Hellenic College-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology · Courses
PAST
20 courses with the subject PAST, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
PAST 5052Youth Ministry3
This course considers the various ministries in which participating students will eventually be engaged within the life of the Church. We will examine the current scope of youth ministry efforts across parishes within the canonical Orthodox jurisdictions in North America, with a special emphasis on certain youth programs/ministries that exist on the parish, metropolis (diocesan) and archdiocesan levels. Source documents and practices of Orthodox Youth Ministry across North America will be examined, as will the wide range of issues confronting Orthodox Youth.
There is a growing body of literature about the changing realities of religion in the United States and the Orthodox Christian Church. This course intends to engage students with this conversation, both the demographic data and personal stories, from mixed marriage to conversions, from liberal to ultra‐conservative trends, the rise of the “nones,” emerging adults, and “millennials,” as well as the theoretical understandings surrounding the sociological developments within the Church. Students will be asked to review the relevant literature on American religion and Orthodox Christianity in particular, interview individuals, and engage in their own research. Students will be asked to formulate proposals for ministry to meet the changing realities.
As one part of your journey here at Holy Cross, this course, the Theology of Pastoral Care I, is intended to help you integrate and apply the knowledge you have acquired in other classes into your own life and in pastoral care situations. As a Field Education Course for hospital ministry, you will be placed in a local hospital for the semester. Specifically, we will explore hospital ministry as one aspect of pastoral care, as we develop a theology of pastoral care. The intent of this class is not to provide you with the right answers for pastoral situations. Rather, this course is designed, with the readings, class discussions, theological reflection groups, and assignments to develop your knowledge and skills 81
Theology of Pastoral Care II is intended to build upon Theology of Pastoral Care I by presenting a framework for understanding contemporary pastoral issues through the lens of Orthodox theology of the person, sickness, healing, and salvation. This class is not intended to provide students with the ‘right’ answers for pastoral decisions. Rather, this course is designed, through the readings, class discussions, and assignments to develop their understanding of Orthodox pastoral care and their thinking as Orthodox Christians and future ministers/pastors. The models of Orthodox pastors/saints explored in the first semester class serve as witnesses to the Orthodox pastoral care framework we will develop and discuss this semester as we explore contemporary pastoral issues, basic helping skills, and secular theories and research. Particular attention will be placed on understanding how to access and integrate current secular knowledge into an Orthodox worldview to develop an appropriate pastoral response. Students will be invited to explore and discuss different dimensions of the pastoral care relationship and explore, independently and as a class, how one might address contemporary pastoral care issues. As in the first semester, particular emphasis will be placed on how we work together in the classroom, and on campus, as we develop an Orthodox understanding and approach to pastoral care.
The course will examine the Orthodox theological understanding of marriage and family. It will include a focus on the characteristics of both healthy and unhealthy relationships. Issues which negatively affect marital and family relationships, such as addictions, as well as psychological, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, will be examined. Attention will also be given to clergy marriages and the issue of clerical ‘burnout.’ The role of the pastoral caregiver in ministering to marriages and families will be emphasized. 82
Issues of mental illness and health continue to challenge pastors and ministers as they seek to guide their parishes and communities. Recent events related to the pandemic have increased the rates of mental illness in our communities, heightened the need for pastors to possess a basic level of competency related to understanding mental health and illness. Mental illness and health, how we define it, how we identify it, and how we address it calls into question how we understand God, human nature, the person, free will/personal agency, and the relationship that these issues, theologically, have with the broad field of mental health, commonly referred to as psychology. This class will explore these issues as they apply to the most prevalent issues of mental health that a pastor/priest/minister will encounter in the parish. Special emphasis will be placed on the relationship between theology and psychology and the role of the pastor/priest/minister in ministering to people struggling with issues of mental health in the parish.
For most people, their marriage is the context for living out the Gospel call to become perfect, as God himself is perfect (Mat 4:48). Yet we live within a culture and society with widely different ideas about the nature and purpose of marriage. In this course, we will take an in‐depth look into the dynamics of couples and explore how to pastor couples within their marital journey. Beginning with a review of an Eastern Christian understanding of marriage and its implications for ministering to couples, we will explore different contemporary theoretical approaches to working with couples and some specific pastoral issues that couples face. Special emphasis will be placed on the role of the minister/pastor in working with couples.
