The Priesthood of the I: An Interview with Rev. Jonah Evans
by Janna de Vries
In this blogpost we are publishing an interview with Rev. Jonah Evans by Janna de Vries given in Stuttgart in the Fall of 2021. Below you can find the abbreviated transcription of the interview, an original audio of it and a short introduction by Daniil Kalinov explaining how this interview came about.
The Seminary of the Christian Community is at least threefold. That is, it exists in its full form in three cities: Stuttgart, Hamburg and Toronto. Indeed, as Rev. Jonah shares in his interview, the directors of the seminaries really consider themselves to be part of one seminary, which of course expresses itself in different ways in these three locations. This Fall, however, many students of the Seminary in Toronto, got to test this fact through their own experience. Robert Bower (Ordination year), Claire Jerram (intern), Dhruva Corrigan (student) and Daniil Kalinov (“Knowing Christ” program) have used the opportunity created by the fact that classes in Toronto were scheduled to begin in January to spend their Fall Trimester in Stuttgart.
The presence of the North American Seminary was felt even stronger at the end of October when Rev. Patrick Kennedy, Rev. Jonah Evans (both co-directors) and Erica Maclennan (Ordination year) came to visit Stuttgart for a few days as a part of their trip through Germany that included many other exciting destinations and events. And so for a short time it felt like the two seminaries had really met under one roof. Janna de Vries, a first year student and an editor of the Newsletter at the Priesterseminar (Stuttgart seminary), decided to use such an exciting opportunity to ask Jonah a couple of questions, some of which also touch on the topic of differences between the three incarnations of the Seminary and relationships between their directors.
From left to right: Erica Maclennan, Dhruva Corrigan, Robert Bower, Claire Jerram, Jonah Evans (co-director, NA Seminary), Patrick Kennedy (co-director, NA Seminary) at the Priesterseminar (Stuttgart seminary).
Here is what Janna says about her motivation for this interview:
“When I learned there was more than one seminary I was very excited, envisioning how across the oceans there were people walking on the same path, maybe with slightly different scenery. Perceiving that we do not yet know so much about each other as different seminaries, a strong impulse arose in me to contribute to the connection and exchange between the different parts of the one body we are. Therefore, I was very grateful for the opportunity to interview Jonah. He painted the mission of the North American Seminary with such clarity, vividness and warmth that a wish to learn from him, to learn in Toronto, was enkindled in me. The uniqueness and authenticity of their approach strengthens the enthusiasm for a more explicit exchange, exploring and making our differences that arise out of language, culture and points of view fruitful.”
We hope that this piece may be a small window for our readers into the larger world of the Christian Community as an international movement.
Jonah Evans (43, ordained in 2008) has been one of the directors of the North American Seminary since its renewal and relocation to Toronto, Ontario in 2019. He and his fellow director Patrick Kennedy visited Europe where they attended the Priest Ordinations and worked on the collaboration of the different seminaries.
Could you share some aspects of your path to priesthood?
As a kid, I did not like church; I remember telling my mother after I received the confirmation in The Christian Community: "I am never going to church again, especially not to that crazy one!’’ I went through a phase of thinking I was an atheist, and my godfather was the one who planted a seed in me, by telling me that I myself was the one who could prove to myself that God exists. After exploring Buddhism and eastern philosophy, I found, with the help of two teachers (Georg Kühlewind and Friedemann Schwarzkopf), a bridge to Anthroposophy, since my question had always been ‘’How do I know what is real, how can I find truth?’’.
Around the age of 23, I was doing my Rose Cross meditation, and in the twilight of dawn, I had an experience of myself, an encounter with the untransformed part of myself, a dragon-like beast. And I knew that was me, and I knew I was responsible for it. After that, I had the strong impulse, it just arose in me - perhaps now I can see that it was Michael beckoning me - to go to the Act of Consecration. And so I went, and it was in the communion, through the priest giving the peace blessing, that I experienced medicine for this beast-part of myself, and I knew that this presence, this one who touched me as/through the priest, was the key to my humanity. In his presence I felt more myself than I did alone. I felt the life that was given me, was my true life. And I never stopped going to church after that.
A few years later, in the middle of my marriage process, the priest said to me: “Jonah, you should consider going to the seminary.” So, I went to an ‘open course’ in Chicago, and when I walked into that seminary door, I had an experience, like a time-experience. I just saw all the events in my life and how they had led me to this point. I felt a knowing, a deep feeling, this was my path, this is it, I am here, I’m to be a priest. Later, I had to work to loosen that conviction, so it would not be too calcified in my soul. I was ordained in Wuppertal in 2008. After some years of serving as a priest in New York, the circle of seven asked me, Patrick Kennedy and Julia Polter to develop new imaginations through which the North American Seminary could be refreshed and formed anew. After we worked for two years on this imagination, they endorsed it and we were bestowed with the leadership.
Could you share something about this imagination; what does the North American Seminary strive for in the development of a priest-to-be?
Our main impulse for the seminary is to help cultivate in the students a conscious, free, heartfelt, prayer-filled relationship with Christ Jesus. This being is the god of the human ‘I’, he carries our true I in himself, and when he comes close, he speaks: “I am your true I and I bestow it on you when we have a relationship.” We work with questions like, “How can I begin to find my truest self in him?” And then, “How can I start to find that at the altar?” and then, from the altar, “How can I turn and try to find that in you?” We need human beings that can be priests in the priesthood of the I, the new mystery.
Jonah Evans, October 2021
To cultivate this, we have been inspired by seven guiding imaginations/archetypes as a core of our program. For example, one of them is “The Becoming One”. How does my I learn to die to what is old and be reborn to something new? How do I do that as an I-being? Many times in our seminary life we will find things that call us to die to something that we were. How does that activity get described, how can I help a student learn to be in becoming? Another would be something that we call “The Wounded Healer”, the root of the picture is the Risen One, whose wounds bring forth peace and healing. Everyone of us has wounds from life. How can I learn to have a fruitful relationship with them?
First, the I needs to be free, so I am not reacting to them, but my wounds are living with me. And then secondly, how do these wounds in me start to become transparent? Wounds are an opportunity to learn to transform, so that they actually become helpful for others as sources of healing light through which the Christ can be found.
These are only two aspects of this bigger picture, out of which we hope is formed, in the student, the most important reality: that they’ve invited Christ to live in their hearts in such a way that Christ starts to work out of them, that they find their ground, security and compass in him through this soulfully embodied relationship.
What do you see as important in the collaboration between the different seminaries? What is asked from us in this realm, in this relationship?
First of all, we consider ourselves one seminary. And yet spiritually we have different signatures, different emphasis, which is a good thing. My hope would be that we can learn to value what the other is bringing and see each other as part of the Body of Christ, each with their unique gift and role. And therefore, learn how to be with colleagues, because this is one of our most difficult struggles of our movement as a Christian community: how we work together with one another. So that’s what I would hope, that the seminary leaders learn and honour and see the Christ in each other. And it has already begun. We, Patrick and Mariano, Georg, - and Xenia in spirit - and I, Christian and Ulrich, just had a meeting in Berlin, where the seminary leaders and the circle of seven met, and really shared together what’s going on, what are our impulses, how can we feel united. I think that’s the first time ever that such a meeting happened, I might be wrong. There’s a strong impulse from the Erzoberlenker to cultivate this shared relationship with one another, that we are in communication. So, we’ve decided to make at least once a year a meeting altogether and really share, be in communication.
The main thing there is that we feel one another as brothers and sisters, and we feel the reality to our oneness as one seminary. And it would be amazing if we could find a more pronounced way in which we can exchange, for example students spending a semester at the other seminary, or we as leaders teaching at the other seminaries. Visiting the seminary here in Stuttgart, we are so grateful to Mariano and Xenia for their total openness and interest to cultivate a relationship with us and welcome us. I think we just feel already as brothers and sisters on the path.
What is essential for human development in the future, and what, in this perspective, IS the Christian Community and her task?
The Christian Community is an expression and manifestation of the working of Christ Jesus into the modern human being. Christ gives the next important piece to humanity as we evolve. And the way that the Christ Jesus does that is always through a wound, through an illness picture, but this illness does not lead to death, but to rebirth. For example, we could distinguish three wounds in the modern human being and then show from that perspective that the purpose of The Christian Community right now is also threefold. The first wound is at the level of the ego-development of the human being, the second is at the level of the knowing, thinking and feeling life of the human being. And the third wound is at the level of the etheric.
The first wound that The Christian Community is trying to address, would be that the danger of the human ego right now is to close in on itself, to harden into its loneliness and experience: not only am I alone, but I can never reach out to something other than me that is real. Or in another way: I want to be alone; reality is too painful so I want to close my heart to everything. So, what our movement is trying to do is to help the I break out of itself and learn to feel my true being in the great “Other”, to feel my true being living in Christ Jesus. Rudolf Steiner describes this in the priest lectures, that the purpose and the mission of the Christian Community is for us to come to a real experiential knowledge of the living Christ Jesus in the etheric. What that means for the I is that I have broken out of the illusion that I am alone, that the I is healed by learning to find its true source in this being.
The second wound has been made by the separation of knowledge and faith and would be healed by overcoming mere intellectualism and cultivating true faith. Faith and knowledge have to be reunited again, and that is one of the impulses of Michael and his presence in the movement for religious renewal. For example, in our creed, we don’t have “I believe”, which cultivates this “I am just believing something without knowing it”, we have factual statements of experiential realities out of the spirit. In this light, faith is not blind, faith is a power. Instead of something blind, faith is actually a power that works in me like a magnet, a power of attraction, that actually attracts the reality of the experience to my heart. Faith is actually a threefolthreefold being, it is a power that brings me gradually an experience of knowing, then it is the experience of knowing itself (Hebrews 11), and then, once I have had an experience, how do I trust that that was real? I have to have faith in what I have known. The Christian Community is trying to help the soul develop this new relationship to faith and knowledge.
The third wound is created by the draining forces of the world of electricity. Steiner described that our Act of Consecration is born to give a counterbalance to the world of electricity. The Act of Consecration is in a way the updated form of the mass of the Christian eucharist ritual, for our present time. It works inwardly, to purify ourselves in relationship to the draining forces of the electrical world and be rejuvenated by this healing medicine through the communion. This then can allow you to live in the electrical world without losing your humanity. The Act of Consecration is for the whole of humanity, it is giving life unconsciously to humanity as well, just as Christ is giving life. I would say quite confidently that without the Act of Consecration on the earth, the earth would not survive. The Act of Consecration is like a homeopathic dose of medicine. And that is how it has always been. The seed of the new is always a seed that grows with small groups and gradually seeds future realities.
Jonah Evans serves the congregation in Toronto and is a co-director of The Seminary of the Christian Community in North America, along with Patrick Kennedy. He was ordained in 2008.
Originally from the Netherlands, Janna has devoted the last seven years to working for anthroposophy in the (international) youth section and the anthroposophical society at large. Receiving a beckoning to serve Christ in an even more explicit and religious-sacramental way, she started at the Priesterseminar in Stuttgart, where she is currently immersed in the first year.
Daniil Kalinov is a student in the “Knowing Christ” program and a Greek teacher at the Seminary. He has also spent this fall in the Sister-Seminary in Stuttgart. Before his Seminary-journey, he studied and did research in the field of pure mathematics.
This is a blog entry by a student at The Seminary of the Christian Community in North America. These are posted weekly by the student editorial team of Marc Delannoy and Silke Chatfield. For more information about our seminary, see the website: www.christiancommunityseminary.ca and for even more weekly podcast and video content check out the Seminary’s Patreon page: www.patreon.com/ccseminary/posts.
The views expressed in this blog entry do not necessarily represent the views of the Seminary, its directors or the Christian Community. They are the sole responsibility of its author.