A Clarification

Dear Readers:

As many of you know last year was a very difficult time for me and my family. The Melkite Greek Catholic mission which I have served over the last five years or so has been closed, at least for the time being. I am taking a leave of absence from active service in the Eparchy for health reasons while continuing to serve in the administration of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, any misunderstanding or previous rumor to the contrary notwithstanding. I have no intention of joining the Orthodox Church. I remain at the disposal of my Eparch, Archbishop Cyril S Bustros.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr Titus Fulcher
AKA The Byzantine Rambler

Wisdom of the Fathers

10. Do not cast off brotherly love lightly, for there remains no other way of salvation for human beings. Observe yourself with care, and see if the evil which separates you from your brother has its cause, not in him, but in you, and make haste to be reconciled with him, let you transgress the commandment of love. Do not despise the commandment of love, because through it you will become a son of God, whereas, when you transgress it, you will become a son of Gehenna.

11. Do not seek to please yourself, and you will not hate your brother; do not indulge in self-love, and you will love God. If you have chosen to live with spiritual brothers, renounce your will from the moment you pass through the doors of the monastery; for in no other way will you be able to live in peace, either with God or with those with whom you dwell.

St Maximos the Confessor, The Evergetinos: A Complete Text, Volume I, p. 351

A Day at School

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending the day at a local parochial high school speaking with students taking religion/theology classes. The original idea was that as an Eastern priest I would supplement the professor's lectures/discussions on the topic at hand with the Byzantine perspective. This was interesting in itself as I found them be intelligent, thoughtful and interested in hearing different opinions and views. They were very polite and commendable youngsters (yes, I'm old enough to join the ranks of Ed Sullivan in calling them "youngsters"). Thus, by the end of the second class, the professor and I decided that it might be interesting if I simply presented the option to either speak on their recent subject of study or offer a period of free-wheeling questions and answers.

It should surprise no one that given the option, the overwhelming choice was the Q&A format.

Now to set the scene so that you don't misinterpret the atmosphere of the classroom, I wasn't there in "civvies" (although, an argument could be made that in reality I was in civvies), I was in my customary Anteri, sporting a pectoral Russian-style crucifix, and a skouphos. In a generation of young people conditioned to see 'celebrities' in all manner of dress - exotic dress, partial dress, and even eye-averting undress - my simple garb still managed to draw attention and provoke a few questions.

"What's that on you head?"
 "A hat. Next question...." - Actually, I gave a more serious reply after the joking one.

US Victory for Home Schoolers - Sort of

The Washington times reports on an immigration case that has allowed a German family to be granted political asylum due to Germany's stringent anti-home-schooling laws. Would that the right to home school a family's children, and other alternative-to-government-enforced-and-programmed schools (i.e., private and parochial schools), were equitably supported by the US, states, and many local governments.

The story may be found here.

Quote of the day: "We know many people, especially other German home-schoolers, have been praying for us. Their prayers and ours have been answered," Mr. Romeike said. "We greatly appreciate the freedom to home-school we now have in America and will be building our new life here."

What is that? (Τι είναι αυτό;) 2007

Thanks to a poster on one of the many forums I follow....



And a belated "Happy Christmas" to all following the Julian Calendar!

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

The Manhattan Declaration

Manhattan Declaration -

You can also read, download it and find out more about it here.

A Daughter's Perspective - Life Update

This morning, my daughter emailed me the text of an essay she had written as a class assignment. She didn't mention the specific instructions for the essay, but I concluded it must have focused on struggles in the student's life in some way.

I like to believe that I've always had a close and open relationship with my child. To say that I consider her very intelligent and insightful is not just a parental boast, I've consider the issue very objectively over the years (that is, with as much objectivity as a parent is capable of incorporating into such deliberations). Yet, I have been truly moved by her essay. She presents a side of herself that I honestly did not think she was mature enough to have, much less embrace.

While I would candidly offer that she could give a second draft of the essay expanding on a couple of things that I know she is hinting at but not clearly stating, I am honestly astounded at her reflection. I present it below with one spelling error corrected and the poetry at the end formated in verse form (she had formatted it as prose at the end of a paragraph -- I can't help myself, old teaching habits!) .

