About this Intitiative
Father [St.] Kosmas asked:
“Do you have a school here, here in your village to teach your children?”
“We don’t, O saint of God.”
“You must all get together and establish a good school. Appoint a committee to govern it, to appoint a teacher to teach all the children, rich and poor. Because it is in school that we learn who God is; who is the Holy Trinity; who are the angels, demons; and what is paradise, hell, virtue, evil; what is the soul, body, etc. Without a school we walk in darkness. The school leads to the monastery. If there were no school, how would I have learned to teach you?
I studied about priests and about unbelievers, heretics, and atheists. I searched the depths of wisdom, but all the faiths are false. I learned this to be true, that only the faith of the Orthodox Christians is sacred: to believe and be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In conclusion, I tell you this. Rejoice that you are Orthodox Christians and weep for the impious and heretics who walk in darkness.“ (Father Kosmas, The Apostle of the Poor, Nomikos M. Vaporis, p. 33 )
In a Few Words
The Saint John of Damascus Orthodox Educational Initiative is a program, under the auspices of the Eparchial Synod of America (GOC), meant to provide an Orthodox Christian education in our diocese. It uses the Classical system of education. This program is for everyone. Whether your child attends public or private school or is homeschooled, the program offers online classes taught by Orthodox teachers.
A Protocol of the Eparchial Synod of the GOC
To the Reverend Clergy and the Faithful of Our Holy Church:
Beloved Sons and Daughters in the Lord,
Moved by fatherly concern and apostolic zeal, our beloved brother His Eminence Moses, Metropolitan of Toronto, earlier this year undertook to establish for the faithful of his sacred metropolis an online program to aid Orthodox parents desiring to provide godly teaching, in both sacred and secular intellectual pursuits, for their children of middle school and high school age. Seeing the need for just such an help for all the faithful of our Church in North America, we have decided to transfer the patronage of the St. John of Damascus Orthodox Education Initiative from the Sacred Metropolis of Toronto to our Holy Eparchial Synod, thus signifying our wholehearted blessing for the faithful of the Metropolis of America with its suffragan dioceses to join the faithful of the Metropolis of Toronto in both employing and supporting this God–pleasing work, for the salvation of the children entrusted them by God. Metropolitan Moses will continue as the hierarchical overseer of the Educational Initiative on behalf of the Eparchial Synod.
Your suppliants to the Lord,
The Holy Eparchial Synod
From Metropolitan Moses of Toronto
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
We are surrounded by and live and move in a Post-Christian culture that brings with it spiritual darkness and confusion. Speaking of free rational adults, if one is not well versed in the things of our Faith and not vigilant, one can easily be influenced by this spiritual darkness and confusion. When it comes to children, the danger is greater. I have been and continue to be very concerned with our common struggle to protect our children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We must do everything in our power to inoculate our children from the many spiritual diseases that result from the confusion of this age. With that in mind I wish to share a quote from the book, Father Kosmas, The Apostle of the Poor:
Father [St.] Kosmas asked:
“Do you have a school here, here in your village to teach your children?”
“We don’t, O saint of God.”
“You must all get together and establish a good school. Appoint a committee to govern it, to appoint a teacher to teach all the children, rich and poor. Because it is in school that we learn who God is; who is the Holy Trinity; who are the angels, demons; and what is paradise, hell, virtue, evil; what is the soul, body, etc. Without a school we walk in darkness. The school leads to the monastery. If there were no school, how would I have learned to teach you?
I studied about priests and about unbelievers, heretics, and atheists. I searched the depths of wisdom, but all the other faiths are false. I learned this to be true, that only the faith of the Orthodox Christians in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is true. In conclusion, I tell you this. Rejoice that you are Orthodox Christians and weep for the impious and heretics who walk in darkness.“ (Father Kosmas, The Apostle of the Poor, Nomikos M. Vaporis, p. 33 )
Here Saint Kosmas exhorted his listeners to build a school for their children and explained that it was through being properly educated he came to practical knowledge and, what is higher, a depth of wisdom that discerned the distinction between truth and falsehood. Saint Kosmas’ words apply to our own day.
Following the words of Saint Kosmas, we look to establish the Saint John of Damascus Orthodox Educational Initiative– a hybrid program, an online school for the faithful of our church combined with quarterly workshops hosted in the Toronto, for those who can attend.
There is no school that is ideologically neutral. When anti-Christian schools teach our children their version of morals, culture, history, and literature, they are working to destroy souls. We must fight back. We seek to create a curriculum that teaches the Orthodox catechism effectively and thoroughly, as cannot be accomplished with a mere 20 to 30 minutes at Sunday School. But beyond that, we aim to offer academic classes using the traditional, classical method created in ancient Greece and Rome, and brought to perfection by our own East Roman (Byzantine) forbears. Classical schooling is “all the rage” now in the Christian schooling movement, which is dominated by Protestants. But, ironically, this method of instruction, using the classical grammar of Latin and Greek as its primary vehicle, is pre-eminently our inheritance, the creation of our ancestors. Our children need it and deserve it!
This program would be for everyone. Whether your child attends public or private school or is homeschooled, the program will offer online classes taught by Orthodox teachers.
To Christ our God, Who bade the little children come unto Him, be the glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages.
Your suppliant before the Lord,
+Moses, Metropolitan of Toronto
About Our Lessons
We aim to make this program so flexible that any family with school-age children can benefit. If your children are enrolled full-time in a public or private school, you will be able to select and buy only the courses you want to supplement your children’s education. If you are a homeschooling family or a parents’ co-op beginning a small parish school, you will be able to purchase the entire curriculum. We are determined to help as many of our families as possible with professional and affordable instruction by dedicated Orthodox teachers.