Pastoral-Psychological
Contributions to Priestly
Ministry in the 21st Century
Fr. Vasileios Thermos, MD, PhD
Fr. Stephen Muse, PhD
Contemporary post-modern society in America is placing new challenges before Orthodox Clergy in addition to those which priests have faced throughout history. This seminar (of 90 minutes each class) will offer brief didactic portions, discussion and case studies exploring three main areas:
• Challenges of parish ministry in contemporary life: includes 6 zoom modules exploring topics of pastoral leadership; pastoral care in post-modern identity politics [gender identity and sexual orientation]; impact of artificial Intelligence and digital media, addictions; psychodynamics of conversion; non-spiritual modes of healing Christians resort to; types of violence and the dynamics of forgiveness; discernment and ministry to persons with psychological problems and spiritual pain.
• Navigating difficulties of congregational members: includes 5 zoom modules: identifying personality disorders and their impact on faith and religious practice; psychopathology in adults and children/adolescents; adaptive survival patterns of complex post traumatic trauma that affect repentance, confession, and spiritual formation; as well as unrecognized counter-transferential issues in the priest which can challenge boundaries in various ways through intense reactivity and persistent neediness.
- Emergence, development, and evolution of the priestly vocation.
VT – SM - Hazards of VIPS: Boundaries and vulnerabilities relating to vocation, intimacy, power, and spirituality
SM - Clergy Burnout & Well-being, PT I
VT - Clergy Burnout & Well-being, PT II
SM
Online weekly classes
- Postmodern Identity: challenges and opportunities
VT - Addiction, AI, and the shaping of behavior in contemporary society.
SM - Psychodynamics of Conversion: reflections on the who, the what and the why.
VT - Suffering hell for the sake of heaven: pastoral care for spiritual pain, grief , and trauma
SM - Sexual orientation and its pastoral parameters
VT - “What if I don’t feel like I am?”: Gender Identity landscape today.
VT
Psychiatric helps for ministry with difficult personalities
- Parish as family system: navigating the ties that bind and loose
VT & SM - Dysfunctional characterological styles and the spiritual life.
VT & SM - Re-membering ourselves in Christ: understanding the challenges of fragmentation from sin and adaptive survival patterns from trauma in the pastoral setting.
SM - Psychopathology with which our children and adolescents thrive: what should a pastor know.
VT - Violence, repentance, forgiveness, and the path of salvation
VT & SM
- Early registration (before March): $600
- Registration in April and May: $700
- Full price (from May onwards): $800
Our psychology course offers an engaging learning experience with all materials included. The price covers your study books and a certificate upon completion, ensuring all necessary expenses are taken care of.
Pay with your credit card
Pay with PayPal: info@sebastianpress.org
Registration Link
If you require any assistance with registration please call Rada Bojovic 224.388.2650 or email rbojovic@sebastianpress.org
Mission Bay Inn
0.4 mile from St. George SOC
2575 Clairemont Dr, San Diego, CA 92117
619-275-5700
If you require any assistance with registration please call Rada Bojovic 224.388.2650 or email rbojovic@sebastianpress.org
Rev. Vasileios Thermos
Rev. Vasileios Thermos, M.D., Ph.D., was born in 1957 at Lefkada, Greece. He studied at the Medical School of Athens University and after he graduated he studied at the Theological School of the same University. He was specialized in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which he practiced until recently in Athens; he retired in 2024. In 1986 and 1987 he was ordained and served at the diocese of Viotia. He has been engaged into training programs for clergy in Greece, Cyprus, USA.
In 1996–97 he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School; he took classes also in Harvard School of Arts and Humanities, Boston College, Boston University, Andover Newton Theological School. In 1997 he received his PhD in Pastoral Psychology from the Theological School of Athens University. In 2014 he worked for 3 months as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of Medical Humanities of the Medical School of Texas University on a project about homosexuality and contemporary gender theories. He has also conducted a research on clergy health and burnout.
He has written numerous books and articles in Greek; some of them have been translated into English, French, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Spanish, Italian, German, Finnish. He is the editor of a journal in Greek (Psyches dromoi: Ways of the Soul), published every 6 months, on the relationships between theology/religion and psychiatry/psychology (first issue in May 2011).
In 2004 a master thesis on his total work appeared by Peter Kazaku at the Theological School of Balamand University, Lebanon. This thesis was updated and enriched, thus forming the book «Orthodoxy and Psychoanalysis: Dirge or Polychronion to the Centuries-old Tradition?», which was published in 2013 by Peter Lang publications in the series ‘European University Studies’, volume 938. Also in 2020 another master thesis appeared in the School of Theology of the University of Vienna, by Gabriella Moutsatsos: Ansätze der Οrthodoxen Pastoralpsychologie der Gegenwart: Simeon Kragiopoulos und Vasileios Thermos.