To anyone suffering grief, I hope it proves as inspiring as I have found it to be.

English 4
19 August 2009

In My Life, I’ve Loved Them All

“In my life, I’ve loved them all,” were a few words from the Beatles’ song “In My Life”. In my life, there have been many hardships that I’ve gone through. People very close to me have died of diseases which had no cures. These two people and events have helped me become the person I am today: my grandfather and Alzheimer’s disease, and my mother and Brain Cancer.

My grandfather had Alzheimer’s disease which he lived with for a few years. During the summer, I would help my grandmother by staying home and keeping my grandpa calm and making him lunch or taking my grandma to the store. There were times when my grandfather would get into extremely bad moods and he would get violent. He would curse at some of the people in the house and he almost hit my mom. Luckily, she was able to calm him down and he would be quiet for a time and fall asleep. Honestly, it drove me crazy, but in the end it taught me to be patient with people because sometimes they don’t know what they are doing. It also taught me self-control. Every now and then, he would shout at me for not letting him outside because my parents told me not to let him. I had to control myself not to shout back, but to ask him calmly to go back into the living room and sit down. He died in 2007.

The second hardship I’ve had to overcome was when my mother was diagnosed with Brain Cancer in 2008. When my father told me, I was in tears. When I looked over at her I saw that she had an optimistic look on her face. It shocked me. How could she be so happy when she had a level four brain tumor? It baffled me, but a little while later, I realized that she was scared but she was just happy to be alive at that moment. At first, she seemed to act normally. Well, at least after the emergency surgery she had only a day or so after discovering the disease. My mother would walk and talk like she always did. But then her one tumor turned into four, then 5 or 6. She had another surgery, and then was taken home for her final days. During this time, I learned that life is the shortest thing we have. A person has to learn that life is so important that it should not be wasted. She lived with the disease for eight months, only eight short months. I learned how hard it is to take care of another person, because that is what I had to do for a while. I do not know how people with seven children do it. My mother taught me, through her disease, to look for the goodness in other people and to look at the silver lining instead of the dark cloud.

I have learned a lot through these hardships. By looking for the good things in life, my attitude has gone from unhappiness to joy. I love going to school now because of all of the new possible events that can make my day and life better. I used to try to make someone happy every now and again, but now I try to make my friends laugh more and I try to teach them that life can be very rewarding when looked at in an optimistic point of view. My grandfather and my mother were good people with good morals. They taught me how to behave, right from wrong and so many other lessons in life.

A quote once again from the Beatles’ song “In My Life”:

“And these memories lose their meaning,
when I think of love as something new,
though I know I’ll never lose affection,
for people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them,
in my life I love you more.”

Another Family Update

As those of you who wander across this blog on occasion may recall my wife Presbytera Karen fell asleep in the Lord on 4 July. I must now report that my father has also fallen asleep in the Lord, on 4 August.

Since my mother fell asleep in 2003, life for my father has been most difficult. To say that she was the center of his life would be an understatement. Theirs was as a storybook romance. They met at a football game while in high school, he from the “visitor” side, and she on the home-team side. She was three years younger than he, and after a three-year courtship they married.

Like all those who came of age in the mid-twentieth century, they struggled with maintaining their marriage (and sanity) amidst the momentous changes and difficult challenges of that turbulent time, which included my arrival on the scene (having had to deal with me as a teenager should be considered meritorious towards sainthood in and of itself).

My mother was a woman of simple faith, who lived the faith more clearly than she could explain it. She had suffered from breast cancer and almost reached the “five year” mark when recovery complications from surgery suddenly took her life. While I grieved for her, I have never had doubts that ultimately she would be accounted among the just on the day of resurrection.

But my father, like many of that era, suffered from a defective understanding of the Faith, which led him at best to consider himself an agnostic. Several times over the years we would talk about the Faith and he would comment that he wished he could believe but just couldn’t.

