The Making of a Pastor – Part 2
<<Read the previous segment (if you haven’t already)
For this second article, I want to set aside the matters of the previous one and lay the groundwork for a discussion of the next aspect of clergy formation: the money.
I remind readers once again that I write from my perspective as a priest in the Orthodox Church in America, a graduate of two seminaries (the most recent of which is St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary), a husband and father, and an experienced professional software developer. Adjustments in my financial analysis are needed according to jurisdiction and diocese, but the main points still stand.
As a quick background for those unfamiliar with clergy education, the largest American Orthodox jurisdictions—the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Antiochian Archdiocese, and the Orthodox Church in America—all require new priests to hold a Master of Divinity degree or a very near equivalent. Customarily, the M.Div. requires three years of study (four years for GOA students). The typical load is 15 hours per term, plus regular attendance at chapel services (two per day at SVS), a duty (e.g., grounds maintenance), fieldwork at a parish, hospital, or nursing home, and, of course, homework and studying. For seminarians with families, one must also budget necessary time there, in order to keep one’s house in good order.
The three seminaries that train most of the Orthodox clergy in North America are Holy Cross in metro Boston (GOA), St Vladimir’s in Yonkers, NY (OCA), and St Tikhon’s in South Canaan, PA (OCA). All three presume that students will enroll in residence full-time for the duration of the program. That’s three to four years of minimal or no income for the seminarian and his family, unless the family situation allows for his wife to be employed. Spousal employment has been inconsistent – wages, distance, availability of work, commuting costs,etc. – among the seminary families I’ve known. (Before proceeding, ask yourself a quick question: how much would it cost for you and your family to live where you live now, if you were to cut every major expense and eliminate every debt?)
What does this cost? Well, believe it or not, calculating a precise number is something that would make an accountant blush. A lot of numbers get pushed around in order to allocate soft dollars and reduce the net cost to the seminarian. However, using numbers from SVS and Holy Cross (as representative examples), the following chart gives a very rough idea of the annual cost:
|
Student type |
Tuition |
Other expenses |
Total |
| Single seminarian |
10,000-18,400 |
8,000-15,000 |
16,000-33,400 |
| Married seminarian |
10,000-18,400 |
25,000-35,000 |
35,000-53,400 |
(Notes: “Other expenses” include housing, food, health and automobile insurance, along with books and incidentals. Some numbers were given as 9-month figures, which I converted to 12-month for the comparison.)
Wow. I corresponded with students from several jurisdictions to get their perspective on the situation. What students actually pay varies, depending on the limited scholarships administered by the seminaries and the particular diocese or archdiocese that sends the student. Nearly all of the Antiochian students given a blessing to pursue seminary studies receive a scholarship from the Antiochian Archdiocese for tuition costs plus a monthly stipend of $600 ($7,200 per year). Most GOA and OCA seminarians receive little financial assistance from their respective dioceses, with one notable exception in the GOA.
In the end, a married seminarian could expect to be responsible for $15,000 to $30,000 of his total expenses for each year he is in seminary. For seminary families where neither the student nor his wife is significantly employed, especially when children are present, these funds must come either from savings or from privately arranged loans. This, of course, leads quickly to the depletion of savings and proceeds from the sale of a home, or just as quickly to the acquisition of large amounts of debt. While much of this debt is in the form of federally-backed student loans, at least a few students use personal credit cards for this purpose.
To manage these costs, many students (those with families in particular) turn to public aid, particularly for health insurance. While I was attending St. Vladimir’s, married students were explicitly guided to sign up for the publicly-funded New York Family Health Plus insurance plan. Changes in eligibility requirements in New York have altered this slightly, although, as of the time of this writing, SVS’s web site still suggests the use of Medicaid by seminary students. Further, some seminary families also elect to register for WIC and food stamps.
The preceding paragraphs provide a picture of the basic situation. While I’ll soon have a critique and more discussion of the significance of the data, I encourage readers to think about this information and what it means for the Church and for the men who undertake seminary study.
