Galloway Family at St. Vlad's

12/10/2021

10/29/2021

10/27/2021

Here's our Fall 2021 update: https://gallowaysvots.wordpress.com/2021/10/27/fall-mid-term-at-svots-update/

Girls at the Peach Orchard in August! Here we are, just past the midterm of the Fall 2021 Semester at St. Vladimir’s and I realize that I have yet to write an update post. This is half due to authe…

08/24/2021

We can't believe it's the beginning of the new Academic Year here at the Seminary! The summer break flew by. Today was the first day of classes--just look at those smiles. Glory to God for all things!

08/18/2021

Puppet show at the local library! The girls had a blast!

08/09/2021

On Saturday, I preached a mini-sermon for the first time ever, at my home parish St. John of the Ladder. Here's the text if you'd like to read it:

https://gallowaysvots.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/my-first-mini-sermon-at-sjotl/

This weekend was my last one at my home parish (St. John of the Ladder, Greenville SC) and I’m staying for a few days with it’s rector Fr. Marcus before beginning my return to SVOTS lat…

07/24/2021

Hi everyone, it's been an incredibly busy summer, but we wanted to give you a few updates!

1. Life updates - Our summer in South Carolina is going well: I am plugging away at my Hospital Chaplaincy CPE program at Greenville Memorial Hospital, Penny was able to go to her first session ever of Camp St. Thekla and a local theater camp, and both Penny and Monya are now taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. Megan is taking charge of kids and home and also managing to fit in a couple of beach trips and finished knitting a large Christmas gift for our son Joshua (a knit SW Death Star pillow - shh, don't tell him!).

2. Tshirt Campaign - Just like last year, we're running a three-week tshirt campaign featuring several new designs and bringing back all the ones from last year. Your orders will be taken for the next three weeks, after which all the tshirts will be printed and shipped. Here's the link: https://www.bonfire.com/store/galloway-seminary-fundraiser/

3. Wordpress Blog - We have a lot of people who wanted to follow us who aren't on Facebook, so we've finally gotten around to making a blog and have taken all of our posts from this Facebook group, my YouTube channel, and my short-lived Substack blog and added them all there. The plan is going forward to add updates to both the WordPress blog and to this page. Here's the link: https://gallowaysvots.wordpress.com

I'm long overdue for a Spring Semester wrap-up post and YouTube video update, and I'll try to make those happen next. Thank you all so much for your prayers, love, and support! We love you all!

Journey with our family at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

05/16/2021

Here are photos from yesterday's commencement ceremonies for the classes of 2020 and 2021. A joyous day!

05/13/2021

Phew!!! That was a whirlwind!! One down... two to go!!

05/08/2021

Some of you reading this probably buy books from SVS Press regularly. This is a pretty good sale they only do a couple of times a year and the proceeds go to keep tuition costs low for seminarians like me.

Here's a recommendation. I don't have the new edition (yet!), but have read the first edition at least 3-4 times over the years:

https://svspress.com/father-arseny-priest-prisoner-and-spiritual-father-new-edition/

"It is one of the great mysteries of life that in atmospheres of the harshest cruelty, a certain few not only survive but emerge as beacons of light and life. Father Arseny, former scholar of church art, became Prisoner No. 18736 in the brutal "special sector" of the Soviet prison camp system. In the darkness of systematic degradation of body and soul, he shone with the light of Christ's peace and compassion. His sights set on God and his life grounded in the Church, Father Arseny lived by injunction to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).
This narrative, compiled from accounts of Father Arseny's spiritual children and others whom he brought to God, gives stirring glimpses of his life in prison camp and after his release. It also tells the stories of people whose lives, often during times of almost unimaginable crisis, were touched and transfigured through their connection with Father Arseny.
Emerging from the context of the particular tragedies of Soviet Russia, this book carries a universal impact certain to be felt by readers in the West today."

