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An Orthodox University: Higher Education for Orthodox Christians
by His Grace Bishop Thomas, Ed.D.
In "the founding of explicitly Orthodox Christian schools of higher education...we must seek out men and women who are willing to offer up their academic learning and other educational talents to God for His Eucharistic sanctification for the salvation of the world."If we were to survey the Orthodox Christian private grammar schools that currently exist in our country, we would discover that they exist for one of two reasons. The first, and probably the more common, is that parents want a place for their children that is safe from the evil influences found in the secular schools that will also give to them an adequate academic education. Such schools do not particularly exist as Orthodox schools for the sake of Orthodoxy, but rather as safe havens, sheltering students reassuringly under the preferred religious branding.
By contrast, the other kind of Orthodox Christian school that exists in our country is dedicated to immersion in the Kingdom of God. Their purpose is not to provide a shelter from the world that happens to give a decent education, but rather it is to use education sacramentally to unite students mystically with Jesus Christ. Indeed, far from providing a shelter, we may think of such places as a barracks or as a training camp, raising up soldiers for Christ's mystical army. Such schools have one purpose: the salvation of students and of the world. For them, education can become a mystery of the Church.
I believe the same sort of twofold distinction exists within the Orthodox homeschooling world, as well. Some homeschooling parents are trying to hide their kids from the world, while others are arming them for the confrontation with the powers of darkness, which they will meet at some point, even if only because they will eventually grow up and move out of their parents' house.
With this in mind, we come to the question of Orthodox Christian higher education, that is, Orthodox colleges and universities. As Orthodox Christians, our basic philosophy when thinking about any educational endeavor must be the theology of the Church. There is no point in seeking to found academic institutions that merely carry a particular label. Our purpose is not to create or reform institutions that will simply rival or exceed the world's achievements, but be done under the auspices of our brand, thereby making them appropriately "safe" for a niche market. We do not build Orthodox schools so that we can train fine doctors, businessmen, lawyers, scientists, writers, and teachers, etc. We build Orthodox schools so that Orthodox Christians can use medicine, business, law, science, literature and teaching for their own salvation and for the salvation of the world.
If salvation is our core and guiding desire, then it is obvious that certain things should exist in an authentically Orthodox Christian educational environment. Clearly, the heart of Orthodox life is worship, and so chapels and churches should be at the center of any school that aspires to being an Orthodox school. The Eucharist and all the mysteries and prayers of the Church should be offered up in such a place. Worship is not some ancillary component or a "chaplaincy" in an Orthodox school. It is the center and purpose of the place.
And if that is true, then our educational vision should be in keeping with the one elucidated so many centuries ago by St. Basil the Great, who imagined whole villages and towns of Orthodox Christians with schools, hospitals and, of course, churches. Such a vision can have many kinds of expression. One of those expressions is monasticism, a life not only of prayer but of every kind of work necessary for sustaining life. Likewise, Orthodox Christian education can be an expression of this same vision.
If we are to pursue such a vision, then we have to ask what the practical road to realizing it might look like. One option is to seek to transform existing institutions from within, saturating them with serious Orthodox Christians, developing within the existing community an authentic Orthodox spiritual life that will shine radiantly through the university like Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Christ. Universities that follow the British pattern, where there are multiple colleges that are relatively independent of one another yet all part of the same university, could facilitate this approach.
There may well be other colleges and universities that would be willing to host such an Orthodox community, that would be willing to give some sort of recognition to the Holy Trinity, opening themselves to the Divine Liturgy and all the mysteries of the Church. If such places are found, then by all means, we should accept the invitation to bring into them the mystical life of the Church, sanctifying them and transfiguring them from within, transforming them from secular institutions to holy communities.
I fear, though, that almost all of our institutions of higher learning are not only inhospitable to believers in the Holy Trinity, but are so drowning in the error of secular fundamentalism that we will find that we not only have no invitation to bring Christ into them, but are continually limited and even rejected in what we can accomplish. I know that many have hoped that Orthodox Christian Fellowships (OCFs) would be able to undertake this task of sanctification, and while an OCF may be a lifeline, it is not the ship. Most OCFs function as small pockets of Orthodox exiles, surrounded by a hostile faculty and a hostile administration who are not at all interested in their salvation. Please don't misunderstand me—I am in favor of OCFs, but I do not believe that they can be the instruments of transformation of our secular schools into places of holiness and salvation.
That leaves us with the more viable and consistent option, the founding of explicitly Orthodox Christian schools of higher education. This approach will take a lot more work. Because we will need a faculty and staff who are pursuing their own salvation or at least are willing to sign on to the vision and not oppose it, it will be harder to find such people. But just as we seek out men for the priesthood who are willing to take their lives and offer them up to God "on behalf of all and for all," we also must seek out men and women who are willing to offer up their academic learning and other educational talents to God for His Eucharistic sanctification for the salvation of the world.
