What follows is a letter from an inmate that Joy Corey ministered to under the auspices of OCPM while she was in the County Jail. Joy has been a member of the Chaplaincy Corps at that jail for 12 years and currently serves on the OCPM Board of Directors. To Whom It May Concern: My […]
A parish priest had a dilemma when he learned that a sex offender, who was interested in Orthodoxy, was being released to the neighboring state which he bordered. No church in either state wanted him. The godly priest, took a chance. He presented a document to his parish which required that this sex offender sign. […]
Imagine you are ten years old; your mother is a drunk who never knows of your whereabouts, nor does she care; your father isn’t in the picture and you find yourself roaming the streets of one of America’s mid-sized cities. Your friends are pimps and prostitutes and you’ve learned to make money so you can […]
Sheila was raised in an atheistic home. If she spoke the word “God,” she would be smacked so hard and beaten by her father. I’ll never forget the first time I met Sheila while conducting my OCPM Bible Studies in the County Jail. She was awaiting sentencing for her drug addiction which led to grand […]
Serving many, many years in a prison that was said to hold the “worst of the worst” men in the world taught me to never underestimate what God can do in someone’s life. Can you fathom someone who has literally done “every evil imaginable under the sun” asking me how they could stop cussing? Well, […]
“Time waits for no man!” This quote is attributed to Jeffery Chaucer back in the 1300’s and has been popular throughout the centuries ever since. It almost seems “other-worldly” to be writing about the year 2018. Where have the years gone? They have slipped away like sand through our fingers…we could not stop the onward […]
“I received a request to meet an Orthodox Christian inmate” As I entered my office and I read my mail for the morning, I received a request to meet an Orthodox Christian inmate who had just arrived into our State Correction facility. I made a short walk to the unit he was assigned to and […]
Celebrating Freedom…but are we really free? “I am freer here in prison than I was ever on the outside!” Over many years of being a prison chaplain, I have heard that statement countless times. How could that possibly be? How could someone experience more freedom inside a prison than on the outside? On the 4th of July […]
Seeing the Beauty Within Christ is Risen!! My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Recently I came across this wonderful quote from Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh: Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by […]
Fasting and Prayer I began serving as a prison chaplain more than thirty years ago. That makes for a lot of Great Lents spent in prison. One year, two men were about to participate in the fast for the first time since becoming Orthodox. They were determined to keep the fast very strictly. In that […]