11 comments (click to add your own)
I may be wrong, but I thought NY had changed its laws not long after I was there in such a way that food stamps were no longer an option for the seminarian families. On the one hand, I support NY’s right to do this (I am generally a state-rights kind of guy). On the other hand, the seminarians are in a bind. That is not NY’s fault, but ours. I am amazed at the lack of support for seminarians. Don’t misunderstand, our mission sends some money to a seminarian and other parishes and people help out every year in much more substantial ways. Even so, it’s not enough. Yes, the seminarians made a choice, but if we refrain from financial support by pointing to their choice, we’re guilty of ingratitude. I would simply state that there is a need for two things:
1) better, more consistent scholarships
2) within the OCA and elsewhere, especially in parishes that are no longer missions, a real priest’s salary. We shouldn’t pay GRE rates and expect graduate school. Again, with missions, it’s a different story. I’m talking about established parishes.
Fr. Oliver Herbel
4 Feb 10 at 6:40 pm
Dear Father Basil,
Thank you so much for initiating this series. It is such a worthwhile conversation, and I hope it will bear good fruit for Christ’s Church.
I think one of the factors that has to be considered is the stress burden that educational debt can put onto the newly ordained and their families. I think it is pretty unlikely for new priests to feel truly ‘free’ to do ministry when they are crippled under massive student loans. The kind of theological/pastoral/liturgical formation taking place in our seminaries is essential, and should be the norm, but it is also extremely costly. I think this is where we, as a Church, have to pitch in, particularly on behalf of “approved” candidates for ordination. (Of course, part of the question is what “approved” might really mean). I take it to mean someone who meets the Biblical qualifications (1 Timothy 3) the general canonical standards, has been tested through dedicated service in the parish, and has the blessing of their priest and Bishop.
During a recent conversation with a Roman Catholic friend of mine, he was shocked to hear that our dioceses do not pick up the tab for the education of our potential priests. It grieves me to think about so many good men – choice servants of God – who may be serving in small struggling parishes or fledgling mission parishes, and feel trapped by these kind of financial burdens, or worse, when the stressors contribute to marital dischord, breakdown, and even leaving the ministry.
We could probably help to mitigate these kinds of situations by approving viable candidates, and by easing the financial burden up front.
In our Archdiocese of Canada (OCA), we are currently in the process of developing an Archdiocesan Vocational Assessment Committee, to help our Archbishop with discernment and decisions about ordinations, and to help shepherd potential candidates. This committee is primarily composed of seasoned priests with at least one lay person participating, and also includes professional psychological evaluations and well as other tests. I myself went through this process in preparation for my recent ordination to the diaconate, and was greatly helped by the interviews, guidance, and conversations. The newly ordained are also being assigned experienced priests as mentors, available to be a ’sounding board’ for any questions or concerns that may arise.
We are also attempting to support the ‘money’ side of clergy formation through our St. Tikhon’s Archdiocesan Stewards Program. (www.canadastas.ca) The goal, which may be possible within a decade or so, with God’s blessing, would be to provide acutal and not merely token support for educational formation. The majority would come from the Archdiocese and the seminarian’s home parish, and the idea is that the candidate himself would only shoulder 10-20% of the actual costs.
We are just in the very beginning stages of these efforts here in Canada, but hopefully they will make a difference long term.
Asking your blessing and prayers…
Dn. Matthew Francis
8 Feb 10 at 11:47 am
One other comment along these lines came to mind:
It would be difficult for a priest to feed the flock with the Word of God and the Bread of Life when he is worried about putting food on the breakfast table for his family.
Our new auxiliary Bishop, His Grace Irenee – who himself served faithfully for decades as a mission priest while also requiring full-time secular employment – told me recently that he has never known a faithful priest whose family starved. God is faithful and we can trust Him to provide, but we as the Church can also help by encouraging healthy starts to ministry and finding ways to ease the crushing debt loads of our new clergy.