Professors, administrators, counselors, custodians, cafeteria workers, etc., should all manifest Christ's Kingdom into the world, because an Orthodox university should be nothing less than an extension of the Kingdom of God. Yes, we might need to hire some non-Orthodox people if qualified Orthodox Christians are not available for particular roles, but everyone who is on staff at an authentically Orthodox university has to understand that where they're working is an outpost of the Kingdom of God.
Likewise, non-Orthodox students could certainly be admitted to an Orthodox school, but they, too, should know that the school's vision and goal is evangelism, to bring the light of the Gospel into the hearts of both the local community and the world. Only if we are committed to building a community that is centered on salvation will we enjoy the seal of the Holy Spirit in blessing such a pursuit.
Further, because our Orthodox vision will probably cut us off from many forms of grant money and other funding, we will have to find Orthodox Christian people whom God has blessed with both the financial resources and the vision for salvation to fund an Orthodox university. These people are out there. All we have to do is look around at the many glorious churches built in this country to know that God has not kept His Orthodox American people in poverty.
Getting wealthy Orthodox Christians to be inspired by this vision will probably require an incremental approach, to prove that there really can be such a thing as an authentically Orthodox school of higher learning. Some programs of study are inherently more expensive to maintain than others. Thus, we probably will not begin an Orthodox university by founding a medical school (unless any of you are multi-billionaires and ready to go from day one), but we may start with exploring degree programs in education, business, or some of the humanities, as the budget allows.
Whatever we do, however, it must not be for its own sake, nor even for the lofty secular goal of "education" in itself. Just as bread and wine do not in themselves save us, but can become the very presence of God, education does not grant us salvation, but it can become a servant of salvation. What transforms the mundane into the mystical is the offering by mankind and the sanctification by God in response.
At its foundation, Orthodoxy is about the salvation of mankind. We pursue salvation through every means necessary. If we can be saved where we are, then we stay put. But if we cannot be saved where we are, then we have to go somewhere else. For example, we may even soon find it a necessity to set up a parallel medical community, because there are now legal standards being pursued that would require medical students to perform abortions. We cannot violate our faith in order to pursue our careers, no matter what they are, nor can we violate it in order to be educated.
If that means we can be true Orthodox Christians who are being trained for salvation in existing institutions, then it is blessed. If it means we have to found our own communities of education so that we can train for salvation, then that it blessed. No matter what we do or where we go, our purpose is the same, and that is the salvation of our souls and the souls of those around us. While we should try to become educated people, God will not ask us when we stand before His throne how many or what kinds of degrees we earned or what our grade point average was. He will look at us to see how much we resemble His Son Jesus Christ. How we orient ourselves toward that awesome and fearful Day of Judgment will determine our vision for Orthodox Christian education, whether it is for grammar school, homeschooling or higher education.
What we must not do is pursue this, frankly, silly idea that we should found Orthodox educational institutions merely to shield our children from evil. Make no mistake—sooner or later, they will encounter evil, even if it is simply the evil that resides in their own hearts. And when they do, will their educational training have been dedicated to keeping that evil hidden from them, or will it have been dedicated to arming them to fight the good fight, to finish the course, to keep the faith (2 Tim. 4:7)?


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I was wondering if this mean(160)-reverting/oscillatory time series "SUM" can be considered chaotic & forecastable to some extend short-term?
Are there time-series forecasting methods that give a broader "range" prediction structure rather than "exact/precise" future numbers (e.g, neural network which can be totally off since it is just trying to curve-fit)? Is fuzzy logic method able to give a prediction interval for the immediate next period in a discrete time series?
I would appreciate if anyone can provide some insight to this case study.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Olympic motto - Faster, Higher, Stronger - has always applied to an ideal: a young, supremely fit athlete, performing wondrous tasks. The motto means something different for athletes over 50. Thousands of them are in Cleveland for the National Senior Games. These games may be lacking in youth and buff physiques, but NPR's Tom Goldman reports the event still has great significance for those are competing and watching.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: The Senior Games' celebration of athletes Friday night at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena had some of the feel of an Olympic ceremony. There was a parade of flags:
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Arizona.
GOLDMAN: There was an athlete oath.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I pledge to abide by the rules of these games.
GOLDMAN: There was a decorated Olympian emceeing the event. And you got to hand it to Scott Hamilton. The former gold medal-winning figure skater sure knows how to get a crowd of senior athletes riled up.
SCOTT HAMILTON: How can someone swim in Depends?
GOLDMAN: It was all shtick, of course. Hamilton worked his way around to the fact that at 54, he could be competing and, with a preacher's fire, said everyone should be.
