[amen] Russia/ Letter From Moscow:Opening the Biblical College
- From: Seraphim Sigrist <ssigrist@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: amen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:40:16 -0700 (PDT)
Dear Friends of Christian Renewal,
This is to get back in touch after rather many busy days here in
Moscow and to make some first report on our work of Hosanna here,
which you support and share in, and I will of course make more
reports after I return to the States on Tuesday the 28th.
This weekend we will have a community retreat at our retreat
center in the village of Semkhoz where Fr Men lived. Pray that
this will be a time of renewal and blessing.
Last night I went to our missionary center called Radoga(Rainbow)
which is on a back street just near the central metro(subway)
station of Tanganskaya. It is an old square one storey building
which we acquired and renovated within so that it has a new
auditorium, classrooms, library, kitchen etc.
In the auditorium (I have pictures which I will upload and link
for you in due course)) chairs are set for about 40-- and the 15
members returning from last year and now second year students,
and the 10 or so first year students and faculty are there...If our
missionary school is for young adults(early twenties) this is more
for people who have serious background in Biblical studies already,
perhaps as teachers or priests or pastors.
First there is a lecture from Elena Smorogovna, a lecture as
special presentation for the opening that is, who is the Hebrew
teacher ,and she discusses problems of translation.
Then it is my turn to give a few words and apart from feeling rather
poorly I have been thinking I have absolutely nothing in my mind
to say and I have not been enough within the Bible myself lately
and so on...
So that is the problem which feels real, and I have been increasingly
feeling all afternoon, but when I stand up in fact something perhaps
more or less appropriate comes...
in particular that the Bible is something we experience not only as
directed to us and to all people of all time of course, but which we
find ourselves within--the stories open to somehow become the
story of our own life(the Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola are based
on this and translated by an Othodox saint ,Nicodemus into Greek
with the rather amusing title of gymnasmata pnematikoi which like
babelfish one could then translte back into pneumatic gymnastics)
but in fact the stories, without any special method, themselves draw
us in and mysteriously so especially when involving the characters
of Genesis from the dawn of history and yet whose story is also
ours... but then there is a further thing that like the prophet who is
told to eat a scroll(within a vision) we and the Bible become one,
we become somehow also Torah, also Bible....
and so on along these lines but briefly.
But I am thankful that something came to me to say which was ,as I
think, true and also somehow appropriate...
it is perhaps a frequent dilemna for people who speak a little, to
find words which are not simply formulaic and not somehow also
beyond their sense and experience...
Then a girl named Dasha played a Bach partita on the violin
and a man named Sasha took off his jacket and sat down with his
guitar in front of a picture of Fr Men and sang a couple of folk songs.
Then there was cake and sandwiches and then the two classes
went to their respective classrooms . The whole occasion has a
happy and festive quality which , if it generally accompanied Bible
study, would surely lead many more people to this study. So it
is a sign for me that this work is going well.
Today just this report, asking your prayers and your support as
always, and you know donations are to be sent to "The Patristic
Sociery, 320 south broadway p-7, Tarrytown NY 10591". All
correspondance to me ssigrist@xxxxxxxxx, (the list functions of this
Alexander Men list including reply are disabled at least while I am using
it as substitute mailing list from Japan so reply to my own address)
and I am yours in the Lord,
+Seraphim
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