Today was the final Liturgy that the Archpriest Fr. Iskander Younes served as the pastor of St George’s Antiochian Orthodox Church in Richmond Hill, ON. Afterwards, the parish hosted a luncheon to honour Abouna for his 23 years of service to our parish. I was invited to say a few words about his outreach to non-Orthodox. Here is the text of that speech.
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Fr. Iskander, Fr. George, Fr. Bogdan, Dcn. Nabil, Dcn. Elias, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ;
It is both a pleasure and an honour to say a few words today about how Fr. Iskander has reached out to the non-Orthodox. I can’t give a complete description, but I can share with you what I have observed.
My parents raised me to love Christ and the Scriptures, and to show kindness to those who are different from me. When I was twenty, I enrolled as a student at an evangelical Protestant Bible college here in Toronto. I had many questions about the faith, the Bible, and Church history. I knew that two of my friends in high school were Orthodox, but all I knew about the Orthodox Church was that it existed, so I added Orthodoxy to my list of things to learn more about.
During the time I spent as a student, I read about Orthodoxy and discussed what I was learning with my friends. After years of study and debate, my dear friend Carsten said, “We should visit an Orthodox Church.” It seems obvious in hindsight, but that had simply never occurred to me before.
That was in the autumn of 1995. Driving down Bayview to school over the years, I could watch as the construction of the church progressed. When we looked around for an Orthodox parish to visit, this was the obvious choice. It was geography that brought me and Carsten here, to this parish. It was Fr. Iskander who kept us coming back.
Over the next few months, Carsten and I would attend Vespers every Saturday evening and then sit with Abouna in his office and talk for hours. I would occasionally feel guilty about the time he spent with us instead of his family all those Saturday evenings, but Abouna never once rushed us out. He also never pressured us into becoming Orthodox. He listened to us with respect and treated us as real Christians in spite of our Protestant background. Our talks together were wonderful, and I learned more about Orthodoxy in those few months than I had in the previous five years.
Eventually I reached a point where I found myself asking, “Why am I not Orthodox?” I became a catechumen soon after that, and that’s when Abouna began guiding me into the deep waters of Orthodoxy. Our weekly conversations continued, but now he was lending me books to read and offering guidance for my spiritual life. By the end of Great Lent, Fr. Iskander received me and Carsten into the Orthodox Church through the Sacrament of Holy Chrismation. The date was Saturday, April 13th, 1996.
The journey didn’t end there, though. Over the following months and years, Fr. Iskander continued to nurture and guide me. He brought me and Carsten with him to the Holy Dormition Monastery to meet his spiritual father, the confessor Fr. Roman Braga of thrice-blessed memory. Abouna heard my confessions. He gave me opportunities to serve in the parish. He attended the funerals of my (non-Orthodox) grandparents. And above all, his heart was always open.
I know that he has met with other inquirers over the past twenty-three years, and some of them are dedicated members of our parish to this day. The genuine care and non-judgemental attitude Fr. Iskander shows to inquirers, plus his deep knowledge and great generosity with his time are major reasons why people are willing to learn more about the love of Christ and the truth of the Orthodox faith.
I began writing this speech in Halifax, at the Parish Life Conference. While there, I spent a few minutes chatting with Fr. Christopher, the priest at Christ the Saviour in Waterloo. When I told him about this part of our luncheon, he said that the incredible dedication Abouna showed in establishing their parish is continuing to bear fruit, that Fr. Iskander’s love for Christ is continuing to reach the non-Orthodox through the parish that he founded in Waterloo.
A few times a month, Abouna would drive from Richmond Hill to Waterloo to serve the Divine Liturgy in English for a small community of Orthodox Christians there. A few of our parishioners would go with him, to chant, to serve in the altar, to direct the choir. This went on for years, and while he was planting a parish, he was also meeting with individuals the way he had met with me. Eventually, the number of people who were committed to the mission in Waterloo was large enough for them to require a full-time priest. Fr. Christopher was called to the mission and took up where Abouna left off.
And that leads me to my last point. Reaching out to the non-Orthodox isn’t just the work of one person. In my journey into Orthodoxy, the parishioners of St George have been vital. Our parish is very unique and special. Most of us have roots in the Middle East, but we also have Russians, Greeks, Romanians, people with Catholic backgrounds, people with Protestant backgrounds, people who came from other faith traditions. The faithful of St George have opened their hearts and their homes to those who came seeking shelter in this Orthodox parish, no matter where these strangers came from or what language they spoke.
If we are to continue Fr. Iskander’s legacy of welcoming people into the Life of Christ in the Orthodox Church, we must continue to work together in love — all of us, priest and parishioners together — and remember to always welcome the stranger and outcast into our midst.
I’ve spoken too long already, so I’ll conclude by saying we should read over today’s epistle and strive to live it out together. (1 Cor. 12:27-31; 13:1-8)
I thank all of you for giving me this opportunity to say a few words, but most especially I thank Fr. Iskander for all that I’ve mentioned, and all that I’ve left unsaid. Thank you, Abouna.
