On October 25-26, 2008, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, the Synodal Youth Department held a symposium on the 100th anniversary of the death of St John of Kronstadt. Students from Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville were in attendance, as were young people from New York and other US cities. Each one of them, as a rule, is an active participant in parish life, fulfilling one obligation or another to help their parish. Priests from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr Joakim Provatakis and Protopriest Alexander Abramov, gave lectures on the life, podvigi and spiritual labors of the saint.