Fall 2017 Schedule

This fall we are meeting according to the following schedule.

Weekly Meeting – Thursdays, 7:30-9:30 PM

Join us in the Edwards Room of Anabel Taylor Hall on Cornell’s campus for our weekly gathering. We have a short compline prayer service followed by a discussion, food, and fellowship. Our list of topics is here and feel free to suggest topics or to sign up to lead one!

Morning Prayers – Fridays, 9:20 AM

Meet in the lobby of Anabel Taylor Hall, and we’ll walk up together to the small catholic chapel (aka the tabernacle if you need to ask for directions) and pray a short morning prayer service together.

Welcome!

Welcome to new students, both undergrad and grad! We hope you will have a wonderful experience during your time in Ithaca/Cornell! We also hope you will consider getting involved with the OCF during your time here! We welcome everyone and would love to have you join us!

We are a branch of the national OCF which is the official campus ministry organization of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. Our members include undergraduates, graduate students, and post docs from Cornell University and the surrounding area and from all ethnic backgrounds.Our chapter meets at least twice a week. We also have  special events throughout the semester including hosting lectures at Cornell, retreats, and working on service projects.  You can find out more about what we have been up to by looking through this website.

If you are looking for an Orthodox church in the Ithaca area, there are two: St. Catherine’s in downtown Ithaca and Holy Apostles in Lansing.

To request to be added to our mailing list or to contact us, please email ocfcornell@gmail.com .

 

 

 

Spring Lectures 2017

IOCC Health Kit Packing

We collected supplies for IOCC health kits and packed them at our last regular meeting of the fall semester. We were really blessed by the generosity of the parishoners at Holy Apostles and St. Catherine whose generous donations enabled us to excess our goal of 120 kits and pack 140!

more packing!

A completed kit

Packing the kits

A box full of kits

Feed My Starving Children MobilePack Event

 

Some of the group.

Earlier this semester, some OCF members went with members of the St. Catherine’s Philotopochos Society to the Feed My Starving Children MobilePack event in Ithaca. There were 98 total volunteers for a variety of churches and organization, packing 131 boxes of food which is over 28,000 meals – enough to feed 77 children for a year.

2015-2016 Recap

Despite what it might look like from this blog, we were busy in the 2015-2016 academic year. A brief recap:

• We continued to have our regular gatherings on Wednesday evenings and morning prayers once a week as well.

 

• We packed health kits for the IOCC in the fall semester. It was quite a successful project. We packed over 100 kits! Extra items that we couldn’t use in the kits were donated to a local shelter.

 

• We had a fantastic end of the fall semester dinner hosted by Greg!

 

• We were visited by Archbishop Michael during the spring semester.

 

• We started out Lent by participating in the OCF Day of Prayer on Clean Monday.

 

• Our lecture series continued in April with a lecture by Rev. Dr. Nicolas Kazarian on “Orthodoxy Without Borders.” (See flyer below.)

 

• We celebrated Pascha! (And had a Bright Wednesday feast that week too complete with hamburgers grilled in the parking lot.)

 

• Most of all though, we enjoyed each other’s friendship, encouragement, and growing in and learning about our faith.

 

 

Fall 2016 Meeting Schedule!

Yes! We have been active in the past year! The official OCF webmaster was just a tad overwhelmed by grad school and fell off the bandwagon. However, we were quite active and a brief recap of the 2015-2016 year will be posted shortly.

This year we are meeting at 7:30 pm on Wednesdays in the Edwards Room of Anabel Taylor Hall (ATH) on the Cornell campus. All are welcome to come join us for discussion and fellowship.

Morning prayers are at 9:20 am on Fridays. We meet in the lobby of ATH and then go up to the small catholic chapel.

Fall 2015 Schedule

Welcome back to all returning students and welcome to all new students!

We will be meeting at 7 pm on Wednesdays in Anabel Taylor Hall. The room will vary – check out the board in the lobby of ATH to find us each week!  We have some great topics coming our way this semester, as well as some open slots. If you have a topic suggestion or want to volunteer to lead a session send us an email at ocfcornell@gmail.com.  We are also planning some fun social events like our second annual BBQ. We hope to see you soon!

Date	Topic	Person/people leading
9/2/2015	Topic Brainstorm	N/A
9/9/2015	Gender & Sexuality in the Church	Jules
9/16/2015	Orthodoxy, Nationalism and Identity	Radu
9/23/2015	A Practical Guide to Prayer
9/30/2015	Saskatchewan Wife Hunters???!!! Navigating the Single Life as an Orthodox Christian
10/7/2015	Ecumenical Relations	Stephen
10/14/2015	Faith and Hardship: Loss, Grief and Healing
10/21/2015	Orthodoxy and Fitness	Bob
10/28/2015	Orthodox Intellectuals?
11/4/2015	Outside Perspectives of Orthodoxy/Orthodox Elevator Speeches	Greg
11/11/2015
11/18/2015
11/25/2015	Thanksgiving Break
12/2/2015
12/9/2015	First Day of Finals

March OCF Events

Donation Drive: As in the past we will be holding a donation drive for the Advocacy Center (a shelter in Ithaca). This year’s drive will be from March 15- April 15.  More details on exactly what the Center needs the most will follow, but if you want to start picking an item or two up every time you shop, last year we collected toiletries, diapers, socks and other similar items.

Lecture Series – March 19: Fr. Christopher Eid will be talking on March 19th about “Ancient Christianity in the Middle East”. More details to follow, but mark your calendars now.

Retreat: The retreat will be March 20-22 at St. Andrew’s Camp near Syracuse. More details to follow.

Spring Semester Topic List

 

Current list of topics for weekly meetings. Will be updated as needed

1/28 women in the Orthodox church

2/4 sacraments of baptism and chrismation

2/11 sacrament of confession

2/18 sacrament of unction

2/25 First week of Lent /no meeting?/ sacrament of ordination

3/4 sacrament of marriage

3/11 Holy Eucharist

3/18 sacrament of ordination if not covered 2/24

3/25 Feast of the Annunciation – Topic TBD – possibly the Feast of the Annunciation?

4/1  Spring Break

4/8 Holy Wednesday – no meeting

4/15 Topic TBD

4/22 Topic TBD

4/29 Topic TBD

5/5 Topic TBD

Have a topic suggestion? Email ocfcornell@gmail.com