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The Seminary of The Christian Community in Chicago |
Interview
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The following interview with seminary director, Gisela Wielki, originally appeared in the Christian Community journal, Perspectives, in December 2006. Its editor Tom Ravetz conducted the interview: Tom Ravetz: What was the reason for founding a seminary in Chicago? Gisela Wielki: In the late nineties the Leadership of The Christian Community resolved to bring about the establishment of a seminary in the English-speaking world. The priests' circle in North America was approached to take up this challenge and we accepted. It was felt that it would be good if the training centre could be outside of Europe, to widen the circle for priest training as much as possible. It was the decision of the Leadership that the seminary should be established in what is called the heartland of North America, in Chicago. Tom: The Seminary in Chicago has been going for four years now, with the first year having been a year of preparation. Does it feel as if it has found its place and task? Gisela: Yes, as we enter our fifth year, the seminary feels very much as if it is here to stay. This has been greatly aided by the first Ordination this past spring in Chicago, celebrated in English by Vicke von Behr, the Erzoberlenker. Patrick Kennedy began his training before there was a seminary on this continent. But the fact that his Ordination took place here was like a baptism for the seminary. People in North America have now experienced that the training has a beginning and an end. It also gave all our congregations the opportunity to send representatives to witness the event, and we had nearly 200 guests, some of whom came from abroad. To experience an Ordination can be a real eye opener for our members and friends, congregants. It can bring about an intuitive knowing, an understanding of what this journey of priest training is all about and what it asks of the individual ordained and the congregations he or she will serve in the future. Tom: Can you describe some of the challenges and also blessings you encountered in the founding of the seminary? Gisela: The task of establishing the seminary in Chicago greatly challenged The Christian Community in North America to raise the funds to establish the institution physically. Made possible by the generosity and sacrifices of many, it came as a blessing for the growing together of The Christian Community on this vast continent. Centrally located, the seminary is becoming a living organ that unites all our congregations here. It challenges the circle of priests here to work together in a new dimension. For members and friends it is becoming a focal point, offering hope, encouragement and resources. It connects us to the world-wide movement in ways that were not possible before. Tom: Is it an American seminary, or an international one? Gisela: Chicago is an English-speaking seminary in America. From the very beginning the seminary had an international flavor. Our first three students, who made the launch possible in the fall of 2003, stood in for three continents, North America, Europe and Australia. Last year, of the group of eleven students, five were American-born; the others came from different countries. Now, in our fourth year we have the situation that in the group of nine students, four are German, the others are Dutch, Belgian, African-British, Japanese and American. One American decided to begin his training in Stuttgart. Just because America has a seminary now does not mean that Americans have to study in Chicago. Conversely, students from Germany are now beginning to discover that Chicago provides a new opportunity of studying in another language and in another culture. This is a development which will enrich our Christian Community. Tom: Are there plans for expansion? You still only have a first year, although you were given the green light to offer the full training. Gisela: Well, we do have second year students, even third year students. Only they are not presently in Chicago, but have transferred after one year to either Stuttgart or Hamburg or are in a practical. In each of our three seminaries students may discontinue at the end of any semester. So the number of students going into a second year can become rather small. This then becomes a financial burden for the seminary, making it difficult to gather the needed faculty. It can also make it more appealing for the remaining students to join the larger student bodies in our other two seminaries, even if that means to transfer to another language. We have found that native English speakers like the idea of spending some time in one of the seminaries in Germany and experiencing The Christian Community in that part of the world where it was founded. Once students enter more deeply into the life and work of The Christian Community and its history, and into Anthroposophy, they start to feel that to have some proficiency in German is desirable. We support this. At the same time we very much wish to grow large enough to have a full training. It is important for the students to experience the path, the journey through students who are already further along. How to reach the 'critical mass' to establish a second and eventually a third year, moving beyond our current situation, which has the nature of a flow form, is our great challenge, and we are working on different concepts. Tom: Who is the faculty? Gisela: Our faculty comes from near and far. Many, but not all, are from the priests' circle in North America and abroad. Tom: How is it working out financially? Gisela: Students pay tuition. These fees cannot provide all the support we need. We make an appeal to all North American friends and members for donations twice a year with our seminary newsletter. Fortunately, we have a couple of major donors who have pledged their support for the first few years. Hopefully they will renew their support, or others will step forward. The generosity of our major donors has so far helped us to stay in the black. We of course always hope that potential donors in other countries will in time take note of our needs, so that the financial burden does not continue to fall only on North America. Tom: How is the training different from what is offered in the two German seminaries? Gisela: Chicago has three priests and all three are seminary directors. I am a full time director. Richard Dancey is the resident priest for the congregation and seminary director in addition, so is Oliver Steinrueck, who is also the Coordinator (Lenker) for North America. That is in itself a unique director constellation. From the beginning we understood our task to be the establishing of an English-speaking centre for priest training. The central task of all three seminaries is the same: to prepare individual human beings for the task of priesthood. Of course the training is different, simply through it being held in North America and in English. Anyone able to think and speak fluently in another language knows that different aspects of one's personality shine out, depending on the language in