Dn. Matthew Francis
8 Feb 10 at 11:57 am
This is a tough subject. On one hand there is the “priesthood as a profession” and on the other the “priesthood as a podvig”. I can understand the heirarch’s reluctance to pay for someone’s seminary up front given their abysmal track record of sending men to seminary and ordaining them in the last few decades. Maybe if they were saddled with footing the bill they might take more care in screening men and families BEFORE seminary. On the other hand if a man has to figure out how to reach a goal and pay for it, he might be more serious than someone who is looking for a handout and a guaranteed and paid for degree. My tendency is to require the same “hazing” I went through from others … I paid for 17 years of college education with no assistance because it was important to me whether I got a job from it or not. If someone is truly “called” to the priesthood, it can happen. If someone “wants” the priesthood that can happen too. But neither should be funded by the Church up front in my opinion. A graduated retirement of debt for faithful and good service seems to me to be a wise approach to financial issues.
Steve Robinson
10 Feb 10 at 12:37 am
Yeah, I hear you. Perhaps a balance could be struck between helping out during the arduous seminary years themselves, and with debt relief on the other side.
Dn. Matthew Francis
11 Feb 10 at 3:21 pm
Here’s something Fr. Basil and I have discussed privately. I thought I would throw it out there as food for thought.
I, for one, would like to see the Orthodox seminaries in the U. S. offer TWO options for working toward a degree: the traditional method and distance learning.
Students who opt for the distance learning track would stay in their home city and attend their home parish for the first four years of seminary (I’ll explain why I say FOUR years in a minute). They would continue to work their current full-time job. They would watch recordings of the lectures online or on DVD’s and complete all the same assignments that students who are on the traditional track do. They would submit their papers and tests via “turnitin.com” or by some other secure online method.
Of course, this would require that the distance learning students go through the course of studies much more slowly than traditional students. Due to their work responsibilities, they would be able to take at most two courses a semester (perhaps three for single students). This is why I said “four years”–it would take most distance learning students four years to complete the first two years of seminary studies.
Distance learning students would also go up the the seminary campus once a year durig the summer for a week or so for some in-residence studies, by which they could meet the professors in person and attend some lectures, workshops, and (most importantly) liturgical services with the professors and their fellow students from around the country (and maybe the whole world).
(In short, this would be a sort of 21st century ramped-up St. Stephen’s course, but using an actual seminary curriculum).
As for liturgical life, the students obviously couldn’t attend daily services at the seminary, but they could be placed under the tutelage of their parish priest and required to attend as many services as possible (with a minimum of Vespers, Matins, DL, and hopefully one mid-week service), while serving actively as a chanter, altar server, and/or SS teacher. They could be given a ministry and/or service project to complete each Spring.
For the final year of studies, the student would move to the actual seminary campus and do the last year of studies there. (Or, even better, they could actually complete the whole degree via distance learning).
I’m sure this system would have some disadvantages, but I see mainly advantages:
1. The cost would be much less.
2. The student (and spouse if applicable), since they continue to work full-time, could live simply and thereby pay off their debts and save for that third year of seminary (Maybe even require that they go through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University!) In other words, they wouldn’t have to go deep into debt to finance their seminary education.
3. Although it would take longer, maybe this is actually a good thing. Candidates for the priesthood would be older at ordination if for no other reason than the fact that seminary took longer!
4. I think more people would take advantage of seminary, including people who actually have no interest in the priesthood. Many people who go through the distance learning track could end up becoming permanent deacons, catechists, SS teachers, or just plain-old ( theologically well-educated) parishioners.
I could write more, but that’s enough for now. I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks of this idea.
Fr. James Early
11 Feb 10 at 4:11 pm
Dear Fr. Basil,
Isn’t this “Distance Learning” idea already somewhat in effect in the Antiochian Archdiocese in the form of the Saint Stephen’s course? From my understanding, you read for Holy Orders while remaining at your home parish and then spend two weeks a year at one of our seminaries for additional coursework.
Am I missing something?
In my opinion, one of the best things we can do to insure a decently paid clergy is to be aggressive church planters along the lines of Grace and Saint Stephen’s Orthodox Catholic Church in Massachusetts.
This parish, along with other incoming parishes that were formerly in the Charismatic Episcopal Church are bringing some of their good habits and strengths with them into Holy Orthodoxy.
