The second week of the Antiochian House of Studies (AHOS) Residency 2025 began at the Antiochian Village with a spirit of renewal, prayer, and joyful anticipation. Faculty, staff, and students from across all AHOS programs — MTS, SSC, MDiv, and PDd — gathered once again as one community to continue their journey of theological study, fellowship, and formation in the life of the Church.
The opening remarks were offered by V. Rev. Fr. Michel Najim, President of AHOS, together with Fr. Fadi Rabbat, Academic Dean, Fr. Elias Boulos, Director of Residency, and His Grace Bishop Theodore Ghandour, who joined the gathering to bless the students and encourage them in their sacred work of study and ministry. They warmly welcomed the students into the new week, emphasizing that the Residency is not only an academic undertaking but a sacred pilgrimage of growth in Christ.
Drawing inspiration from the teaching and example of St. Symeon the New Theologian, Fr. Michel reminded the students that their calling — whether to ordained ministry or service as lay leaders, teachers, chanters, or ministers — is first and foremost a vocation of humility, prayer, and spiritual transformation. Ministry in the Church, he emphasized, is not about honor or recognition, but about becoming living servants of God and His people.
The full text of Fr. Michel Najim’s opening speech for the second week of Residency is available at the end of this article
The gathering of AHOS students and faculty at the Antiochian Village once again embodied the living tradition of the School of Antioch: diverse yet united, rigorous in study yet deeply rooted in worship. The beginning of this second week marked not only a continuation of the Residency program but also a renewed commitment to prayer, learning, and the bonds of fellowship that strengthen the AHOS family.
As the second week continues, students will take part in classes, liturgical services, and community life, carrying forward the vision imparted at this opening: to be formed in knowledge and in spirit, ready to serve the Church with humility, wisdom, and love.
Residency Second week speech – Fr Michel Najim [AHOS President]
Beloved AHOS students,
Today I wish to address the very heart of your sacred vocation—whether you are called to the office of subdeacon, deacon, priest, lay minister, educator, professor, Sunday school teacher, chaplain, chanter, or iconographer—through the illuminating example of Saint Symeon the New Theologian, a man who attained the profoundest humility and transcendent holiness.
Though filled with divine grace, Symeon avoided all human praises and admiration. Indeed, he deliberately sought to conceal himself from the fleeting praises of men, fully aware that the essence of true vocation transcends human honor and lies in becoming a living servant before God and His holy people.
When questioned about the character befitting a servant of God, Symeon sighed with the weight of solemn responsibility, confessing with openness and humility that even he felt unworthy of the immense dignity inherent in any church office, and especially to the priest—a dignity so august that it demands approach with trembling and contrite hearts.
Yet from his profound experience and spiritual insight, he imparted indispensable wisdom: the one who embraces the priestly calling must ardently pursue purification—not merely of the body but, more importantly, of the soul. The priest must cultivate humility in outward conduct and contrition within the depths of his heart. Standing before the altar, such a priest perceives not only the gifts laid before him but, through the eyes of faith, the invisible and ineffable presence of God dwelling within the sacred mysteries.
This clarity of heart and mind is indispensable for the priest to address God boldly and intimately—as one friend speaks to another—uttering the sacred invocation, “Our Father who art in heaven,” with the profound awareness that the true God, the Son by nature, dwells within him through the Holy Spirit.
However, Symeon solemnly warned—and his warning must resonate within us—that this sublime mystery of priesthood evokes awe even among the angels. No one should seek this calling prematurely or without worthiness. Instead, every seminarian, student of theology, and every deacon or priest must labor tirelessly in changing his mind daily, steadfastly keeping Christ’s commandments. Only through such continual spiritual change of the noetic faculty can one offer prayers and supplications and serve the people truly pleasing to God.
Saint Symeon himself was so filled with this Spirit that when celebrating the liturgy, his countenance radiated a celestial light, akin to that of an angel. Witnesses beheld a brilliance so intense it was almost unbearable to human eyes—a visible testament to the grace of God that illumined and transformed him from within.
I will read for you a paragraph from Nikitas Stithatos who wrote the life of Saint Symeon the new theologian. He said: “Symeon of Ephesus, who had also been the man’s disciple, would say, when he was telling people stories about him, “When Ι was concelebrating with the saint, my intellectual eyes were opened and I saw him, at the moment when he was celebrating the liturgy in the sanctuary, with an omophorion and wearing a patriarch’s stole,engrossed in the divine mysteries.” And Meletios, who was tonsured at his hands, confirmed to me that “we would often see a luminous cloud completely enveloping him when he was standing in the sanctuary at the time of the holy eucharistic prayer.” And rightly so, for those who become eminent for reaching the summit of the virtues are also worthy of the glory of God.”
Dear AHOS students, this is the vocation that awaits you: not a path to earthly glory, but a pilgrimage of profound humility, ceaseless change of mind, and reverent fear of God. It is a summons to become living temples of the Spirit, to offer the mysteries of Christ with pure hearts, and to enter into an intimate friendship with God Himself.
May you receive these words deeply and commit yourselves daily to spiritual preparation, so that when the moment arrives, you may stand before the altar as genuine servants of Christ—radiant with His grace and wholly dedicated in humble worship.
May God abundantly bless your journey and fill you with His Spirit, now and forevermore.
Amen.
