…Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner. . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." (Gen. 2:18, 21-23 NRSV)

The task of investigating the two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 is not an easy one, for many reasons. Both scholarly and Patristic sources have burnt the midnight oil and spilt much ink over these mere fifty-six verses. It is obvious why this small portion of Scripture has attracted so much attention. It is a story of beginnings, a portrait of creation prior to the destructive effects of sin.

The Very Reverend Leonid Kishkovsky, Ecumenical Officer of Orthodox Church in America, and Dr. Helen Theodoropoulos, Adjunct Professor at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, and editorial board member of the St. Nina Quarterly, spoke at the Third Annual Symposium sponsored by Orthodox Christian Synergy. The symposium took place on Saturday, October 18 at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, in Des Plaines, Illinois.

“Christ Born Anew in our Hearts” was the theme of an Orthodox women’s retreat held at St. Andrew Orthodox Church in Lexington, Kentucky, November 15 and 16, 1997. Over seventy women from a seven state region attended the event which was modeled after the conference, “A Journey in Faith: A Conference for Orthodox Women,” held in Milwaukee in February 1997.