13/08/2026
SUPRASL 2026: Fifth Annual International Gathering of Orthodox Youth
[SUPRASL] - Some 85 Orthodox young adults from more than two dozen countries gathered at the Monastery of the Annunciation and Akademia Supraska in Suprasl, Poland, for SUPRASL Summer 2026, an international gathering of Orthodox young adults centered this year on the theme, “Image and Likeness: Creation and Creators.” Participants came from throughout Europe and as far away as Australia, while the gathering also included participants from Palestine and a large delegation from the Orthodox Church in America representing dioceses and communities from across the United States. The gathering, held for the fifth year, brought together young adults for a week of prayer, friendship, creativity, service, and conversation rooted in the life of the Church.
SUPRASL is an international fellowship of Orthodox young adults seeking to create spaces where young people from different jurisdictions, cultures, and countries can uncover and experience the unity and universality of the Orthodox Church. The breadth of this year’s gathering reflected that vision, bringing together young adults from different Orthodox traditions and from countries with very different experiences of life in the Church.
This year’s theme was chosen in recognition of the central place of the image and likeness of God in the theology of Saint Sophrony the Athonite. The gathering also marked the 130th anniversary of the saint’s birth. His teaching on the human person as created in the image of God and called to grow into His likeness provided the theological foundation for a week devoted to exploring how Christians see God, one another, themselves, and the world.
The gathering was directed by Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak and Sophia Chiriac, SUPRASL Director and Project Manager respectively. In welcoming participants, Archdeacon Joseph invited the community to approach the week not primarily as an opportunity to acquire new information, but as an opportunity to learn how to see.
“Saint Sophrony spent much of his life speaking about the human person,” he noted. “He taught that every person is created in the image of God and called to grow into His likeness. But he also taught something else: that every human being is an unrepeatable mystery. Not a category. Not a stereotype. Not a profile. Not a role. A mystery.”
Drawing on the writings of Saint Sophrony and Saint Maria of Paris, Archdeacon Joseph encouraged participants to resist the tendency to see people through categories or carefully constructed images. “We scroll past faces. We collect followers.
We curate versions of ourselves,” he said. “Many of us are more visible than ever before - and more lonely than ever before.”
Rather than becoming a school, conference, or festival, he described SUPRASL as a place where young adults could learn to live together and practice seeing the image of God in one another.
“And that is what SUPRASL has always tried to become,” he said. “Not a school. Not a conference. Not a festival. A place where people learn to live together, where we practice seeing.”
Opening Days: Worship, Welcome, and Cultural Exchange
The first full day began with introductions to the monastery, its surroundings, and fellow participants. That afternoon, Bishop Andrew of Suprasl and His Grace Bishop Gerasim of Fort Worth (Locum Tenens of the Diocese of the South of the Orthodox Church in America) concelebrated the Akathist to the Suprasl Mother of God.
The day concluded with a cultural evening, during which participants shared food, traditions, and stories from their home countries. In what is believed to be a first for an international Orthodox youth event, a traditional Māori Haka was performed.
Workshops: Exploring Image and Likeness
The second and third days featured workshops exploring music, art, responsibility, culture, prayer, and attentive vision. Session offerings included:
- "The Created Word: Poetic Structure in Hymnography" – led by Father Gregory Ealy (Ohio, USA)
- "It's Always Someone Else's Fault" – led by Athanasios Kelpis (Essex, UK)
- A presentation on growing up Orthodox in Japan – led by Miho Ealy (Ohio, USA and Japan)
- "Seeing in Ways That Shape Our Lives" – led by theologian Ioanna Knights (Patmos, Greece)
- A workshop on the music of Arvo Pärt – led by Zoran Matic (Belgrade, Serbia)
- "Photo Voice"* – a workshop on learning to see, led by Georgia Gleoudi (Athens, Greece)
Iconography Workshop: Contemplating the Face of Christ
A distinctive feature of SUPRASL 2026 was a four-day iconography workshop led by Sophronia Kelpis (Essex, England). For years, participants had requested an opportunity to learn icon painting; this year, that request became reality.
