September 23, 2015
Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Seminary Professor Dr. Elena Nelson participates in 2015 American Councils Summer Russian Language Teachers Program in Russia

This summer professor Elena Nelson was awarded a prestigious Fulbright-Hays fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education to participate in the 2015 American Councils Summer Russian Language Teachers Program in Russia.

Dr. Nelson teaches Russian and Church Slavonic at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY. She also teaches Introduction to Church Slavonic for non-Russian speakers at the Holy Trinity Seminary Summer School of Liturgical Music.

Along with eleven other Russian teachers, she departed for St. Petersburg, where they studied in the Department of Philology at the Russian State Pedagogical University.

"We were in class for 140 hours over the course of five weeks, studying methods of language pedagogy and learning about contemporary Russian language and culture," Dr. Nelson says. "This included studying contemporary mass media and prose, current events, and linguistic topics, including phonetics, new lexicon and borrowings, and topics in grammar. Our group also went on a number of organized cultural excursions in and around St. Petersburg. Near the end of the program, we participated in a week-long excursion to Moscow, Vladimir, and Suzdal".

The most important part of the program focused on pedagogy. The teachers gathered authentic materials and designed portfolios of teaching materials for use in their institutions. "The theme of my portfolio was, of course, the Russian Orthodox Church," Dr. Nelson continues. "I will be integrating these materials into all levels of Russian… One topic is Righteous John of Kronstadt. In June 2015, Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the 25th anniversary of his glorification. I traveled to various locations and met people connected with St. John and this celebration. I also located original materials and transformed them into Russian lessons. The lessons will be particularly interesting for our seminarians since we live near the world’s first parish dedicated to St. John of Kronstadt in Utica, NY, only about 30 miles from our seminary. The Russian Church Abroad glorified St. John already in 1964."

The professor also had the opportunity to travel to Tikhvin Monastery on its 500th anniversary and prayed at the Patriarchal Liturgy. Pedagogical materials based on the icon, this monastery, and this event may be especially interesting for seminarians because the Tikhvin Icon of the Theotokos – one of the most revered in all of Russia – was kept in the United States from 1949-2004.

Another trip was to Donskoy Monastery in Moscow to venerate the relics of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon and to visit the apartment museum where he was incarcerated for two years until his death in 1925. Use of pedagogical materials based on Saint Patriarch Tikhon will be particularly relevant leading up to the seminary’s academic symposium, "Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow (1865-1925): His Life & Times."

 "As the Russian & Church Slavonic professor at Holy Trinity Seminary, I was especially eager to make professional contacts in the fields of Russian language pedagogy and Church Slavonic," Dr. Nelson says. "I met with Russian instructors who have created materials on the theme of the Russian Orthodox Church, and with whom I plan to collaborate in the design of future materials. I was invited to attend the International Educational Christmas Readings conference in January 2016. Attending this conference would enable me to make contacts with more Church Slavonic instructors, gain access to their materials, and discuss pedagogical techniques."

"This opportunity to travel to Russia was personally important to me, as it was my first time back to Russia since the 2007 Reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with the Moscow Patriarchate," Elena Nelson admits. "One of my favorite moments was finding a monument to the fifth anniversary of the Reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monument, which was erected in 2013, is located on the territory of St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. It was also amazing to see how churches and monasteries are being built and rebuilt, and more and more people are becoming monastics. The first time I was in Russia was in 1998, and there were nowhere near the number of churches and monasteries open as there are today."

Official website of Holy Trinity Seminary