Blog Posts

A passion for humanitarian assistance was one of my first impressions of my late wife, Tresja (+19 August 2021). Our first extended conversation took place during coffee hour after Divine Liturgy in January 2001. I learned quickly that she had used her education in international relations at Gustavus Adolphus College and Northeastern University to discover opportunities for service. She volunteered in Niger for one year with the Peace Corps. Tresja told me about her recent experience living in Skopje, Macedonia, as an employee of Catholic Relief Services (CRS). I started to notice a pattern - she was passionate about international humanitarian assistance.

As we continue our series of prayers written by Orthodox women past and present, we share this Pre-Communion prayer written on the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos, 2022, by Matushka Christina Veselak.

Karen Schmidt, a member of St. Nicholas Parish in Portland, OR, was present at the Glorification of St. Olga in Anchorage this past weekend. We asked her to share what she took away from that time:

St. Olga has been beloved by our family since our conversion to Orthodoxy, and so it was a great privilege for us to attend her glorification in Anchorage.

To continue our series of prayers written by Orthodox women throughout the ages, we're sharing the Sedation, tone 4, from the Canon of Racial Reconciliation by Carla Thomas:

The services surrounding the Glorification of Saint Olga of Alaska, the first Orthodox female saint of North America, will be live-streamed from Alaska for the next four days. Anyone interested can participate through the links below:

This past May, I graduated with my Master’s in Theology with a concentration in Sacred Arts from Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. A few days before commencement, all the graduates were invited to a dinner with the faculty and the board of trustees.