With the upcoming Orientale Lumen XIII Conference starting on Monday, things have been pretty hectic taking care of last minute details, and getting everything ready.  Plus, ongoing book publishing, Sunday bulletin production, video editing and duplicating, and my “day job” doing computer consulting continues as usual.  On top of all that, three seminarians from the Blessed Theodore Romzha Theological Academy in Uzhorod, Ukraine arrived 10 days ago to work for two months this summer learning English and helping with various projects, including the OL conference.  So life is busier than usual.

Everything is in place for the OL conference. We have nearly 100 people registered to attend with a few more even at the last minute.  For daily attendance, or as long as you don’t need a room to sleep, we’ll even accept people “walking in the door.”  Registration takes place from 2-6 pm next Monday with our first events that evening.

Metropolitan Jonah, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, will serve an Hierarchical Divine Liturgy in Saint Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral on Tuesday morning at 8:30 am.  That afternoon at 5 pm, we will have Daily Vespers in Church Slavonic in the Rotunda entrance at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center with the responses led by the seminarians from Ukraine.  Metropolitan Jonah will then give his plenary talk at 7 pm that same evening in the auditorium of the Cultural Center.  All three events are free and open to the public.

Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, recently appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Exarchate of Great Britan will give his plenary talk at 11 am Tuesday morning, and will serve a Divine Liturgy at the Ukrainian National Shrine on Wednesday morning.  Metropolitan Jonah will attend this liturgy, while Bishop Hlib will attend the Orthodox Liturgy on Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, chartered buses will take the group to Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Fairfax, VA for Vespers in their native language, and a dinner of Egyptian foods.

I’ll be making nametags this week, preparing books and media for our sales display. and preparing the icon gifts for all the speakers — our thematic icon of the Transfiguration.  A limited quantity of the same icon will also be available to purchase by attendees during the conference.  We will also have several new books available including Finding A Hidden Church by Father Chris Zugger and Good News from the East, Volumes III and IV by Father John Zeyack.  Both authors will be attending the conference and be available for book signing.

Audio and video recordings of all the plenary sessions and liturgical services will be made and copies can be purchased from the OL Conference website online catalog after the conference.  So if you can’t make the conference in person, you can still enjoy the events that will take place next week.

For more details, check out the conference website at:  www.olconference.com/OL_FutCon_OL_XIII