Children Celebrate the Patron Saints of Education on a Remote Greek island Without a Priest

 

Arkoi is a small island in the Dodecanese near Patmos, with few inhabitants. The two children of the island have one teacher, but there is no priest, and without a priest there is no Divine Liturgy, no confession, no Holy Communion, unless a special visit is made to them or they go to a more inhabited nearby island.

This past January 30th, however, which is the feast of the Three Hierarchs, who are revered as the patron saints of education, the teacher of the two young boys took it upon himself to honor the Three Hierarchs with his students at a chapel on the island. Here is what he said about it:

Education, Freedom and Youth According to the Three Hierarchs

 By Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople

From the Great Fathers we are taught how demanding the work of education, both Classical and Christian, is for the teacher and the student. This is particularly relevant today, when pervasive pedagogical humanism regards educational intervention, guidance and discipline as the abolition of freedom and an obstacle to the happiness of children. The words self-realization, autonomy, self, individual rights, success, satisfaction of needs and the like dominate, while responsibility, offering, duty, the common good and solidarity are absent.

Eight Year Old Myrto And Her Wise Teacher

I remember Myrto, a charming little girl. She developed acute leukemia. With unparalleled silence and patience she braved the most aggressive treatments given to her, with a sweet expression constantly lighting up her pale little face.

The more she patiently endured, the more her parents broke down, and together with their hopes they gradually lost the last traces of their faith. They were not particularly religious to begin with, but some small seed was in them.

Saint Nektarios as a Teacher of the Youth

Saint Nektarios, the Bishop of Pentapolis and Wonderworker, remains today a far-shining lighthouse and illuminates us with his many virtues, important writings and innumerable miracles.

Among other things, however, he was an excellent Educator and Teacher of the youth, whom he considered the golden hope of the Church and the Nation, as the "foundation of tomorrow". He describes adolescence as important and hurried. "Important indeed is the great mission for which it is allotted, hurried in its short duration, during which it must accomplish many and great things," as he notes in his discourse titled "On the Call of Teenagers in Society" delivered to the High School students of Lamia.

A Letter from the Archbishop of Cyprus to All the Youth and Students of Cyprus

With an encyclical that will be read during the first days of classes in the schools of Cyprus, Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus urges young people to take advantage of the opportunity given to them during their school years, in order to reap the greatest possible benefit from what will be taught, but also to complete themselves as personalities within the society, which will welcome them upon the completion of their studies. Though not everything here will apply to a general audience, it certainly forms a good foundation and model upon which pastoral advice for the youth at the beginning of the school year could be based on anywhere in these times.

Orthodox Hierarchs Address the Youth at the Beginning of the New School Year

Orthodox Hierarchs around the world have been addressing the youth with pastoral advice at the beginning of the new school year. Among the most interesting are the following three examples with a universal message to youth:

Patriarch Daniel of Romania pointed out in a sermon that “spiritual and intellectual formation is the greatest wealth of person, a treasure no one can take away from us.”

He went on to state: "What we gather in our soul through prayer, culture, education and good deeds remains eternally in our soul."

The Education of Children (St. Sebastian Dabovich)

The Education of Children

By St. Sebastian Dabovich

A Homily Delivered in San Francisco in 1899

We desire to tell you of some thing, which is of the utmost importance. We find it necessary, unfortunately, to repeat in a measure what has been told you several times. We speak plainly, without a flourish of words, because we feel our responsibility before God - if we be misunderstood. We desire to remind you of our parish or church-school. To learn to read and write you send your children to school. You know that you must do it. But how many of you think of the serious obligation of rightly and thoroughly preparing your children for the life which they must live after only a few years? Some, indeed, give their attention to what they call a decent education for their children, for which and for whom they would not fall back of any one, but be as good and as nice as other people in town. If you send your children to school to study grammar and arithmetic, (the future mainstay of the "home" are often compelled to leave their homes to learn even cooking and dancing), why will you not be just as eager to send them to school where they will study religion? If you are truly interested in the welfare of your children, why do you not watch as strictly, but once a week, how they attend to their lessons in the study of the Law of God, as you do in some home-work, which the children seemed to be forced to have prepared within the next twelve hours for their public school? You must obey God, above the public and all other masters, or lose your souls for the responsibility which rests upon you for the present and future welfare of your children.