05/07/2021

About two months ago, David and a few of our friends visited the Alpha Omega shop to get some new cassocks! They came in today!

05/05/2021

There is a great group of women on this campus! We have a secret sister exchange every semester that we participate in. You give your secret sister a couple of gifts or notes through the semester to lift them up and let her and her family know you’re praying for them! This was outside my door yesterday!

04/30/2021

The little sidewalk to get to our campus apartment is just the prettiest thing EVEr!!

04/30/2021

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on a tree. The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped in the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the cross with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.

04/01/2021

A wonderful article about the recently-completed iconography in the narthex at my home parish, St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church Greenville by the iconographer, Seraphim O'Keefe.

https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/narthex-murals-at-st-john-of-the-ladder/?fbclid=IwAR3FMs54VYmfEh-djGZQls8L_Yu5z7GL7MbxKQtgdG5zyqmu8VudT2O33FA

Introduction This article is the second in a series documenting the mural project at St John of the Ladder Orthodox Church in Greenville, South Carolina. This beautiful temple was designed by Andre…

03/26/2021

The official SVOTS photos from yesterdays ordination of Blake to the Holy Diaconate and the tonsuring of Dr. Vitaly as Subdeacon. What a glorious way to celebrate Annunciation. Blessed Feast!

What a truly wonderful several weeks, Glory to God, with the ordinations of new seminarian deacons Kosmas (Mitchell) Morfas (AOCANA) and Silouan (Blake) Cohen (OCA), the tonsuring of Professor Vitaly Permiakov to subdeacon, and ordination to the priesthood of seminarian Hieromonk Michel (Mikhail, OCA) and Alumnus Fr Philip Beiner (OCA, Class of '20)! AXIOS!

Thursday, we were also especially blessed to welcome His Grace Andrei, Auxiliary Bishop of the Romanian Episcopate, to Three Hierarchs Chapel to preside over the festal celebrations and ordination of Dn Silouan and Subdn Vitaly.

03/21/2021

I had the privilege of being part of the quartet this morning for the Divine Liturgy as we celebrated the Sunday of Orthodoxy. The Lord blessed us with beautiful weather and the girls enjoyed being able to be outside with all the other families here for a simple coffee hour!

Praying and hoping that the world is slowly returning to normal so that we can have all of the students and families together in the chapel more often than just on special occasions!

It’s reading week here so that means no classes for David. But still a couple services and of course the Feast of Annuciation on Thursday, where Lord willing we will witness a friend be ordained to the holy diaconate.

It is an exciting time here for our family as we go through this Lenten season. Lots of services, more daylight outside and better weather to go play outside more often and looking forward to a quick trip back to SC at the beginning of April just the girls and I.

I hope and pray everyone’s week is blessed and joy-filled!

03/20/2021

Penny drew a copy of the painting of Three Heirarchs chapel that we have in our common room downstairs!

03/19/2021

My internet friend Starling Foster posted this on IG and it's a wonderful meditation.

For those of you who aren't Orthodox, during Lent we do full prostrations where we completely bow down to God and touch our forehead to the floor. Many non-liturgical Christians see prostrations and think of them as a Muslim thing, but Orthodox and Catholics have been doing them before Islam existed and you'll see the practice among some Anglicans, Lutherans, and the occasional Methodist.

Here's a blog post I wrote about prostrations, the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem of Syria, and the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee: https://dgalloway.wordpress.com/2021/03/19/we-fall-down-we-get-up-again/

03/14/2021

Happy Cheesefare everyone! After liturgy, our little foursome got off campus for a bit to visit a little nearby town called Hartsdale! We had lunch at a small vegetarian Indian restaurant and enjoyed just some great family time!

We are looking forward to pizza and a movie with friends before forgiveness vespers this evening.

Forgive us friends, for we are sinners! Have a blessed beginning of lent!

