About

St. Nicholas Academic Community is a community with the aim of providing our children with an Orthodox education. Orthodoxy is the gospel rightly lived, and it is this perspective which informs and defines our educational goals, and we pray permeates all that we do and aim to accomplish here as that community. As St. Clement of Alexandria said, “The primary lesson for life must be implanted in the soul from the earliest age. The primary lesson for children is to know the eternal God, the One who gives everlasting life.” This formation takes place within Church, home, and school, and it is our hope that SNAC can support the Church and our families in this aim of “raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:9). 

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We believe in the education of the whole child, for the purpose of not simply informing their brains and filling them with facts, but for the right formation of their souls and the cultivation of virtue, as human beings created in the image and likeness of God. While knowledge and content are important, making a student fully human, in reflection of Christ, is paramount, and requires grace, discipline, virtue, and humility. While schooling can play an important role in support of this, it can only be achieved through the grace of God and within the sacramental life of the Church. This is the starting point of education and where it finds its fulfillment. 

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As for curriculum and content, it is our desire to utilize that which helps, not hinders, these stated aims. We agree with St. Gregory Palamas, that there are two types of human knowledge–knowledge of the created universe and knowledge of the Uncreated God, and we desire to put both before our students. Just as the physical world can reflect the beauty and order of God, we likewise want to mirror that in the offerings and rhythms of our academic community, and with ordered learning cycles that allow for continuity over time, without rigidity.

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Our Anchoring Priorities

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Based on who we are, while there are many good goals and valuable methods we could aim for as a community, prioritizing fewer things and purposing to do them well, provides a solid foundation that we pray can be both a steadying anchor as well as a springboard for the growth of good things in different seasons. Our underlying priorities are:

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• Providing an Orthodox education that supports the Church and families in the schooling of their children

• Prioritizing the education of the whole child, for the purpose of restoration, transformation, and salvation

• Maintaining a community that is an extension of the life of the Church—anchored by a calendar that allows us to celebrate as many feast days as possible and a schedule that revolves around prayer and the lives of the Saints

• Emphasizing a banquet of subjects and a feast of good books for our students, with the knowledge that while the means and methods may intentionally vary at times, there is order and contemplation in what is offered and when.