On Thursday, March 24^th, 2022, His Grace Bishop Irinej of Eastern America met with Paul Gojkovich, a consultant with The Grace & Mercy Foundation (https://graceandmercy.org/), at the Episcopal Residence and Eastern American Diocesan Center in New Rochelle, New York. 

Established in 2006, The Grace and Mercy Foundation is a private grant-making foundation, based in New York City. Among their many noble endeavors, this Foundation supports the poor and the oppressed, by helping people to learn, grow and serve.

Bishop Irinej and Paul discussed one of the unique features of The Foundation, which is promoting the Pauline concept of The Public Reading of Scripture (1 Timothy 4:13). The PRS is progressively embracing more of an Orthodox liturgical understanding of the reading and presentation of Scripture, through pericopes and lectionaries, always culminating in a homily or meditation.

For such is The Liturgy of the Word in the Orthodox liturgical tradition, wherein the Scriptures are read aloud, so that everyone can hear. Following which, the presiding celebrant or homilist, upon hearing The Word read aloud, offers an explanation on The Word and how it can be incorporated into our daily lives. As in the case of the Apostle Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, upon seeing the eunuch passing by in a chariot “… Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him (c.f., Acts 8:26-40)”.

In Orthodox Christianity, the entirety of The Liturgy is a Scriptural experience, as the Bible opens up before us in nearly every petition, prayer and exclamation. Encompassed by the interior of our temples richly adorned with iconic writing, we find ourselves already ascended into the Kingdom of Heaven.

During their exchange, His Grace also noted the comparison between the reading and presentation of Scripture to St. Nicholai of Zhicha’s Prologue of Ochrid, in which the holy Bishop presents the daily lives of the saints, followed by questions for discussion and a meditation.   

For Paul, born in Gary, Indiana, and baptized and raised at the St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church, as a formerinstitutional bond salesman on Wall Street, CEO of an insurance company, and executive director of a Christian school, the reading and understanding of Scripture provides him with the ability not only to productively focus on himself and his work, but also to discover through faith himself and his life’s purpose within his work.

Paul has also been affiliated with St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral and The Synodal Cathedral of the Mother of God of the Sign in New York. He has renewed his faith by undertaking a pilgrimage to The Serbian Orthodox Monastery Hilandar on Mt. Athos. 

The Bishop and Paul look forward to working together and with others in further developing an Orthodox version of The Public Reading of Scripture.