International travel has always played a very big role in my life. As a little child, I would take frequent trips to the home country of my father's side of the family, Turkey, to visit relatives, travel around, and connect with a side of my heritage that only existed in small spaces and pockets of my life in the rural Midwest. This experience traveling overseas prepared me well to study abroad as a high school student in Japan, where I spent the entirety of my third year in a Japanese high school in the country's Toyama prefecture. However much I learned traveling and living abroad though, I was always acutely aware of the distance that existed between me and the people I lived and studied with. No amount of language proficiency was going to close the gap between me and my Japanese schoolmates. I remained an outsider. I was an outsider people were polite and friendly to, but an outsider nevertheless. Even in Turkey, where my name and physical appearance were undoubtedly Turkish, my lackluster grasp on the Turkish language and Americanisms prevented me from identifying fully with the people around me.
That distance still existed between us. At the end of August, I traveled to Joensuu, Finland, to study for one semester at the University of Eastern Finland on the far eastern side of the country, right at the border with Russia. My interest in the University of Eastern Finland was spurned primarily by their Orthodox studies program, the only one of its kind in the country. As a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church (specifically the Antiochian jurisdiction, headquartered in Damascus, Syria) and as a religious studies major, Eastern Christianity has been the centerpiece of my personal and academic life for a long time. The prospect of living in a heavily Orthodox region of the country and studying Orthodox history and thought was incredibly exciting to me. Although I had some experience traveling in Europe (mainly the British Isles) I had never been somewhere like Finland and I basically had next to no knowledge of the country's history, culture, or people.
"What I found time and time again during my time in Finland was that even though I had next to no knowledge of Finnish culture prior to arriving in Joensuu, no proficiency in the Finnish language, and a very different cultural and national background than almost everyone I met there, all of the people I met and got to know accepted me with open arms and integrated me into their distinctly Finnish Orthodox life."
As mentioned above, Joensuu is located in the historical province of Karelia, which today is divided between modern-day Finland and Russia. The town of almost 80,000 people is surrounded by lakes and forests, and in a similar way to Iowa City, has the university lying at the heart of most of its urban life. Importantly for my purposes there, the region surrounding Joensuu also features a historic Finnish Orthodox population. Some of the biggest highlights of my time in Finland were the trips I took to old Orthodox churches and monasteries, all of which are still up and running. Among these sites, New Valamo Monastery stood out the most. Though the current monastery grounds were established in the early 20th-century, the monastic community of Valamo dates back to the 12th-century when it was founded by Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam, who are believed to be the patrons of the monastery.
Most of my time in Finland was spent at the Ortodoksinen seminaari, a former seminary turned dormitory run by the Finnish Orthodox Church for theology and religion students at the University of Eastern Finland. The seminaari featured a highly integrated community of clergy and laity and a Byzantine style chapel modeled after a Greek Orthodox church in Thessaloniki. I made some of my best friends during my time in Finland at the seminaari, cooperating with them on coursework, learning about the Finnish language, history, culture, and Finnish Orthodoxy, and in turn relaying my own experiences as an American / Middle Eastern Orthodox student.
What I found time and time again during my time in Finland was that even though I had next to no knowledge of Finnish culture prior to arriving in Joensuu, no proficiency in the Finnish language, and a very different cultural and national background than almost everyone I met there, all of the people I met and got to know accepted me with open arms and integrated me into their distinctly Finnish Orthodox life. In this way, my experience studying Orthodox Christianity in Finland gave me a greater understanding of my own Orthodox identity as truly global and diverse and yet united. It did not matter that my own Orthodoxy was shaped primarily by Orthodox Christianity as it manifests itself in the Middle East and in the United States, because at bottom our spiritual lives and experience were the same. This shared life paved the way for a mutual understanding that transcended cultural, national, and linguistic lines while keeping the distinct features of our respective Orthodox communities intact. I was just as much a member of the Finnish Orthodox Church as the laity, clergy, and monastics who had grown up in it, and the distance and acute sense of dissimilarity that so often characterized my own experience traveling and living overseas and even living within the United States almost never manifested itself. I will undoubtedly return to Joensuu again at some point as a result of the deeply enriching experience I had and intimate connections I made studying abroad there through the University of Iowa. When I do it will, in its own unique way, feel like home again.
Learn how you Can be a Global Access Ambassador
The Global Access Ambassador Scholarship program provides awards to study abroad for a summer, semester, or academic year. The scholarships are intended to support students who study abroad with the intent to serve as Global Access Ambassadors upon return to the UI campus. Upon completion of the study abroad program and return to UI, award recipients are asked to submit a photo and an open letter to prospective students or suggest an alternate means of sharing with prospective students.
Please note that the opinions and views expressed by ambassadors are solely those of the students and do not reflect or represent the views of International Programs or the University of Iowa.
International Programs (IP) at the University of Iowa (UI) is committed to enriching the global experience of UI students, faculty, staff, and the general public by leading efforts to promote internationally oriented teaching, research, creative work, and community engagement. IP provides support for international students and scholars, administers scholarships and assistance for students who study, intern, or do research abroad, and provides funding opportunities and grant-writing assistance for faculty engaged in international research. IP shares their stories through various media, and by hosting multiple public engagement activities each year.