HAMILTON: Get out there. Get busy. Be the best and healthiest you can be and don't let anyone talk you out of it.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Set.
GOLDMAN: Yesterday, in the rain, a full day of track and field competition at Baldwin Wallace University outside of Cleveland.
CHRIS MONACO: Come on, Nino.
KEVIN MONACO: Good job, dad.
GOLDMAN: With sons Chris and Kevin cheering him on, 62-year-old Nino Monaco ran his 200 meters heat. He's in the 400, 800 and 1,500 as well. When he was young, Nino Monaco was a soccer player in his native Italy. He transitioned to competitive running at 30. And, he says, more people should do the same. Monaco thinks too many abandon athletics after youth and college sports have run their course.
NINO MONACO: We should have more competition for people in their late 20s and 30s, you know, track meets and stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Oscar, good job, man. You're awesome.
GOLDMAN: Oscar Peyton indeed is awesome. He had just run his 200 heat eight seconds faster than Monaco, and was clearly the class of the field - as he's been for a decade. The Usain Bolt of the older set, 60-year-old Peyton has won both the 100 and 200 meters at the last five Senior Games. Most Senior Games stories are heavy on inspiration, but Peyton's also is bittersweet.
OSCAR PEYTON: My speed really developed between the ages of 18 and 20. I probably could've been on the U.S. Olympic team and maybe even set a world record even back then 'cause I was very fast.
GOLDMAN: Peyton says he beat some speedy high school and college track stars in impromptu races back then. But, he says, he went unnoticed by track coaches. He turned to basketball, and played until the toll on his knees forced him to give it up in his early 40s. One day, when he was nearly 50, knowing he needed to get active again because of high cholesterol, Peyton was watching the Olympic-style World Games on TV.
PEYTON: And I was just wondering if they had anything for seniors.
GOLDMAN: They did. And now Oscar Peyton gets noticed - a lot. Over the next couple of days, he'll try to add to his already bulging gold medal collection. Tom Goldman, NPR News, Cleveland.
STAMBERG: And you're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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somethings happened ,no medication for over a month ,and very rare angina.
Disapointment , frustration ,back on meds again though only small amounts,
ofonorow wrote: ...As far as your wife, vitamin C may help w/r to mercury (amalgams). Dr. Ely once told me that mercury accounts for more than 70% of Alzheimers. (C can help chelate the mercury). ...
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Voltaire — To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize
Friday, April 3, 2015
A new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of Europe relatively recently
The work offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don't look much like those of 8000 years ago. The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus recently as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier in 2015 that modern Europeans are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago. Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection — including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection. First, the scientists confirmed an earlier report that the hunter-gatherers in Europe could not digest the sugars in milk 8000 years ago. They also noted an interesting twist: The first farmers also couldn't digest milk. The farmers who came from the Near East about 7800 years ago and the Yamnaya pastoralists who came from the steppes 4800 years ago lacked the version of the LCT gene that allows adults to digest sugars in milk. It wasn't until about 4300 years ago that lactose tolerance swept through Europe. When it comes to skin color, the team found a patchwork of evolution in different places, and three separate genes that produce light skin, telling a complex story for how European's skin evolved to be much lighter during the past 8000 years. The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes — SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 — that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in modern Europeans. But in the far north — where low light levels would favor pale skin — the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin. Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency. The team also tracked complex traits, such as height, which are the result of the interaction of many genes. They found that selection strongly favored several gene variants for tallness in northern and central Europeans, starting 8000 years ago, with a boost coming from the Yamnaya migration, starting 4800 years ago. The Yamnaya have the greatest genetic potential for being tall of any of the populations, which is consistent with measurements of their ancient skeletons. In contrast, selection favored shorter people in Italy and Spain starting 8000 years ago. Spaniards, in particular, shrank in stature 6000 years ago, perhaps as a result of adapting to colder temperatures and a poor diet. Surprisingly, the team found no immune genes under intense selection, which is counter to hypotheses that diseases would have increased after the development of agriculture. The paper doesn't specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park. People living in northern latitudes often don't get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem — evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk. "What we thought was a fairly simple picture of the emergence of depigmented skin in Europe is an exciting patchwork of selection as populations disperse into northern latitudes," Jablonski says. "This data is fun because it shows how much recent evolution has taken place." Anthropological geneticist George Perry, also of Penn State, notes that the work reveals how an individual's genetic potential is shaped by their diet and adaptation to their habitat. "We're getting a much more detailed picture now of how selection works."
1 comment:
Sooner or later this type of work wIth the genome wiill lead to severe political problems for the researchers, at least in the US and the West.
- April 3, 2015 at 11:26 PM
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