kyivan Church Latin Catholicism Law Liberal Liberation Theology New Calvinism Pentecostal/Charismatic Protestant Psychoanalysis Publics Religion Ethnicity Wired Secular Sovereignty TPCIU Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 August 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 December 2014 November 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 October 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz