Second Session of Inter-Conciliar Presence Commission on Theological and Religious Education Held in Kyiv

KYIV – On May 14, 2010, the second session of the Inter-Conciliar Presence Commission on Theological and Religious Education was held, reports the website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

The commission's work was headed by Archbishop Anthonii of Boryspil, the rector of the Kyiv Theological Schools, and Bishop Mercury of Zaraisk, the chairman of the Department for Religious Education and Catechization of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Opening the commission's work, archbishop Anthonii of Boryspil passed to the participants the blessing of the UOC-MP primate, Metropolitan Volodymyr. Speaking about the tasks of theological education, Archbishop Anthonii noted that integrating theological education into the system of secular education must be done strategically and raises an important question about the existence of theological departments alongside theological schools, whose functioning will give a chance for scholars to engage in academic research without being ordained and to not have to look up to the pastoral ministry for objective and subjective reasons. In this process, as he noted, the experience of foreign universities with theological faculties should be referred to.   

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun made the first presentation, which was themed "Master’s Programs in the System of Theological Education." The reporter noted that the Bologna Process is first of all a series of initiatives in education trends and not an accomplished system. Thus, the Bologna Process permits to preserve educational traditions and at the same time makes them transparent for other education systems. Such an approach will enable theology as a discipline to find its place in the global education system.  Education in the context of the Bologna Process is oriented at the development of personality in the framework of professional interest rather than at obtaining educational background; thus, the stress is made on skills acquired. In this process the church has to formulate the format of knowledge it requires. The core of the Bologna education process is changing the attitude toward knowledge – much time is spent not merely accumulating knowledge, but training in the skills of self-guided work.  A master’s program can be explained in the context of the given education process. However, there are different programs in different universities, and the Dublin descriptors, to which the reporter referred, allow to make sense of them.  

In his speech, Hieromonk Dimitrii Pershin developed a number of theses suggested for discussion by the participants of the assembly.  Fr. Dimitrii focused on the fact that most often the stress is placed on the pastors' training rather than on training professional scholars, which as a result devalues the educational qualification.    

The next session is planned to be held by the end of September in Moscow.