One thing Protestants know how to do is to support their pastors and provide may avenues for seminary training. We really need to do a better job of this ourselves while maintaining our Orthodox standards, of course.
If we ever want to see Holy Orthodoxy become more than a “niche” religion in this country, we need to develop and build a lasting infrastructure of healthy parishes and even a school system like the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans possess.
And we need a seminary in the midwest. Having one seminary in Alaska and two other seminaries on the East Coast just doesn’t cut it. All of our major competitors have seminaries spread across the U.S. in every major region.
Growing the Church is the biggest answer.
Sincerely in the Holy Trinity, One God
Christian Cate
Christian Cate
15 Feb 10 at 2:03 pm
Fr. James (et al),
You pretty much describe what my diocese (UOC-USA) is doing for “non-traditional” seminarians. We augment the St. Stephen’s program with three years of weekend study at our own seminary and an apprenticeship with a priest.
While it has its downsides and risks (for example, the quality of the apprenticeship varies based on the abilities/initiative of both the priest and the seminarian, among other things), it avoids debt. Not only do I agree with Fr. Basil about the dangers of debt, I think is so unhealthy as to be sinful and that one’s debt and attitude towards it is an indicator of maturity. As it stands, we are NOT setting our seminarians up for success.
[As you know, I drank a full pitcher of the Dave Ramsey kool-aid.]
Any solution to training priests must deal with this (kudos to Fr. Basil for brining it up), and if we can’t produce enough debt-free seminarians through the “big three” Orthodox seminaries, then there are other useful alternatives.
- fr anthony
PS I won’t be adding much to this discussion over Lent (I’m trying to fast from all that isn’t strictly necessary), but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested … I’m probably just lurking.
fr anthony perkins
15 Feb 10 at 4:33 pm
Christian,
Briefly, the St Stephen’s program (http://www.antiochian.org/638 ) is, as far as priesthood is concerned, primarily for those who already have an M.Div. or similar (such as what a clergyman from another church body would bring with him). At least this is what I understood. (If anyone from the Antiochian Archdiocese wishes to elaborate, please do.) I am not sure to what extent exceptions are made to this policy. Otherwise, completion of the St Stephen’s course leads to the diaconate. Having said that, St Stephen’s would be a good place to start.
As for more seminaries, I don’t see that the current enrollment and demand for clergy fully justifies all the seminaries that are already there.
Parochial schools? I love the idea, but they are ALL hurting right now. We’d be competing for the same declining bunch of students, and parents who are increasingly unwilling or unable to pay the very real and very high cost of tuition. The future for this likely lies with fostering cooperative groups for homeschoolers.
Fr Basil Biberdorf
15 Feb 10 at 6:32 pm
Fr. Basil and Christian,
Fr. Basil is correct. The St. Stephen’s Course is not at all equivalent to the education you would get in one of the traditional seminaries. And (with the exception of the UOC-USA, as Fr. Anthony points out), no one can do JUST the St. Stephen’s Course and be ordained to the priesthood, unless he already has an MDiv from a non-Orthodox seminary. However, I’m not even sure if any of the American Orthodox jurisdictions allow this any more (they might; I just haven’t personally heard of it happening lately).
But for someone who has no MDiv, the traditional seminaries are the ONLY route, at least as I understand it. I would like to see this change; I would like to see someone who has no seminary training at all be able to get their MDiv from an Orthodox seminary via distance learning.
Also, with the St. Stephen’s Course, you miss out on the benefit of the lectures, and the readings are not quite what you would read in the seminaries. What I would like to see is the possibility of going through the same curriculum that you would go through at St. Vladimir’s, St. Tikhon’s, or Holy Cross, but without having to actually move up to one of these seminaries. As I mentioned earlier, students taking the distance learning option would be able (or maybe required?) to watch the lectures on DVD or online.
I agree with Fr. Basil that this is a better option than just building more seminaries, which is very expensive and doesn’t solve the problem of students having to go deep into debt to study.
Fr. James Early
16 Feb 10 at 9:47 am
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Martin J. Nobleman
8 Mar 10 at 1:19 am