PAST 7015Pastoral Counseling: Theory and Practice3
Listening is at the heart of pastoral counseling. Yet what the pastor/minister hears is shaped by his or her theoretical orientation, belief system, worldview, and lived experience. This course seeks to give students the opportunity to study different pastoral counseling theories as they go beyond the limits of their own stories in the context of practicing foundational counseling skills. 83
PAST 7025The Sacred Arts as Mystagogical Catechesis3
In the earliest centuries of Christianity, “mystagogy”—the meaning of the Church’s worship, its environment, and its ritual practice—was conveyed to adult converts through catechetical orations. Over time, as initiates came normatively to be received in infancy, mystagogy had to be taught through other means. Individual writers composed standalone treatises, which were composed and disseminated, and the Church in the Early and Byzantine periods incorporated these, and earlier liturgical hermeneutics through the interplay of homiletics, hymnography, architecture, and iconography. Students in this seminar-format class will investigate development of the content and form of mystagogy by engaging its primary sources and select studies: beginning with the scriptures, early church orders, and catechetical orations; in the next phase, moving to the texts of (ps.) Dionysios the Areopagite and St. Maximos the Confessor; then, turning to elaborations in sacred architecture and the development of hymnography, such as the historical kontakion with its influence on preaching; after that, looking toward the iconographic programs of Middle and Late Byzantine architecture following the defeat of iconoclasm; and finally, critically examining post-Byzantine and modern examples, identifying opportunities for historical recovery, contemporary synthesis, and future growth. Through collaborative and individual research, students will engage texts and material culture alongside one another, analyzing their exegetical content and their vision of Orthodox Christian worship.
This course will approach addiction with a broader understanding of the term. Students will learn that the addictive process is an expression of progressive, spiritual disease. This has profound and inter‐related ramifications in the psychological, emotional, cognitive, and physical domains. The addictive process also has serious consequences within relationships: at home, within the society, at work, and in the Church. Resources from Orthodox theology, spirituality, psychology, and the addictions field (with particular emphasis on the 12‐step self‐help 84
This course is a preparation for the ministry of proclaiming the word of the Kingdom. Students are exposed to the theology of preaching, and methods of interpretation, preparation, and production of sermons. Lectures examine the listening assembly and the listening pulpit; the Liturgy and the homily; and experiencing and expressing the word. The emphasis is on the prophetic, as well as on the practical, dimension of preaching. While this course is taught in the fall semester, the practical segment continues in the spring semester.
This course will study in depth the life, missiology, and writings of the greatest contemporary Orthodox missionary, Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) of Albania. We will examine how he has practically lived out this missiology through his 10‐year ministry in East Africa and 25‐ year ministry in the Church of Albania. The course will look at the foundation and calling of missions. We will consider the resurrection of the Church of Albania over the past 25 years, examining and analyzing the successes of how the Church has succeeded in living out the missiology of the Archbishop, and where the Church has not yet lived up to the missiology. This course will be combined with a 12‐day mission outreach and pilgrimage to Albania at the end of the spring semester, witnessing firsthand the resurrection of the Church of Albania, meeting missionaries and the indigenous leaders of the Church.
An exploration of the leadership role of the priest, as well as an introduction to the nature of parish ministry and foundations, structures, and methods of parish administration, from historical, theological, and pastoral perspectives. A field education placement is part of this course.
PAST 7321Creating a Healthy, Vibrant, Missions Minded Parish3
In order to create a healthy, vibrant parish, which implies being a missions minded parish, we will begin by discussing the proper theology and ecclesiology of our Church, which requires a healthy understanding of the role of missions and missiology in the Church. We will evaluate the present reality of our churches, and ask the question, ‘How are we living out, or failing to live, the authentic theology of our Church?’ This course will help one catch a vibrant vision for a parish to become healthy and ‘missions minded,’ which will include: 1) how to teach and equip the faithful in our churches, 2) how to reach out to the lapsed and unchurched Orthodox; 3) how to understand and reach out to the unchurched of America; 4) how to offer a witness to non‐Orthodox Christians; and 5) how to fulfill our ‘apostolic’ identity in a global outreach to the world at large. All of this will be discussed from the setting of an established parish, a dying parish in need of a “turnaround”, as well as starting a new church from scratch. We will study dynamic parishes and ministries throughout the country, and will have a guest speaker from one of these churches
This course will help one understand the central importance and role in the Church of witnessing our faith through missions and evangelism. The “spirit of missions” is central in our ecclesiology and Orthodox worldview and identity. The need for Christians and churches to continue the work of Christ, welcoming and reaching out to those 86
We will look at humanity’s quest for God from the beginning of time, and how five of the world’s major religious traditions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism – developed. Along with their history, we will study their main teachings, worldview, and practice. Part of the class will include visiting the temples of these other faiths. We will also look at the phenomenon of atheism and its own religious perspective. With each of these different religions, we will discuss Orthodox Christianity’s understanding of other religions, and how we are to dialogue and interact with them, trying to discover elements that could be acceptable within Orthodox Christianity, and how these bridges could be used in sharing our faith within other religions. This course fulfills the World Religions/Ecumenism requirement.
We will study the biblical, theological, liturgical, and historical perspectives of Orthodox missiology, emphasizing how missions should be an essential element of the Orthodox Church’s identity – on the individual, local parish, and archdiocesan level. We will discuss the various missiological methods and characteristics throughout the centuries. We will be introduced to the latest concepts and debates in missiological circles, looking at world statistics on unreached peoples, 87
