A servant of the blessing...

Inspired by Biss' story, I have a story about blessing.

When I was teaching at the Nazarene College in Calgary back in '03, Dr. Charles Nienkirchen (Phil knows him too, and Kim and I went to this amazing lecture he did one time) brought in a friend of his, this amazing Orthodox priest from the States to do a week-long "Intro. to Orthodox Christianity" course. The priest's name was Fr. Panayiotis Papageorgiou (pictured here), and he is a brilliant and humble pastoral teacher. One of the many gifted and generous priests I've known. He's originally from Cyprus, but came to the States to study mechanical engineering, and did a master's degree in that, but then felt the Lord's calling into the priesthood like his Grandfather, and so went to Holy Cross Seminary, and later did a PhD on St. John Chrysostom's interpretation of various passages in the Epistle to the Romans. Yep, Fr. Panayiotis is incredibly smart. But he wears it in the greatest way. Really kind and with this amazing bright countenance and smiling eyes. He is now the pastor of St. George's Church down in New Port Richey, Florida. Yeah, Fr. Panayiotis would be a good priest to bring up here sometime for a retreat or something.

Anyway, I sat in on the week-long intensive class, 9-5pm. This was a few months before I became a catechumen. It was so good, really refreshing as well. There was about 30 people in it, and I think only 2 or 3 were Orthodox, from St. Mary's Romanian Church. Fr. Panayiotis did all this amazing teaching, and I talked to him quite a bit throughout the week, but never asked for a blessing. After all, I thought, I'm not even a catechumen yet, and so I don't know what would be right.... should I "pester" him?

And then, on I think the last day, I went up and bowed and asked him for a blessing. And he seemed surprised, but also sort of delighted. And then later he came up to me and said, "thank you for reminding me that I am a servant of the blessing." And a few months ago, Bishop Seraphim was reminding us of this too at St. Herman's (Edmonton) here a while back. He was saying that no priest or bishop innately has the ability to bless... in and of himself, but rather because a priest or bishop has been ordained to share in the priesthood of Christ. They are all called to model for the rest of us what it means to be servants of God's blessing to the whole of Creation, so that one day we can live that way ourselves.