When you were asked as a child what you wanted to be when you grew up, how did you answer? I’m not sure what I said, though I used “Video Game Tester” as a joke for a few years. Apparently, many children say things like doctor, policeman, fireman, astronaut, or scientist. My favorite answer is the one given by the child of a friend here in Armenia. A driver of a typically rundown taxi asked the 4 year old, “what will you be when you grow up?”

Without skipping a beat, the child said, “king!”

The driver responded “Really? When you’re king what will to do?”

The child smiled and said, “the first thing I would do is fix up your taxi.”

The point is that children often give archetypal answers. Kids know what a doctor, a fireman, and a king do. They can’t appreciate the complexity of their work, but they understand the general purpose of it, and why it’s important.

How many kids give the answer “priest”? How many kids understand what a priest does, or why it’s important? How many adults?

Not many, but it’s really nobody’s fault. The church has the necessity to communicate the answer for the sake of people like me, but the simple truth is that when a priest is doing what he is supposed to do, it shouldn’t be sensational. They are supposed to be humble servants after all. Does Bruce Wayne bother himself with how Alfred does his thing?

I’ve been to enough events as a representative clergyman to know that I shouldn’t be offended when I’m treated like a piece of furniture. The priest shouldn’t be the focal point of his community, he exists simply to serve them and get out of the way. I love that.

Regardless of whether or not its important for people to know, let’s talk about what it is that priests actually do. As I’ve said, understanding this in a way more complex than what I saw of my priest on any given Sunday was a huge step toward accepting my vocation. What I understood then was more than the average layman, but what I know is far beyond that.

The Good Shepard

In today’s Church, the word priest is not completely adequate to describe the responsibilities of a priest. While it’s technically correct, the word we prefer to use to describe the vocation is pastor. Of course, we still sacramentally ordain priests so we call them Fr. Datev, instead of Pastor Datev, but they are pastors nonetheless.

Pastoral Theology seeks to explain the role of the pastor (shepherd is a synonym for pastor) in the Christian Faith, including his responsibilities before God and his people.

Last year I studied Pastoral Theology with the fifth and sixth year students in seminary. The course was aptly taught at first by Very Rev. Fr. Simeon Odabashian, and later by Bp. Mkrtich Nersissian. Both of these lecturers brought a fair amount of their personal experience to the classroom, and did their best to encourage dialogue amongst the seminarians.

The Three P’s

The Armenian Church’s primary text when it comes to the role of the Pastor is the work of His Holiness Karekin I of Blessed Memory. Before his untimely death, he published several inspired books on many topics, one of which was his treatise on the role of the pastor in the Armenian Church. According to the former Catholicos, the pastor is called to be three things: Priest, Prophet, and Prince (Matthew 28:18-20). Let’s take a look at what that means.

The Priest

Its a ridiculously obvious to say that the pastor should be a priest (we often use the words as synonyms), but the actual role of the priest is very distinct. The priest is a performer of rituals. An anthropologist will say that rituals have strong cultural value, and have a role in “structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.” In other words, the marriage ritual serves to establish the social contract between the people getting married, and the witnesses and ritualistic elements serve to reinforce the importance of their commitment.

For the believer, this explanation is true, but very inadequate. Saying that the Sun is bright is a true statement, but doesn’t tell us the whole story. For a Christian, a ritual or a sacrament is the means by which Man engages in a relationship with the Lord and invites Him to take real action in our lives. The Marriage sacrament calls on God to divinely establish the spiritual bond between bride and groom. This is the purpose of the ritual.

The responsibility of the priest is to understand these rituals and perform them according to the covenant that we have with God understood in His self-revelation (i.e. the Bible and Holy Tradition). The priestly role is the oldest calling of a paster. It was established in dialogue between Aaron and the Lord (Exodus 28-29.

Therefore, a pastor is required to learn the ritual knowledge of our Church including hymns, prayers, various movements, and their theological underpinnings.

Performing rituals with passion and beauty is a skill that increases the potency of the spiritual experience. More importantly they must be performed with conviction and purity, because the priest does so as a representative of the faithful.

