Axios?

When we lived in Los Angeles, I was a member of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral.  The Proistamenos - head priest - Fr. John serves as a mentor for younger priests. They come to him newly ordained and serve with him for a few years before being sent off to their own parishes. It's sort of like student teaching. To me Fr. John seemed ideally suited to this role. Along with offering flawless Liturgies, sung in an operatically-trained voice - he's also pretty liberal. A friend of mine from church told me  when  he and his boyfriend broke up Fr. John did what any good Greek father would do: he tried to play matchmaker for him with a couple of single guys he knew!

During my time at Saint Sophia the young priest being mentored was Fr. Bill. I had the honor of being in attendance during his actual ordination, during which the congregation  periodically signals its approval by proclaiming Axios! (He is worthy.)

Part of the young priest's "apprenticeship" was to give the occasional homily - nothing like speaking in front of 300-400 people on any given Sunday to prepare you for your own small flock!

One Sunday Fr. Bill was speaking about second chances. He told us how growing up he and his friends had a contest the start of every Church calendar year: to see who could get tossed out of Sunday School the first. According to his own admission, Billy was the undefeated champion.  What he found interesting was that the next Sunday, when his parents returned  him to the class from which he had been expelled a week earlier, he was once again met with open arms as if nothing had happened. No matter how many times he was banished, he was always welcomed back.

He finished by sharing with us that on the day of his ordination, among those shouting, "Axios!" - symbolically acknowledging he was worthy to be a priest - were several of his former Sunday School teachers. He said he had contacted many of them before beginning his priestly training, and asked why they had always allowed him back in their classrooms without hesitation. To a person, he said, they claimed to see something deeper in him than he had yet realized. They had hope for him.

Niko makes me think of Fr. Bill...a lot.

Although he hasn't figured out quite how to get tossed out of Sunday School class - and actually seems to enjoy it - he's far from the best-behaved child at Prophet Elias.  He has no problem expressing his utter boredom, alleviated by (loudly) arranging and re-arranging the items found in the little shelf on the back of the pew ahead of him. He plays with the kneelers. He sees how far he can sneak off against the wall before I command him back. He thuds his body down in defiance to the standing congregation.

I'm convinced that were it not for a familial bond, my cousins seated behind us would smack me aside the head for my bad parenting skills.

Niko can be a handful. He's stubborn and strong headed. He's bossy and labors under the belief that the world revolves around him. He doesn't particularly enjoy doing anything that's not set to his time. He and I actually had a rather heated discussion about the need for numbers to go in a specific order and not in a higgly-piggly manner that strikes his fancy.

And then there's the kid that runs to embrace priests, who loves antidiron - blessed bread offered to everyone following Liturgy - and can flawlessly explain the Resurrection. The other day - on  Theophany (the Blessing of the Waters) when we returned home with Holy Water, Niko took it upon himself to bless the house in a manner that would have made Rasputin the Mad Monk proud. All the poor animals in our menagerie were blessed. Poor things.

As I struggle to get him to act more appropriately in church - and struggle with my internal conflict of celebrating his refusal to conform versus my desire not to be embarrassed by his behavior - I keep thinking if Fr. Bill can go from Sunday School parolee to priest, maybe Niko can reform himself too. Who knows, maybe there's something deeper in him that he hasn't recognized yet. Maybe someday we'll be shouting, "Axios! to Fr. Niko!