Metropolitan KALLISTOS

Baltimore washoping with excitement as er eagerly awaited the appearance of His Eminence Metropolitan KALLISTOS of Diokleia, aka. Timothy Ware. Metropolitan KALLISTOS is a retired professor from Oxford and he is a noted theologian and author. Only God knows how many people converted to Orthodoxy because of him.

He came to the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation and presented two talks to us on Saturday 16 February 2008. Everybody left the cathedral refreshed and delighted with the event. In one of his talks he talked about the role of the deacon and he said that every parish should have at least one deacon. I firmly agree with this.

As a deacon, I see my role as the right hand man to the priest and this is exactly what Metropolitan KALLISTOS said. At the sisterhood meeting the next day Selina confirmed this.

Before the talks, we had a wonderful continental breakfast and there was plenty of food, but then, there is almost always plenty of food at an Orthodox function. About 400 people came to the event. Copies of the DVDs and CDs will be available.

Between talks I had an opportunity to speak with His Eminence and told him that since the last time we met, we both were promoted. He was Bishop KALLISTOS and I was Reader Michael at the time. He was happy to hear about my ordination and asked if I plan to become a priest and I replied that I do not. I want to stay right where I am. He indicated that the role of the deacon is very important in the Church and, of course, I agree. Later I asked Monika of Holy Trinity to take a photo of the two of us together. As Archimandrite Dean has said, this is a once in a life time opportunity. This is my fourth time meeting him, but my first time being photographed with him. The first time I met him was at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington when he served the English Liturgy in May 1986. I had been a tonsured Reader six months then and I remember the reaction of Presbytria K. Fitzgerald when I said that a subdeacon is a "glorified altar server." She did not like that comment at all. This led to the topic of my thesis on the minor orders.

Besides meeting His Eminence again, I was overwhelmed by the love and rspect shown to me by many of the people at the mini-retreat. It was a real pleasure meeting Fr. Hector of York PA and seeing again from Mark, a retired Navy chaplain. Another highlight occurred near the beginning of the day when Joy, a teenager, came up and talked with me. Also, one of the men who came to the retreat told me that when he saw me walking towards the cathedral, he knew that he was heading in the right direction.

Now some technical notes for the photographers. I used two Nikon D50 cameras. One was set to automatic. It had the 28-80mm lens and the SB600 flash. The other had the 70-300mm lens and it was set to manual and no flash was used. I held the camera at 1/100 and then 1/60 and the lens was generally pushed out to 300mm. For the first time in my life, I also tried RAW instead of .JPG. I had no idea how I would process the files, but Adobe PhotoShop had no problem with it. I also set the ISO to 1600.

Metropolitan KALLISTOS is autograhing a copy of his book that converted this gentleman

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