Personally, this has proven to be my most difficult area of study for many reasons. I was not musically gifted from birth and the performance of rituals requires a good deal of memorization. I’ve really had to develop these skills. Additionally, many clergymen have experience participating in the ritual life of the Church from a young age, while I started serving at the altar in my early twenties. Nonetheless, my emotional and spiritual response to the rituals of the Church is strong, and has truly developed my faith and motivated me. If the priesthood had a technical element, this would be it, therefore with enough practice and effort it can be learned.

The Prophet

Saying that the pastor must be a prophet is not to say that they should be able to tell the future. It means that they are called to the same mission as the prophets: to preach the truth courageously and at all times seek to fulfill God’s will. In other words they must educate their flock. In this way a pastor must be a teacher who takes his knowledge of Christianity and insight of God’s relationship with Man and uses them to help people grow in faith and wisdom.

This is typically experienced when a pastor preaches during Sunday Liturgy, but the calling to teach goes far beyond this. The pastor has to reach out to his community and be a true source of knowledge for his flock when they have questions about their faith.

Like the prophets he has to be inspiring and speak with conviction, because it takes inspiration for people to change their lives. Also like the prophets, a pastor must be brave, because the last thing people want to hear is that they need to change. God told the prophet Ezekiel that if one of his people sins because he has neglected to show them the right way, he is responsible. For Ezekiel and for us, this is a heavy burden and duty.

To master this role the pastor should be a good public speaker. He should be able to prepare a sermon such that is clear, concise, and convincing. He must also be educated well enough in the Faith so that his messages are correct, and he’s prepared to answer whatever questions the people have.

I’m very blessed, because against all probability, being the inverted shy person that I can be, I’m not a bad public speaker. Furthermore, I really love teaching and I’m not bad at it. Despite how talented one is, being a good preacher is the work of a lifetime and a skill that improves with experience.

The Prince

I can see my mom rolling her eyes now. “He thinks he’s becoming a prince now. Next thing you know he’ll want us to roll out the red carpet when he comes home!”

Don’t let the title fool you. Being a pastor has nothing to do with power. It does have something to do with responsibility, and the authority that comes with it. The pastor is, by definition, a leader, because he is truly responsible for his flock.

This authority is like the authority of the proverbial good king. He must always act out of the best interests of his people. In today’s world that means that the pastor has administrative duties to govern the worldly aspects of his parish. This includes exciting things like making budgets, running meetings, planning events, and the like. They have to strike a balance that allows them to delegate tasks to community members while not abandoning their engagement at any level of Church life.

The pastor must also encourage the building of healthy relationships amongst parishioners. A healthy community contributes to the spiritual life of a parish, while turmoil and drama amongst the faithful leads to division and resentment, which damages the spiritual experience of being part of the Church.

First and foremost, the pastor as a leader has to engage in the lives of his flock in an intimate way. He should be like a member of the family; someone who can be called upon at any moment. He should be a source for spiritual counseling, but also practical advice, and just a trusted person who can be talked with.

For communities in the Diaspora this is a role of great importance, as the parish often constitutes a stable epicenter of community life. The pastor is a means by which new congregants can become incorporated into the community.

To be a successful leader, the pastor has to realize the implications of his title, Father. He has to love every member of his flock as his own child and treat them with love, patience, and attention. This is not as easy as it sounds and requires a very deep faith and an undeniable sense of service.

Jesus is our ultimate model in this regard. He was a true leader, and in His true perfection, he saw the divinity in all of His creations, and had respect and boundless love for all. In His love, He was the ultimate servant, and even gave the perfect sacrifice for His disciples and for all of us. He led through example, and engaged his flock in every aspect of their lives (John 13:1-13).

In my life, I have reluctantly accepted leadership in various positions. In many ways I was transitioned into candidacy for the Priesthood through my leadership the Armenian Church Youth Organization. This has been crucial experience for me. I have practical skill when it comes to organizing, but leadership can be an ephemeral ability. It requires constant learning, humility, and great communication skills. Leadership can be learned, especially by following Christ’s example, but it is still a role that can’t achieved without personal development.

Multidisciplinary

If you’ve read through my lengthy explanations above, I think you’ll get the impression that the priest as pastor requires a myriad of abilities. It was multidisciplinary before the word existed. As my knowledge of the priesthood grew, this fact began to fascinate me. In what other profession must a person be a great leader, a wonderful teacher, and perform rituals beautifully?

