SPEND A WEEK INSPIRED AND ENCOURAGED IN YOUR FAITH.

What is Real Break?

Real Break provides college students (ages 18-25) with the opportunity to engage the Orthodox faith through trips of pilgrimage and service. Students travel during breaks to participate in the work of the Church alongside the ministries, monasteries, parishes, and people of each host city.

What is it like to encounter the Light of the World?

Stand in the places where heaven meets earth

After weeks of anticipation and preparation, you’re finally in church for the feast of feasts. Pascha has arrived. It’s almost pitch black, and even though you can’t see anything, you still hear the buzz of excitement around you. Everything goes silent when the priest steps out onto the solea with one, singular candle. His voice booms throughout the nave.

“Come ye take light from the Light, that is never overtaken by night. Come glorify Christ, risen from the dead”. First hymn of the Rush Procession.

A wave of fire washes over the congregation as one candle lights another that lights another that lights another still. This is what we hope to do in pilgrimage. We go to pray at sites and venerate the saints through which the presence of God abides. We go to take light and guard it within us so that it may spread when we return home. In that way, a wave of Paschal candles washes over the whole world.

2024 Trip

Real Break Greece

The trip will be split into three parts. The first will be based around the Meteora Monasteries. These monasteries in Thessaly are perched atop massive rock formations and are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the second part of the trip, the men will continue on to Mount Athos, and the women will go to Ormylia Monastery, built on thousands of years of history and a stronghold of Orthodox asceticism. Finally, we will spend the third part of the trip in Thessaloniki, praying in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine era churches, venerating the relics of Sts. Demetrios and Paisios, and experiencing all that Thessaloniki has to offer.