Over four days, a small group painted the icon of Christ Made Without Hands (the Mandylion). The workshop offered a particularly fitting exploration of the theme during the 130th anniversary year of Saint Sophrony—himself an iconographer and artist.
"There was perhaps no more direct way to engage the central questions of the gathering than to spend several days slowly contemplating the face of Christ," said Sophronia. "Through patience, attention, prayer, and the repeated act of looking, the participants were invited to encounter the face that stands at the center of Christian life."
Seeing Shapes Living
Ioanna Knights' workshop invited participants to consider how the way they see shapes the way they live. Through story, silence, reflection, and the simple act of binding their own booklets, participants explored presence, the relationships that hold their lives together, and the possibility of choosing a small covenant of peace.
Knights, originally from the United Kingdom and now based on Patmos, is founder and director of the Sacred Gardens of Patmos- an ecological and educational project that brings together prayer, hospitality, care for the land, and learning about the connection between the renewal of the human heart and the renewal of the earth. His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew serves as the project's patron.
Service and Community
The practical dimension of the gathering was emphasized through service to the monastery. Participants spent two afternoons painting the monastery fence, continuing work begun by SUPRASL participants in 2025. Working together and singing as they worked, participants described the project as an opportunity to give back to the monastery whose hospitality has become an integral part of the SUPRASL experience.
A Bishop Among the Community
SUPRASL 2026 was notable as the first gathering where a bishop participated for its entirety. His Grace Bishop Gerasim joined participants with remarkable humility - sharing meals, taking part in workshops, and even joining the Norwegian row during the cultural evening.
His primary role, of course, was to stand in the place of Christ and lead us in our worship, but his presence throughout the week also allowed the students to encounter a bishop in the ordinary rhythms of fellowship and conversation.
Bishop Gerasim offered a question-and-answer session that became one of the most memorable moments of the gathering. In response to a question about discerning the will of God, he encouraged the students not simply to wait for an answer, but to act, pray, and ask God’s blessing on their efforts. His words offered a vision of Christian life that was neither passive nor naively optimistic, but one in which we are called to take responsibility for our lives and work while entrusting our efforts to God.
Returning Leaders and a Midnight Liturgy
Among the workshop leaders, Sophronia Kelpis and Father Gregory Ealy are unique in that they both participated in SUPRASL's forerunner, the Suprasl Summer Institute (1994 - 2002) Sophronia in 1996 and Father Gregory in 1998. Zoran Matic returned for his fifth year of participation, while Georgia Gleoudi joined us in person for the first time, but has collaborated in the past on on-line projects.
The third day concluded with a celebration of the Divine Liturgy at midnight—always a highlight of the week. Hymns and responses were sung in a dozen languages, reflecting the international character of the gathering and the unity of the Orthodox Church across linguistic and cultural boundaries.
The Human Library: Encountering One Another
The fourth day featured the "Human Library," an interactive workshop centered on listening, questions, and honest conversation. Participants became "books," offering their lived experiences for others to "borrow" through small-group conversation. The workshop was led by Georgia Gleoudi, a reflection on the workshop can be read here.
Rather than reading about someone's experience, participants encountered the person directly, asking respectful questions and listening without judgment or debate. The workshop was rooted in Saint Sophrony's insight that every human person is an unrepeatable image of God - not to be understood through labels or first impressions.
Participants chose from four themes: "The Place That Changed Me," "What Failure Taught Me," "The Face I Nearly Missed,"* and *"The Moment I Was Truly Seen." Storytellers shared their experiences while Listening Groups moved between conversations. The goal was to cultivate a different way of seeing: to slow down, listen deeply, and encounter another person as they truly are.
The afternoon was spent outdoors with kayaking, volleyball, football, and other activities. Vespers was followed by an evening of music, singing, dancing, and conversation in the Academy's café.