For him, my mother's passing was a wound from which he never recovered emotionally. Although surrounded by siblings, family and friends, he closed himself off and spent countless hours working on jigsaw puzzles. It was a “hobby” that became an obsession. He claimed it was the only way he had to pass time even as we all encouraged him to get out and be with people.

When Matushka died last month, my father traveled to be with us for the funeral. He came with my uncle, who expressed great concern over his health. My Aunt had begged him not to go and my uncle noted that the drive had been exhausting for him. Indeed, he was obviously too ill to have come, but would brook no denial of his intentions. The day after Karen’s funeral he and my uncle returned home – another exhausting drive.

Two days later he was in the hospital and was almost immediately placed on a ventilator. It was not very surprising.

He had long suffered emphysema, and since my mother’s passing had begun to drink too freely, stopped exercising and stopped caring for his diet. This all had led to diabetes (which he ignored as much as possible), congestive heart failure (which any action to stave off via exercise the emphysema complicated), and pancreatitis (generally caused and exacerbated by his drinking).

Over the course of last month my uncle and I were continually in contact with each other and the doctors, as they struggled to control his condition and we hoped to talk him into moving in with my family on his release. Unfortunately, his health continued to deteriorate and ultimately I had to go oversee his wishes to be removed from artificial extraordinary devices.

I felt it my duty at least to offer him the opportunity to convert; but I had little hope he would be receptive.

Yet, he was receptive.

In the final hours before the ventilator was removed, they discontinued the sedatives so that he and I could ‘communicate’ to some extent. By a series of eye blink responses and my crosschecking that his ‘answers’ were not just random or vaguely understood responses; he accepted the Catholic Faith and so received Last Rites. This not only brought great joy to me for his sake, it also clearly brought him personally a measure of peace that both of my aunts, who were present, commented on.

As I have had to begin the sorrowful work of taking care of his estate, I have come across too many jigsaw puzzles to count – in boxes, half-finished on tables, or glued in place and framed. He had just kept on buying them, working on them, and finding more.

It has struck me that for him no puzzle seemed to bring him satisfaction. He just continued to find more and more puzzles to work on. It also struck me that since my mother’s passing his life had become a jigsaw puzzle in which she was that missing piece he kept desperately hoping to regain. Yet, in a broader sense, the missing piece was God. His defective concepts of God and the Faith had led him to despair many years ago, and the loss of my mother had merely brought home to him the magnitude of that despair and hopelessness.

I believe his attendance at Matushka’s funeral provided the opportunity for him to reexamine his assumptions about life and the Faith. In the end, I believe he realized that God’s Love was (and is) greater than any of his doubts, fears or any sin.

In the end, he realized that accepting forgiveness is not a bond of servitude but a gateway to freedom and true life.

In the end, he found he could accept that freedom, that life and the Faith. He finally discovered that one jigsaw puzzle piece that truly completes the picture and brings with it Divine Peace.

In the end, he - like St Constantine - may have waited until the end, but in the end he died a Christian.

Thanks be to God.

As for your humble servant, his daughter and mother-in-law; please keep us and my father's siblings in your prayers.

UPDATE: With modifications, this eulogy became part of a sermon I delivered today (8 August) at the graveside service for my father. The Scripture text that prefaced it was St Matthew 21.28-32.

Thank you for your prayers...

My father is being released today from the hospital. Prayers have met with a favorable response in that he will not need bypass surgery.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer request

I don't usually ask for prayers on the "blog" but I do today.

Yesterday, a routine "nuclear" heart check up led to my father being admitted to the CCU. At the moment we aren't sure what the doctors will decide in the way of treatment. (My father told me, via his cellular phone - before the nurse ordered him to turn it since it was causing other patients to do the St Vitus dance - that by late afternoon he had given two barrels of blood and been X-Rayed so many times that the attendant could turn the lights off and read the report from the glow of his eyes.) Since my mother's falling asleep four years ago, he has done little to preserve his health in the way of exercise and/or diet.

Please keep him in your prayers.

Thank you.
Shookrun.
Evharisto.