Event Details
Event Phone: 317-821-7527
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+ 2024 Emmaus Retreat +
Saturday, October 12, 2024 | 8:30am – 3:30pm
Keynote Speaker: Fr. Mikel Hill
Emmaus Retreat 2024
Saint John’s Camp Programs invites you to attend Emmaus Retreat 2024 – our annual, all-ages, all-parish fall retreat. We are excited to be joined by Father Mikel Hill, Managing Editor of St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press and author of Freedom & Obedience in the Vision of Saint Sophrony, as this year’s featured speaker. Join us for speaking sessions, fellowship time, and afternoon recreation. Lunch and child care are provided during the speaking sessions for children 2 – 12. Emmaus Retreat 2024 is hosted at Camp Belzer, a Boy Scouts of America facility with acres of rolling wooded hills, numerous hiking trails, and playgrounds. Do not miss it for the world!
The early bird rate is $20 and runs through September 15, 2024. Standard registration is $25, and ends October 8, 2024. Children 2 and under are free. Note: registrations after October 8 are not guaranteed lunch.
If you cannot pay the full registration fee when you register, please deliver full payment by October 9. If you are in need of financial assistance, please speak to your local parish. Scholarships are also available through St. John’s Camp Program’s Scholarship Fund. Please do not let finances be the reason you do not join us – register today!
Begin your Emmaus Retreat registration by selecting a ticket below!
The Theme & Speaker
Theme: “Freedom & Obedience”
Recent events have underscored the tension between freedom and authority, manifest in competing concerns over personal autonomy and communal wealth fare, warring political ideologies, and an increasing confusion over the meaning of personhood. This essay is founded by the conviction that Saint Sophrony (1896–1993) offers to our own generation a unique answer to these dilemmas.
The author begins with an examination of the meaning of personhood in the context of autonomous technologies, informed by such authors as Matthew Crawford, Shoshana Zuboff, Ivan Illich, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The essay continues with a study of personhood as expressed by saints Silouan (1866–1938) and Sophrony. Based on a definition of personhood in which the freedom of the other is tantamount, the paradox existing between freedom and obedience is examined, the failure of current political systems to bring a balance to this tension, and the unique answer presented by Saint Sophrony is then presented. Following is a survey of how this solution is carried out in the practical realms of religious life: in the sacrament of confession and in the relationship between a bishop, his priests, and his flock.
Prompted by concrete realities which—in the wake of covid-19—forced abstract questions on the nature of personal freedom and obedience to authority into pressing, practical concerns, Freedom & Obedience is an essay which struggles to make out the narrow way between conflicting ideas and loyalties. In doing so, it asks difficult questions of both individuals and institutions and, at the same time, invites further discussion.
ABOUT Fr. Mikel Hill
Father Mikel Hill is a priest of the Orthodox Church and the managing editor of St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press. He has performed professionally as a tenor in a wide range of ensembles. He also enjoys playing piano, violin, cello, viol da gamba, and mandolin. Fr. Mikel is active as a composer of chamber music and recently completed a song cycle for soprano, baritone, piano, cello, and flute. An avid historian of the late Victorian period, Fr. Mikel is completing a monograph on the life and work of the Russian-born, American choral conductor, Ivan Gorokhov. He is a member of the American Musicology Society and the Society of Christian Scholarship in Music, for which he has presented several papers. Fr Mikel also enjoys fine woodworking, 19th-century literature, traveling to England any chance that comes his way, and a good cup of coffee. Fr. Mikel, his wife Rachel, and their five children have lived at St. Tikhon’s Monastery since 2018.
The Venue
We are excited to host our retreat at the One America Room at Camp Belzer (6102 Boy Scout Road, Indianapolis, IN 46226). Camp Belzer is home to the Boys Scouts of America and the Nature School of Central Indiana, and is located on the east side of Indianapolis. The grounds offer acres of woods, hiking trails, playgrounds, and shelters. Check out Camp Belzer on Google Maps, as well as the Camp Belzer website.
Registrations placed after Oct 8th are not guaranteed lunch as orders are made in advance
Contact us if you have any questions. We hope to see you at Emmaus Retreat 2024! With much love for you all, and remembering you in our prayers,
The Emmaus Retreat 2024 Planning Committee
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