Summer Internship Reflection: Father John Reavis

The experience of seminary is a paradox. On the one hand, it is an incredibly enriching experience, filled with robust academic study, rich liturgical practice, deep community, and profound spiritual formation. On the other hand, seminary is something of an artificial environment– an educational construct far removed from the realities of ordinary Christian life. As crucial as seminary formation may be, spending three years separated from normal parish life and ministry is something of a gamble– who will I be when I re-enter the “real world?” How will my seminary experience and education translate into pastoral life? Will I even like it?

These are the questions that I considered when I finished the second year of my Masters of Divinity program at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and prepared to begin my summer internship with the OCA Diocese of the South. My wife, two children and I were set to serve at three different parishes in three different states over the course of about three months. I had just been ordained to the priesthood a little over a month prior to the start of the internship. I had been a deacon for six years, so the shift in liturgical duties didn’t…