Honor Fr. Thomas Hopko with 4 Hours of Your Time

Our beloved father, Fr. Thomas Hopko, passed away two days ago, on Wednesday, March 18, 2015.   He has been such an impactful spiritual father to so many of us, despite most of us never having met him.

I grew up listening to him, since he was one of my dad's professors and a good friend of his at St. Vladimir's Seminary, and so his teachings are laced throughout my entire understanding of our Orthodox faith.  One lecture in particular was life changing for me, "Sin: Primordial, Generational, Personal."

Thank God he was extremely prolific in making podcasts on Acient Faith Radio.  I think the best way we can honor him is to make his teachings known and accessible to many more people, and for many more generations to come.  One way to do this is to transcribe his podcasts.  I've transcribed podcasts before, and his podcasts are each about an hour long, and so to transcribe one podcast would take about 4 hours of labor in total, writing/playing back/editing/etc.  If you transcribe 15 minutes at a time, you could very easily finish this project within four days.

Not only will transcribing his podcasts make them more accessible, but by the time you finish transcribing one podcast, you will practically have it memorized.  Everything he says is made of gold, and his thoughts are so clear and thoroughly explained that this is no doubt going to be an amazing spiritual exercise, especially in these last few weeks before Lent is over.

318 of his lectures/podasts on Ancient Faith Radio need transcription, from 2006 to this year.  If 318 people volunteer, this project could be done within a few weeks.

I created a spreadsheet with the title, description and link to every podcast that needs transcription.  You can pick which one you want to transcribe and sign up there.  The spreadsheet has 4 pages (you click on the tab at the bottom to switch between pages), for his series "Speaking the Truth in Love," for "Worship in Spirit and Truth," for his lectures at the Orthodox Institute conference in 2011, and for miscellaneous lectures give by him.

So, how can you get started?  Here is what you should do:

1. Listen to one of his podcasts for your enjoyment
2. If you like one of them, think about when you can set aside 4 hours of your time, and sign up for that podcast on the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rE7WasIVx5YHh2UgOTECrpqJI-bsknRGz_YSAxAwp0Y/edit?usp=sharing
3. Read the transcribing guidelines: http://www.ancientfaith.com/files/uploads/AFR-TranscriptStyleGuide.pdf
4. Start typing!
5. Send it in to Ancient Faith Radio: webmaster@ancientfaith.com
6. When they post it, update the spreadsheet with the link to your transcript.

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