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In 1992, the first time he came to St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, Dan gave the sermon and told the old story about an eagle that grew up among sage chickens. Though born to soar, the eagle spent its life scratching in the dirt, believing it was nothing more than what the world told it that it was. One day the eagle that thought it was a sage chicken looked up and saw an eagle soaring high in the sky. “What is that?” he asked. The sage chickens replied, “That is the king of birds—but don’t waste your time dreaming. You could never be like him.” But a wise guide came and said to the eagle, “You were not made for the dirt. You were made for the heavens.” And the eagle spread his wings and took flight.
This story is about every one of us. Created in the image of God, we were made for theosis, made for holiness, made for eternity. So often we live beneath our calling. We settle for fear, comfort, conformity, and survival.
Dan refused to live that way.
Somehow, from a very early age, Dan understood what others often spend their lives trying to discover. At six years old, when asked what he wanted to be, without hesitation, he said, “a priest.” He would recount how he would put on his mother’s bathrobe and hold church services with the neighborhood kids in the garage. Even as a child, this eagle knew he was made to soar.
Dan taught that our faith is not about holding on to “small t” traditions; it is about awakening to our true identity in Jesus Christ. He believed people were made for more than simply existing. And so he spent his life helping others to spread their wings.
He did it as a parish priest. He did it when Archbishop Iakovos called him to be the Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC)’s first missionary. He did it in Kenya, where he worked with Archbishop Anastasios to build a missionary movement that shaped American Orthodox mission work for generations. He did it through International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), bringing Christian love and support to suffering people of all faiths around the world. He did it as a police chaplain, standing beside officers and grieving families during the darkest moments of their lives.
Where there was pain, Dan went. Where there was fear, Dan went. Where there were people forgetting their dignity and hope, Dan reminded them that they were children of God.
And he did it all with joy.
This past October, Dan visited St. George Church in the Hudson Valley of New York. One parishioner, when she learned that Dan had passed, wrote, “What an incredible loss. I met him when he came to our parish … He was such a great person.”
That was not accidental. Real holiness does not make a person cold or distant. True holiness enlarges the heart. It fills a person with Christ’s compassion and joy.
Dan carried Orthodoxy lightly enough to make people want it, but deeply enough to change us for the better.
Dan told another story that sums up beautifully the way Dan lived his life. It was the story of an Indian Orthodox Bishop speaking to a group of clergy and lay leaders. Dan told it with an Indian accent. He told how the Bishop told those people “Christianity is a charter flight, you know.”
Dan went on to explain how, years ago, Indian immigrants in New York would recruit fellow travelers to fill charter planes to go home to India. Unless enough people came together, the flight could not take off.
Then the bishop said: “If we don’t bring others with us, we won’t get home to Jesus Christ.”
This was Dan’s approach to our Faith.
The Christian life is not a private journey. We are not saved alone. The Church is not a cruise ship built for comfort and entertainment. It is a charter flight moving toward the Kingdom of God. And every Christian has a responsibility to bring others on board.
That was Dan’s life.
He was always bringing people with him toward Christ.
He brought the suffering. He brought seekers. He brought police officers. He brought parishioners. He brought children and grandchildren. He brought strangers from distant places. He brought people who thought they were forgotten. He brought people who thought they were stuck like the sage chicken, scratching in the dirt.
In his own way, with that smile we all will miss, he always did it with kindness, humor, and faith. He reminded us all that we were made for the heavens.
From that kid with his mom’s bathrobe doing liturgy in the garage, to the priesthood, to Africa, to IOCC, and back to the Mission Center, Dan’s mission never changed.
Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlined the five stages of dying back in 1969 to describe the emotional journey of individuals facing terminal illness. These stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Clearly, Dan didn’t get the memo. He went straight to acceptance and beyond.
Often people nearing death will give the gift to loved ones, telling them, “It’s okay. I had a good life.”
Dan went beyond this. Having shown others how to live throughout his life, he said, I’m going to teach people how to die. Even during serious illness, even during suffering, Dan continued to preach the Resurrection.
And now we entrust him to the Lord he served from childhood.
We imagine him now finally soaring freely like the eagle he was always meant to be. We imagine him hearing the words we all hope to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
And now the question passes to us.
Will we continue living like sage chickens when God has called us to soar? Will we make the Church a place of comfort and nostalgia, or will we join the mission of bringing others to Jesus Christ? Will we remember, as Dan did, that every person we meet carries the image of God?
Dan answered those questions by the way he lived his life.
May his memory be eternal. May his example inspire us. May his missionary spirit be carried on in all of us. And may the Risen Christ receive His faithful servant, Dan, into the joy of His heavenly Kingdom, where there is no pain, sorrow, or suffering, but only everlasting life.
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