Also, while a pastor is called to be all of these things, it goes without out saying that each one has them in different proportions. Some are better leaders, while some are better performers of rituals. All are important, and each has an ideal community and position where they belong best in order to serve the flock and the Lord.

After having learned the “job description” of the priest, its not adequate to say that because one is able to fulfill all these roles they must necessarily be called to the Priesthood. Its not fair to say that because one can paint they must be a wonderful artist, nor that one who can build should be a architect. Our abilities alone don’t define us, because we are more than the sum total of what we are capable of doing. If we weren’t, we would simply be tools.

In the next blog in this series, we’ll consider some of the spiritual and character traits that are important to the priestly calling. The singing teaching leader may not always be a priest in the waiting.

I know the exact moment that it happened, sort of. I was sitting with the Primate of our Diocese, Abp. Hovnan Derderian, in his backyard. He had graciously invited me over to his house to discuss issues relating to our Diocese’s youth organization. I had some months earlier decided to leave a decent position at an organization that advocates for Armenian issues at the state and federal level in order to return to school. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life, but I knew that I didn’t want to do what I was doing before. Casually, while we were enjoying thick Armenian coffee, he hinted that the Priesthood could be a possible vocation for me. Without thinking twice, I agreed.

He knew that I knew that it was part of his job to suggest the Priesthood as a possible vocation to as many capable faithful young Armenian men as he could in the hope that at least one of them would express interest. Improbably, I did. He seemed a little surprised at first (its almost always the sort of offer that the recipient sheepishly rebuffs), but he became excited at the prospect, and although I attempted to play it cool, I was both ecstatic and frightened of the door that was opened in front of me.

To have some context to our perspective on the matter its important to understand that American-born priests of the Armenian Church are rare. How rare? You can roughly measure the elapsed time between ordinations in Summer Olympics.

I was truly blessed that I was unconditionally supported in this decision by my family, friends, and my then girlfriend (now wife), Annie. This was the beginning of a journey that is already in its 7th year, and ongoing.

The Question’s Answer

What you’ve just read is the driest and least effective version of an answer to a question that I get all the time. It can be paraphrased as follows, “How is that you came to want to become a priest?”

Answering that question has never been easy, nor has answering its present tense cousin, “Why do you want to be a priest?” There is still a small portion of people that believe that the answer must have something to with waking up in the middle of the night having heard the Voice of God in a dream. This did not happen to me, and I haven’t met anyone to whom it has. Instead, the real answer, as perhaps all real answers about vocations are want to be, is complicated and continues to evolve over time.

I’d like to share with everyone my answer to this question over a series of blogs that are both reflection and exploration on what the Priesthood is and my relationship with it as personal calling.

A Delayed Realization

Perhaps the best way to begin a discussion about the Priesthood is to remember one of the first times that I considered it as calling that belonged to those who could be found outside the walls of my church.

In an essay I wrote on this very topic, I recalled a letter that I wrote to my father while visiting Armenia for the first time in 2001, three years prior to accepting my Primate’s unexpected offer. It would remain unfinished and he would never read it, because soon after returning from Armenia he passed away as the result of a sudden stroke. This letter gave me some insight as to how it was that I came to internalize the priestly calling as a result of my upbringing. In the essay I wrote,

In preparing for my recent move to Armenia to attend the Kevorkian Seminary at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, I happened across a letter which I wrote to my father while in Armenia on the occasion of the 1700th Anniversary of Armenia’s Acceptance of Christianity. This letter was left unfinished, and he would never read it, as shortly after I wrote it he passed away. Upon rereading it, I was suprised to see something I wrote long before I had begun to consider the Priesthood. I wrote to him, ‘If you were a bit more outwardly spiritual, I would say that you missed your calling. You should have been a Priest!’

Therefore, my first inspiration to pursue the Priesthood was my father, by virtue of his character and example. My second inpiration is my Mother, who has diligantly always put others before herself, and has always supported me.

This is definitely how I feel that my calling was nurtured. However, over time and through experience my sense of the calling matured. My understanding of the nature of my commitment and my relationship with it has grown unto where I find myself presently, in my second year of seminary.

In my next blog I’ll discuss what a Priest actually is from a theological point of view. In other words, what is it that I’ve gotten my self into.