Connecting with Local Communities
The fifth day opened with the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah in Białystok, where participants joined hundreds of faithful for the parish feast. Afterwards, residents of the nearby village of Ogrodniczki welcomed the group and introduced them to local traditions and hospitality.
"We said this year that we wanted to connect more with local communities," said Sophia Chiriac, "and share with them the rich variety of cultures that SUPRASL attracts. We wanted to take the show on the road."
That afternoon offered a lively expression of cultural exchange. Participants from Texas taught their hosts the Cotton Eye Joe, while a participant from Serbia - who is half-Māori from New Zealand - taught a traditional Māori Haka. "We are certain this was the first time a Haka has been performed at an Orthodox youth gathering," Chiriac said.
The day concluded with a gathering in the café, where participants shared reflections and feedback. They were joined by Archbishop Jacob of Bialystok and Bishop Andrew of Suprasl, who answered questions and spent time getting to know the young people gathered from around the world.
Participant Reflections: Transformation and Community
For many, living together provided an opportunity to put the gathering's theme into practice. One participant from the United Kingdom, who initially approached the theme with skepticism, later described the experience as having "entirely changed my outlook on essentially every aspect of my life." He reflected that seeing others as "the image of God with the potential to become His likeness" had transformed how he approaches relationships at church, at home, and at work.
"I no longer define people entirely by category," he wrote, noting that while categories such as employer and employee or teacher and student are useful, "there is a great deal more to people than them."
Wipke, returning home, wrote that she was "SO filled with love" by the other participants and felt "all the more excited and thankful to be a part of the Orthodox Church in the future."
Patricia, returning to Romania, described the week as "a real blessing" and expressed gratitude for the conversations, workshops, prayers, and friendships developed among participants from around the world.
For Simon, one of the most striking aspects was the experience of Christian community itself. He described SUPRASL as "a little tiny slice of heaven" - meaning the experience of a "carefree, loving fellowship with ourselves and our Creator." He said the week offered participants a glimpse of what Christian communion can be, and evidence that such a life is actually possible.
"The rebel is the one who opposes it by insisting on faith, insisting on trust, insisting on love and charity for the stranger," Simon wrote, describing SUPRASL as a challenge to the distrust, competition, and self-presentation that can characterize contemporary life.
Attention as the Path to Likeness
Throughout the gathering, the theme of "Image and Likeness: Creation and Creators" was approached through worship, conversation, artistic practice, service, pilgrimage, music, and shared life. The activities were intended not simply to address the theme intellectually, but to cultivate what Archdeacon Joseph described as "the art of attention."
"To become attentive, present, and to learn to see God, the world, and one another more truthfully," he told participants. "Because likeness begins with attention."
Looking Forward
The week concluded with participants departing Suprasl as a community of friends, having shared in the daily rhythms of prayer, meals, work, conversation, recreation, and worship. As Sophia Chiriac reflected, "I feel that I gained a lot of friends and learned a lot from each of you in a short amount of time."
SUPRASL began in 2022 as an effort to create opportunities for Orthodox young adults from different parts of the world to encounter one another as members of the same Church. The 2026 gathering marked the fifth year of SUPRASL Summer and continued a tradition of bringing together young adults from different Orthodox jurisdictions, cultures, and countries.
As SUPRASL entered its fifth year, the 2026 gathering returned to the conviction at the heart of the fellowship: that the life of the Church is found not only in programs and institutions, but in the people who learn to recognize one another as images of God and, together, grow toward His likeness.
SUPRASL is made possible in part by the generosity of: The KAN Vision Foundation, Fundacja OIKONOMOS and Akademia Supraska, and many other donors who support the vision of SUPRASL.
Read Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak's welcome talk here: https://suprasl.substack.com/p/suprasl-2026?r=3k7ngu&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
And a reflection by Georgia Gleouid here: https://substack.com//note/p-210918526?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=3k7ngu
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