Dear ALL!
Thank you for supporting me this summer!
Your help has exceeded my initial goal of $5,000! Here is my report to you on the progress of my projects this summer.
The trip to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champagne was productive. Paul B. Anderson (d. 1988) was one of the founders of the Russian branch of YMCA at the beginning of the twentieth century. He witnessed two Russian revolutions of 1917 and was firsthand involved with helping Russian refugees. His archives contain a gold mine of information, and I am glad I could work with them. The next stage is to use collected materials for specially dedicated articles or as part of others.
The other project I am completing is creating the Russian Church History online class for St. Athanasius college. I recorded video lectures, collected reading materials for students, and wrote synopses for lectures. Your support allowed me to focus on designing this course.
My mission to set up a discussion forum about ROCOR has been continuing. I had an excellent visit to Grigsby, Ontario, giving a presentation on ROCOR history for the new mission of the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God. I have posted new materials on the ROCOR Studies website, and fellow Facebook group administrators George Luimes and Seraphim Reimer continue looking after this group along with me.
Canon Law remains one of my principal interests I prepared the new graduate-level class on selected themes of canon law, which Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary will offer this fall. With your help, I plan to present at the International Congress of Eastern Churches in Belgrade this September. Participation in the two-week International Byzantine Greek Summer school, directed online by the Classics Department of Trinity College, Dublin, helps me work with the texts. Next week I am planning to access papers sent to the canon law section of the International Orthodox Theological Association conference scheduled in Volos, Greece in January 2023.
When I was outlining my plans at the beginning of the summer, I did not expect to have to deal with a family emergency. This has delayed my writing of an introduction to the 2021 Belgrade conference proceedings and the chapter on the Inter-Council Assembly for the Handbook on Conciliarity prepared by the Theological Department of the University in Tartu.
Right now, the outcome of the crowdfunding campaign “Help Me to Carry On My Academic Work This Summer” amounts to $9,304. If we could bring the amount to $10,000, this would help me complete those projects which I have not been able to finish this summer and carry on with everything else I have been doing.
You may donate here: https://gofund.me/d160ac10