which one is expressing oneself. English is the language with the strongest world flavor. There are other differences, some of which are simply a function of what is possible under the present circumstances. Being still a young institution, and far from any accomplished institution to be compared with, we have the leisure to grow slowly, to be attentive to what and how this seminary wants to grow. We experiment, without the pressure of having to justify our existence. We can allow ourselves to learn by going where we have to go. Every semester we open some of our courses. It allows members and friends to participate for a week in the life of the seminary, gaining for themselves the inner renewal and enrichment that they are seeking. They return to their congregations as ambassadors, something which we very much appreciate. It adds a dimension to the full time students' experience, which is both enriching and challenging. Our students live together and therefore become aware of certain social challenges, as is the case in the Stuttgart seminary. Our building is five minutes from the church and the congregation chapel is our chapel. The student body is both independent and a part of the congregation. The congregation much appreciates the presence of the students. We meet with the congregation regularly to assure that the relationship is mutually carried and to make sure no unintended trespasses occur. Tom: Are there particular challenges The Christian Community faces in North America that influence how the training is taking shape? Gisela: Being located at the periphery of The Christian Community makes it harder to grow into the full training centre we are in principle, but not yet in reality. We would not see it as an ideal for Americans to be trained in North America and work in America without having seen or experienced The Christian Community in other parts of the world. We will always encourage American students to go abroad for some time to widen their horizons and to allow them, if the training should lead to Ordination, to feel part of a larger circle. How this is done may turn out differently for different students. This could be through internships or some time of study at one of the other seminaries. Being geographically at the periphery of The Christian Community, it is important to also feel some connection to the centre. Of course this is also true and necessary the other way around and it challenges us to widen our consciousness. But I can see the seminary in Chicago playing an increasingly important part in this. Tom: How has the task of training priests changed over the 80 years of the existence of The Christian Community? Gisela: When I studied at the seminary in the late 60’s we were still taught by some of the founders. Like the early apostles they were the eye-witnesses. They had experienced Rudolf Steiner and his role in the founding of The Christian Community. We were strongly influenced by this encounter, and by the earnestness with which these founding priests had taken up their task. In our own growing up as priests we could fall back on these encounters, and we could still draw on seeing ourselves as the eye-witnesses of the eye-witnesses. Students trained today have to do without this support. Of course they also have to have a grasp of the history of The Christian Community and the esoteric nature of its founding. But what they really need now as the source that will sustain them, keeping them faithful to the call, to their resolve, throughout their priestly work this has to be something much more immediate. It has to spring from the immediate awareness of an ever present relationship with the living Christ and the angel of The Christian Community. In the Act of Consecration of Man we encounter the theme of walking with Christ. This walking with Christ implies that we will be changed by the one we walk with. In the Ordination, the one to be ordained is reminded of Christ’s walking with him, wherever he goes, and that he is to always be aware of this. Training at a seminary can provide some guidance toward this goal and that is not only by way of esoteric schooling but also by the way we look at the natural world, our fellow human beings, and our recognition that heaven is not only above us, but also “under our feet”. With this in mind we learn to walk differently. The students can learn this, along with all the study material they are exposed to at any of the seminaries, all of which can provide a key, but the unlocking has to be done by the student himself. In that sense we cannot train priests, we can only point out the way. In the early days students often had a very short training. In part, I am sure, this had to do with the wealth of grace bestowed upon The Christian Community and its founders at the time of the founding. But as we have moved further away from this time and are now required to find that substance on our own, through our own effort and striving, more time is needed. Also the world has changed. We go our ways ever more as individuals. How does this affect community building, a central task for the priest? Our education is often such that mountains have to be moved, before we become again susceptible to the not so visible, such as the reality of transubstantiation. How can modern technology aid us, such as the inter-net, without distracting us from the task of weaving the inner net? How can we as individuals put our roots into Anthroposophy and grow into a tree in which a great variety of birds can build their nests? How do we discover the universally human, by becoming ever more individual? All this and much more has to be taken into account in today’s priest training. It is a challenge to study and live with others who are on the same road, pursuing the same destination, and yet a destination one can ultimately only arrive at alone. To live alone in community, may sound like a paradox and it is, but that is only in keeping with what we all have to learn today. Tom: Some members look forward to the time when the dominance of German language and thought-forms will be complemented by priests trained in other languages. How do the directors of the Chicago seminary see this? Gisela: We have at the moment about 180 German priests and 150 more of other nationalities. The strong German influence for example at our international synods is hardly avoidable, though all parties may wish it to be otherwise. It would be very different had we 150 priests from English-speaking countries. But something will change with more and more German priests having had some of their training in a country and language other than Germany and German. We see already a beginning with the growing number of Germans coming to study in Chicago. I believe that in time it will free the German priests' circle of what may come across as dominating and as all too German. The time will come and must come, when we will have priests who not have studied in Germany, although some knowledge of German will remain a requirement as a research tool. One can only wish for the day when The Christian
Community will have seminaries in many countries. |
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