Orthodox Friends, the Pacific Northwest, & Books

Well, I apologise, dear readers, for the lengthy delay in returning to Logismoi. I had intended to at least do something over the weekend, but as it turned out there just wasn’t any time. A very good friend of mine from my days in Thessaloniki, the former Deacon Jesse Philo of Walla Walla, Washington (pictured circling the altar before his ordination), was ordained to the holy priesthood Saturday morning by His Eminence, Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco (ROCOR). Fr Jesse’s fun-loving Matushka, Elizabeth, had the wonderful idea of flying me out to Washington to surprise him. So with only my wife’s plane ticket to pay for (we had to leave the children behind), we left for Portland, Oregon last Wednesday. I would of course have notified Logismoi readers of my whereabouts except that I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

We spent the night Wednesday in The Dalles, OR, with Fr Luke Hartung and his family (also Thessaloniki friends) and received a tour of their business, Uncut Mountain Supply. We were picked up by Matushka Elizabeth Thursday afternoon, who drove us to Walla Walla. That evening we surprised Fr Jesse and spent a relaxing time with his family, seeing Walla Walla, and attending the Divine Services at their parish, St Silouan the Athonite Orthodox Church (ROCOR). While there, we had the pleasure of meeting and drinking with Reader Patrick Barnes (whose back is to the camera in the above photo) of Orthodox Information Center fame (check out the pdf and MP3 of his response to Peter Bouteneff’s recent AFR podcast on ecumenism), and Daniel Mackay, an English professor and expert on Walt Whitman (Daniel’s work on Whitman, of which I read a good sample, is quite disturbing in its implications!) who is being ordained to the diaconate in Eugene, OR, this weekend. We also reunited with another Thessaloniki friend, John Garner, who is currently trying to complete his dissertation with Demetrios Tselengides on the epistemology of modern philosophy of science (exemplified by Karl Popper) compared and contrasted with that of St Gregory Palamas.

Saturday evening we returned to The Dalles and attended some lovely services Sunday morning at the Dormition Orthodox Church, the small Serbian mission under Fr Hartung. After lunch with the parish, Patrick drove us to Goldendale, WA, where we saw the St John the Forerunner Monastery for women (GOA) and met some old friends, including John Garner’s wife, Lucia, and one of the nuns whom we’d met in her kosmiki days (when Lucia's daughter produced a violin, my wife entertained us all with some impromptu fiddling). From there, a young engaged couple drove us back to Portland. We spent the night with a wonderful old priest and his wife, Fr Nicholas and Matushka Barbara Letten, before leaving this morning for OKC.

I have returned heavy-laden with books and icons, many of them gifts from our friends. I bought two at a charming old used bookshop in Walla Walla called Earthlight Books: C.K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (NY: Harper, 1961), and T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays (London: Faber, 1949), the latter being one I had long wanted. I bought two others, with birthday money, at the monastery in Goldendale: Saint Herman of Alaska: His Life and Service, by the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2009), and Constantine Cavarnos, trans., The Philokalia (Belmont: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 2008). The latter includes Cavarnos’s translation of St Nicodemus’s Proem and texts by St Anthony the Great, St Isaiah the Anchorite, Evagrius the Monk, St John Cassian, and St Mark the Ascetic, along with St Nicodemus’s biographical notes on all of these authors.

I was generously given, however, copies of St John of Kronstadt, Counsels on the Christian Priesthood: Selected Passages from My Life in Christ, ed. W. Jardine Grisbrooke (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1994), Elder Ephraim of Arizona, Counsels from the Holy Mountain: Selected from the Letters and Homilies of Elder Ephraim (Florence, AZ: St Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, 1999), Sisters of the Holy Convent of Chrysopigi, ed., Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios (Limni, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2005), as well as volumes 2 through 6—several of which I’d read previously—of the Optina Elders series published by the St Herman Brotherhood: Elders Anthony, Macarius, Ambrose, Nektary, and Sebastian. I also received spare copies of The Boundless Garden, Elder Cleopa’s The Truth of Our Faith, I and II, and Divine Ascent 1:3/4 (Entry of the Most-Holy Theotokos, 1998), one of my favourite issues of the latter journal.

It was a fun trip, reuniting with many old friends and making many new ones, but it’s good to be back. Hopefully now I can make up for my absence a bit! Oh, and to Fr Jesse, who wisely avoids my blog: Axios, Axios, Axios!

Addendum: It's occurred to me that I should have used this post as an opportunity to say thank you to those who hosted us—the Hartungs, the Philos, & the Lettens—and to those who drove us around—Fr Luke, Matushka Elizabeth, John (whose last name I don't know), Patrick, Brian (I think!), and Fr Nicholas. We are very grateful for your kindness and Christian love. Not that any of these people—except, occasionally it seems, Fr Jesse, and now perhaps Patrick—ever reads this blog. But there it is!