Deborah Malacky Belonick is this week’s Notable Woman. An author, speaker, priest’s wife, and advocate for women in the Orthodox Church, she also worked for many years as an editor and communications director at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.
Although valedictorian of her class at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where she earned her Master of Divinity degree, Deborah considers herself neither a theologian or scholar but rather an occasional writer and observer of church life—and “a pilgrim struggling along the path of salvation.”
In her youth she was an active member of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Warren, OH, and a member of the “St. John’s Girl’s Octet,” a young women’s choir. Now, as the widow of Archpriest Steven Belonick, she has returned to her home parish after 45 years and participates in its Mission and Outreach Team.
In the interim between leaving and returning to her hometown, Deborah earned a degree in Journalism at Kent State University. She worked for two years as a beat reporter and feature writer at The Niles Daily Times prior to making a decision to pursue theological study at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. There she met and married Steven Belonick, a fellow seminarian who later was ordained as an Orthodox Christian priest. During their 40-year marriage, she acted as his helpmate in three parishes: Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church in Pearl River, NY; Dormition of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Binghamton, NY; and Holy Ghost Russian Orthodox Church in Bridgeport, CT.
As an author and speaker, Deborah has been published in a wide variety of books and journals, beginning with her Master of Divinity thesis, which was published as Feminism in Christianity: An Orthodox Christian Response. She contributed theological articles to five other books, among them “The Spirit of the Female Priesthood” and “Testing the Spirits” in Women and the Priesthood, edited by Thomas Hopko. Additionally, she authored numerous articles in various journals of religion, and, as a popular speaker, she has led more than 20 church-centered retreats, both nationally and internationally. For a number of years, she blogged under the name “Clay Mother” as the Orthodox Christian columnist for the interdenominational religion website Beliefnet.com.
On behalf of the OCA, Deborah acted as a representative to the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States and also served as a delegate to four international World Council of Churches consultations: “Ordination of Women in Ecumenical Perspective” (Epiney, France); “The Community of Women and Men in the Church” (Sheffield, England); and “Discerning the Signs of the Times,” a double conference (Damascus, Syria and Istanbul, Turkey).
Deborah continued her professional career at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where she worked initially as an Associate Editor at the school’s academic press and finally as Director of Institutional Advancement and Communications.
“As a colleague for many years at St Vladimir’s, Deborah also became a mentor and friend,” Amber Iragui shared. “I admire the sharpness of Deborah’s mind, the ethical and practical clarity with which she lives her life, and her commitment to the truth regardless of its relative inconvenience. She is courageous, precise, and faithful. She was unfailingly generous with her time and resources when I needed practical help as well as when I needed a listening ear or good advice. She is a perfect example of Fr Thomas Hopko’s exhortation to “speak the truth with love.”
In her retirement, and as the widow of a clergyman, Deborah says her current challenge is to discern a meaningful purpose in life: “Following the death of my spouse, I became more conscious of our own impending death, and I began to prepare—ensuring that my legal documents, funeral arrangements, sacramental life, and so forth, were in place. I began to downsize overwhelming clutter. But as I prepared for death, I also remained acutely aware that I am still alive! I found that mere ‘busyness’ does not feed my soul, and so I began to ask: How do I now find God's purpose for me, that is, a purpose that enlivens my soul with the Spirit of God? When priests become widowers, the Church often ordains them as bishops! But what about when priests' wives become widows? We frequently feel groundless, without a place within a parish—without a place in the Church.” To explore such questions, Deborah has become an active member of the Clergy Widows group within the OCA’s Clergy Wives Ministry in its Office of Pastoral Life.