02/18/2021

I found myself with a bit of downtime this morning and wrote not one, but two blog posts—one each on the two blogs I have going. Megan and I are still trying to figure out how to best manage giving updates to people and I talk about this on the "A Tale of Two Blogs" post.

https://dgalloway.wordpress.com/2021/02/18/a-tale-of-two-blogs/ A Tale of Two Blogs - This is on my old WordPress account and it gives an overview of how I got a little stuck with posting updates (long story short: it's weird changing your life completely and then trying to relate to your secular friends now that you're in seminary) and how I'm trying to manage a limited and intentional online presence.

https://davidgalloway.substack.com/p/svots-spring-2021-class-updates SVOTS Spring 2021 Class Updates - I talked myself into making a Substack blog so I could focus on Seminary/Orthodox stuff without alienating the audience on my WP blog. Ultimately having both led to even more friction, as I relate in A Tale of Two Blogs above. This post, though, is mostly about my classes.

Yeah, it's been a while. Sorry about that.

02/16/2021

Wow. It’s been an entire year since we came up to “visit” our beautiful campus.

I remember turning onto Scarsdale Rd and driving through this quiet residential neighborhood wondering if I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. (Both physically and spiritually). I wondered what our life held in the next few years. I wondered if this was the right path for our family. I wondered a lot of things.

Then I turned onto this campus and a peace overwhelmed me. It was beautiful and quiet and peaceful and... there’s just no words to fully explain what it feels like to actually be at St. Vladimir’s.

We were fortunate enough to visit before the pandemic shutdown everything. We were able to be in the chapel and socialize and ask the questions we desperately needed answered before we could make the decision that would lead us in this direction.

We spent three days here being welcomed by everyone we met— having dinner and lunch and play dates with several families that I have now come to regard as friends. I truly think the community here at St. Vlads has no equal to it in all the world.

We’ve been here a little over 7 months and I’m not going to say it’s been the smoothest sailing. We have our up days and our down days—our super busy days and our chill days. David works very hard to stay on top of his schoolwork and I always have my hands full with the girls. With being a part of the largest incoming class ever here at St. Vlads, I feel blessed to be here.

Thank you all so much for you love and support through everything this last year. We love you all.

02/07/2021

More snow!! Another 8” and more on top of the already 22” or so we got last week! And right outside our apartment is the perfect hill for sledding!

02/02/2021

Spraznikom! Blessed Feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. This feast celebrates the presentation of Christ in the Temple by the Theotokos to St. Symeon the elder who had been given the information that he would not die until he had seen the messiah with his own eyes. Here's the full information on the feast with hymnography:

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2021/02/02/100407-the-meeting-of-our-lord-and-savior-jesus-christ-in-the-temple

How did we celebrate the feast? After liturgy, David was talked into playing Snow Football (pictures forthcoming) on the Great Lawn while Penny went sledding and Megan fulfilled Etsy orders.

The Meeting of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ is described in the third Gospel (Luke 2:22-40). Forty days after His birth the Divine Child was brought to the Temple at Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord. According to the Law of Moses (Lev. 12:2-8), a woman who gave birth to a male child…

01/31/2021

Eek!

01/30/2021

Spraznikam! This morning, we celebrated the Synaxis of the Three Holy Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom! The chapel here at St. Vladimir’s is named for these beloved patrons and pillars of our church. The liturgy this morning was sung in Byzantine chant so it was different from what we are used to but still beautiful none the less.

It has been bitterly cold the last few days and we are currently awaiting to see how much snow we will be getting early next week. The girls don’t seem to mind the cold though which is a blessing. Megan on the other hand... she’s ready to get back to warmer weather!

Classes are beginning their third full week on Monday and Lord-willing (& weather permitting), a friend will be ordained to the holy diaconate on Tuesday by Metropolitan Tikhon. It’s a busy week of shuffling classes, church responsibilities, and spending time with family.

Keep us all in your prayers! We love you all!

01/20/2021

A beautiful snowy morning at St. Vladimir’s! This was the view from the front door of the chapel after Matins.