"DO LORD accept this my offering to You for Fr. Panteleimon, as an acceptable sacrifice on Fr. Panteleimon's behalf. Amen." Sub Deacon Nathaniel Kapner
AUTHOR - Sub Deacon Nathaniel Kapner, who was a member of The Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston MA, from 1996-2002.
AN APPEAL TO FATHER PANTELEIMON OF THE HOLY TRANSFIGURATION MONASTERY, BOSTON MA.
Father Panteleimon is no ordinary man. This is obvious upon a first encounter with him. One is initially impressed with a particular energy that emanates through his entire physiology, beginning with his eyes. His eyes for a splitting-moment dart and pierce deep into your psyche. Then they relax. You sense that 'something' has happened to you. But you are not quite sure what it was.
I first met Father Pantelimon in 1991. Since I was living in Boston, I had heard about the monastery and was eager to visit it. A monk greeted me at the door and brought me into the office to meet Fr. Panteleimon. I recognized immediately that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man.
I told him about my Jewish background and his face immediately brightened. This established a bond between us, that, in spite of the pain I have caused him since we separated in June of 2002, has never been severed.
I joined HTM in 1996. It did not take me long to realize that Fr. Panteleimon's knowledge of Orthodoxy was unmatched by anyone living today. He could move from so many different topics of Orthodoxy so quickly in such a compressed period of time, that one became dizzy.
If you began a conversation with him such as, "I just called my mother," this would invariably spring-off a topic about Orthodoxy.
He might respond, "Ohhhh your mother? Oh, (and he would make the sign of the Cross), what a Mother we have in our Theotokos, a Jewess, just like your mother! The Panagia was a daughter of Abraham, for didn't the Theotokos pray, "He hath helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for evermore?"
Then he would discourse on how all Orthodox Christians are the seed of Abraham by faith, and how the Church inherits the promises of the covenants made to the Jews.Then he would philosophize how the Jew has no cultural inheritance, such as the Greeks have with their Hellenic culture, but the Jews are without a culture apart from the greatest possession of all - the holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament.
While you are trying to grasp the profundity of what he is expressing, he is now discoursing on how the Greeks eschewed their pagan legacy and adopted the Hebraic world-view of God, Creation, and the meaning of man's destiny.
By this time, one has to catch one's breath. For now he is beginning to illustrate the import of all of this by the life of a saint. Whew!
He used to love to tell me about all the saints who were converted-Jews and the accounts of their lives: New Martyr Alexander Jacobson, St Epiphanios of Cyprus, St Romanos the Melodist, St Paisios Velichovsky, (his mother was a Jewess), and many others. At Pascha he would always come over to me during the services and ask me to exclaim out loud, "Mochiah Qam!" (Christ is Risen). He would break into a huge smile and nod his head up and down in his habitual way, showing that he was pleased.
I often would drive Fr. Panteleimon on various errands. I loved being with him on these drives, for I would simply drink in all of his knowledge on so many different Orthodox topics. I suppose I would not be far off the mark, (and I do not think anyone who met him only once would say otherwise), that Fr. Panteleimon is a genius. His charismatic personality combined with his exhaustive knowledge of Orthodoxy and his depth of understanding of the issues surrounding the Orthodox Church, all add up to - "he's a genius."
The one thing that Fr. Panteleimon loved more than anything else was being in "Church." He simply loved to worship with his community. You saw the excitement on his face during Liturgy knowing that we were doing the most wonderful thing that a man could ever do. Church for Fr. Panteleimon was not just a gathering for prayer, Church for him was 'an Event.'
And you really understood this whenever he was away from the monastery. Church was just not the same without him.For when Fr Panteleimon was with us in Church, we all had the sense that we were doing something 'momentous,' 'historical,' performing 'a prophecy' for future generations.
And 'a prophecy' for future generations is just we of the Old Calendar Jurisdictions are in the greatest need of today. I have been asking myself lately, "Wouldn't it be nice if there was a leader amongst us who could 'intelligently' call us into union with one another?" And every time
I ask myself this question, the darting and piercing, penetrating eyes of Fr. Panteleimon appear before me.
Something could happen to all of us and we would all know what it is, if the likes of Fr. Panteleimon would again appear as the prominent spokesman for our cause.
And so, I CALL UPON YOU FATHER PANTELEIMON to resurface amongst us now, at this critical juncture, that through your leadership, a new day of unity would dawn for the divided Traditionalist Orthodox Churches.
Sub Deacon Nathaniel Kapner
Sepember 5/18/2005
Prophet Zechariah, father of the Forerunner/
Prince Gleb the Passion-bearer