Exam

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

Just wondering if people could pray that God has mercy on me tomorrow and today that i study very thoroughly to do well in my exam tomorrow, i have not been getting good grades for a mixture of reasons so, I hope Gods will be done, Pray i keep away from things distracting me and i study in a pleasing way to God, there are many things i don't really know and a few things i hope i do.
In Christ
Charalambos

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear George,

Don't worry about it.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

(Message edited by Matthew_P on 16 December, 2004)

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear George,

All you can do is the best that you can and try hard. Your mentioning of "I hope Gods will be done" is the way to look at every subject.

Recently I was with a friend, he is a Priestmonk now and his older teacher. They had been going through a file cabinet looking for some older records. Anyway, they accidentally found his old report card, he was the recipient of a bad grade from the teacher who was present at the time of the discovery. The much dismayed Priestmonk remarked to the teacher that he didn't deserve the poor grade. I looked at some of the other grades from the class and we couldn't find anyone that received a good grade. I said to the teacher nobody passed you almost flunked everyone a D is the best I could find. The Priestmonk said you mean all of us almost failed that's not possible. I said there must have been something wrong with the teacher, you can't come close to failing everyone. The teacher smiled and said everyone failed, it was a situation and a class of utter failure. So we laughed as we knew that Priestmonks' ordination would be soon and nobody in the end really failed. It was a Greek language class and most of the students are Russian Orthodox Priests and don't speak Greek very well, rarely is it necessary. The humility lessons are the best anyway.

It's kind of funny though, the last time I spoke with the Priestmonk he said in all sincerity he really wants to learn Greek and plans on taking some classes. I think it was the only class he didn't do very well at and he will soon be in another country and learning Greek really would be of much benefit.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Olga]

A few words of encouragement: If this priestmonk is Russian and can read Old Slavonic in the old script, he should have a good advantage in learning Greek, especially "Church" Greek, than, say, someone who only knows language(s) based on the Latin alphabet. There are more similarities than differences between the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, and there should be similarities in the grammars as well. Certainly there are many liturgical terms and usages which are common to both languages. Hope he does well.

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

Thanks guys, even though i have read this after the exam,
thank God I am not stressing that much over it, it happened, could have been a little better, but anyway, I was not too worried, some things i did not know, other things i did.
By the Way,
I pray everyone on Monachos has a Blessed and truly joyious Christmas and not one of Consuming food and TV and Commercialism, as long as it is in the Spirit of Christ
God bless
Charalambos

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Olga,

Apparently the dreaded class had much to do with the speaking of Greek. It is difficult for Russians to say some Greek words. For example (th) can be very difficult. I suppose like the word squirrel in English is very difficult to pronounce as well for Russians. In retrospect, the students can somewhat legitimately claim it is not their fault.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin