On Wednesday, September 12, 2012, Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary formally began its school year. The first liturgy of the school year was served at six o’clock in the morning in the monastery church. Students attend liturgy six days a week, including Sundays. After the morning liturgy, Archimandrite Luke, the rector and dean of the seminary, served a moleben for the beginning of the academic year.
At nine o’clock, the students gathered in the Seminary Hall for a meeting with the seminary administration. Archimandrite Luke gave a talk in Russian and English. He spoke about the unique nature of Holy Trinity Seminary carrying within itself a “spirit of monasticism” and urged the students to work on their spiritual life. “There’s no sense in saving the world, much less the person sitting next to you, unless you think of saving your own soul,” he said. Hieromonk Cyprian, the dean of students, then spoke with the students on seminary policies, as well as the new computer system.
The formal convocation ceremony was at two o’clock in the afternoon.
Students and local visitors were in attendance. The convocation was formally dedicated to the one-hundredth anniversary of the second edition of the Patriarchal Text of the New Testament, which was edited by Vasileios Antoniades. Dr. Nikolaos Adamou, an instructor in New Testament Greek and Parish Administration at Holy Trinity Seminary, spoke about the importance of Antoniades’ text, which was compiled from Byzantine manuscripts used by the Church of Constantinople. This resulted in a text which reflects the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Adamou then concluded his talk with an exhortation to the seminarians, future pastors, to study the bible: “You cannot have the Bible without Sacraments, and you cannot have the Sacraments without the Bible.”
The second speaker was Dr. Maurice G. Robinson, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Robinson, with the late William G. Pierpont, produced a Byzantine text-type edition of the Greek New Testament. In his talk, he advocated a move towards using Byzantine text-types, which reflect the majority of extant manuscripts of the New Testament, instead of the older manuscripts used by critical text editions such as the Nestle-Aland New Testament.
After the talks, students John Martin (third year) and Anthony Williams (fifth year) read the Gospel and Epistle readings for the day in Greek. This was followed by a rigorous question-and-answer session for both Drs. Adamou and Robinson. In response to a question by Fr. Luke on the differences between Orthodox and Protestant traditions—despite both having the same scriptures—Dr. Robinson responded that such a question was not his specialty, since his area of expertise is textual criticism, but he would say it is a matter of different hermeneutics. “If we all had the same hermeneutics, all of you would be Baptists today,” he said, “or I would be Orthodox,” he added deferentially.
The convocation closed with prayer. The audience stayed for refreshments and further discussion.
