The Need for Theological Education

Needs within the Church change with the times. Take, for example, the need for theological education:  in older days parish priests in Greece did not need to have any formal theological education, nor were there any institutional resources to provide it even if it was needed.  

In those days the people of the local Greek village would choose the most pious man among them and commend him to the bishop when they needed a new priest.  The man would leave the village for a few weeks to spend time learning how to serve the services and swing the censer and return home wearing a cassock.  He then continued to work on his farm or vineyard as before with the exception that on Sundays and feast days he would don his cassock and serve in the altar as their parish priest.  He would not preach or hear confessions for he had neither the theological training nor the pastoral expertise for that.  If any of the people wanted confession a monastery was nearby. Moreover, everyone in the village was Orthodox and so there was no need for apologetics or evangelism or in-depth study of the Scriptures. Given the needs of the people and monastic resources nearby, it all worked just fine. 

That was then; this is now.  Today in our secular and pluralistic society there is a great need for apologetics, evangelism, and in-depth Scripture study.  Visitors to churches ask questions, offer objections, and are quite prepared to challenge the faith of the Church if they don’t understand something.  Clerical ignorance (let’s call it what it is) is a luxury we can no longer afford.  This is especially true now that so many people are “online” and come as inquirers to our churches with many questions regarding our faith— and often, with many misunderstandings based on the strange stuff they have read on websites.  They have questions; clergy need to have answers.

In the 1950’s and 1960s this was no problem.  The churches were full and many young men offered themselves to be clergy, both in Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox churches.  They would get a degree as a young man (possibly a B.A.) and then enter seminary to study theology, maybe marrying while they were there.  Full churches meant full seminaries and large graduating classes.  In my 1979 Anglican seminary graduating class there were a couple of dozen young graduates.

Sadly, this is no longer the case.  Many men find Orthodoxy after they have married and started families and leaving their jobs to spend three years at a seminary is not a financial option for them.  But the need for theological education is still the same and, in fact, even greater.  What are they to do?

The Church has, it seems to me, been caught flat-footed and surprised by this development and has been struggling to catch up, offering learning opportunities as best they could.  Some were better than others.

I remember my involvement in two of them.  I was converting to Orthodoxy from Anglicanism where I had been a priest for six years along with my wife and two very young daughters.  The question was: how to get an Orthodox education?  One suggestion that I was asked try was a correspondence course, run by very well-intentioned and smart people.  Accordingly, I took the correspondence course while I was still an Anglican priest working in an Anglican parish, studying part-time as best I could. 

It was, however, entirely inadequate.  If memory serves the course in theology consisted of a suggestion that I read the Great Catechism of St. Gregory of Nyssa and then write a short paper on some topic.  No lectures, no real reading list, no comprehensive exams.  This was not, may I say, theological education.

Another learning opportunity rejoiced in the name “The St. Arseny Institute” named for the (uncanonized) Fr. Arseny of Winnipeg.  The “Institute” consisted of a dear man in Winnipeg doing his best to persuade parish clergy to give lectures to anyone local who cared to take them.  I know this because I was one of the local clergy.  (One priest asked me recently, “Weren’t you the only one?”)  The “courses” consisted of me meeting at a local restaurant and talking about theology or Bible or church history over coffee for an hour a dozen times or so.  I would then report to my Winnipeg friend that said listener had passed the course.  There was no required reading list, as I recall, no papers written, and no exams such as you would find at a seminary to see if the required books had been read and lectures understood. 

In calling itself a theological education it was, in retrospect, a bit of “smoke and mirrors”.  Since the people taking the “St. Arseny course” were planning on being deacons, the lack of knowledge was not a problem.  Their job as deacons involved chanting a litany and swinging a censer, not answering questions about whether St. Gregory the Theologian was a universalist like his friend St. Gregory of Nyssa. 

There is currently a surge of interest in Orthodoxy in the West and there are many young men now attending our churches.  Many of these young men would like to take Holy Orders.  This happy development constitutes a challenge because it is combined with the fact that many of us older clergy will soon die—or at least retire from leading parishes.  There is currently a clergy shortage and with the influx of new men in our churches the shortage can only get worse. 

The question is a pressing one and it presents a challenge— viz. the question of how these young men, many of whom are married with families or at least have jobs that they cannot leave, can receive a theological education.  Insisting that they leave their jobs anyway and go to seminary incurring spectacular debt followed by low-paying jobs as mission priests, is not an option.

I suggest the following, at least as a temporary stop-gap.  The need is not for men with degrees and letters after their names.  The need is for men who know stuff, a lot of stuff, men who know theology, lituriology, Scripture, church history, and who can answer difficult questions.  Men who can preach.  Men who can work sensitively with Parish Councils and choir directors and women’s groups and the multitude of interesting and varied people who make up our parishes.  That is, the need is for knowledge and expertise, not for academic qualifications.

Perhaps dioceses (or jurisdictions) could arrange for a select group of scholarly men to take on a limited number of candidates and teach them by Zoom meetings— say about no more than a dozen candidates per scholar.  One scholar might teach theology; another might teach church history; another still might teach Scripture studies.  These teachers could assign reading lists, have their candidates write papers, take exams and inter-act with their teachers on a one-on-one basis.  This process would allow the candidates to remain at their jobs and support their families, taking as much or little time as needed to complete their training.  Face-to-face meetings (perhaps with the entire group) could be arranged periodically as needed and as feasible.

The candidates could also be mentored by their pastors, as older priests train their younger candidates, telling them about where landmines are usually buried in parishes and how to avoid stepping on them.  For, as any old priest can tell you, there is more to being a parish priest and a father to a family than simply knowing facts.  The priest’s job is not just to transmit information; it is to create family.  This requires pastoral experience in the teachers and a true mentoring of those who are taught.

This network of teachers, spread throughout the diocese or jurisdiction, could keep track of the progress of their candidates, both their educational progress and their pastoral and spiritual progress.  It would be up to them as teachers as well as to the actual pastors of the candidates and their congregations to give the axios! which would commend the candidates to the bishop for eventual ordination.

Not only is the need pressing, but the stakes are high, for souls are at stake in the process of preparing clergy.  In James 3:1f St. James warned of the danger in becoming a pastor, reminding us that such teachers will receive “stricter judgment” than most (some translations render it “greater condemnation” than most).  We therefore need to be careful who we ordain and take care to provide for those dear men the very best we can.