St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Church
Publish Date: 2014-11-23
Bulletin Contents
Vmentrnc
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St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • 860-664-9434
  • Street Address:

  • 108 E Main St

  • Clinton, CT 06413-0134
  • Mailing Address:

  • PO Box 134

  • Clinton, CT 06413-0134


Contact Information



Services Schedule

Weekly Services

Tuesdays at 8:30a - Daily Matins

Wednesdays at 6:00p - Daily Vespers

Thursday at 8:30a - Daily Matins

Saturday at 5:30p - Great Vespers

Sunday at 9:30a - Divine Liturgy

The Church is also open on Wednesdays for "Open Doors" - confession, meditation and reflection.

Please see our online calendar for dates and times of Feast Day services.


Past Bulletins


Welcome

We welcome all visitors to our Divine Liturgy and services. While Holy Communion may only be received by prepared Orthodox Christians, our non-Orthodox guests are welcome to participate in our prayers and hymns and to join us in venerating the Cross and and receiving blessed bread at the conclusion of the Liturgy. Please sign our guest book and join us for refreshments and fellowship after the services.

Feel free to ask questions before or after the services. Any member of our Council or Congregation are glad to assist you. Literature about the Orthodox faith and this parish can be found at the candle desk.

Members of our Parish Council are:

Michael Kuziak - President
Natalie Kucharski - Secretary
Glenn PenkoffLidbeck - Vice President
Susan Egan - Treasurer
Phyllis Sturtevant - Member at Large
Sophia Brubaker - Member at Large

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St. Alexis Parish Calendar

  • Events of the Week

    November 23 to November 23, 2014

    Sunday, November 23

    A. Martins - N

    9:30AM Divine Liturgy

    11:15AM Church School

    7:00PM Clinton Ecumenical Service

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Announcements

Thank you to everyone who came and participated in last week’s Annual Meeting. I appreciate everyone’s candor and commitment to this parish. After Thanksgiving, I would like to move ahead with organizing the Outreach committee; so if you are interested in helping with this, please be sure to let me know. I will also be filing the paperwork for the Diocese grant as soon as it becomes available.

Please be sure to return your Stewardship forms as soon as possible.
Also this reminder to return your “commemoration” books. I know there have been requests for more, and I am looking to place an order soon.

I am also looking for a volunteer to write the next issue of our online “newsletter”. Joan Skrobat did a wonderful job with the inaugural edition, but this was never meant to be a one-person commitment. If you are interested in doing a bit of writing for the web site, again, please let me know.

As we are now in the beginning the second week of the fast, I would ask that you take some time to reflect on your life in Christ. In today’s epistle reading, we hear; “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…” What does this mean to us as members of the community of St. Alexis? The Church provides this fasting season for us so that we may renew our relationship with Christ, His Church and with each other. Renewal begins with the sacrament of reconciliation. As always, I am available on Wednesdays, during “Open Doors” and on Saturdays, before or after Vespers. Please take the time prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord God and Savior.

 

The Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries
 
Thanksgiving Preparations at SSKP
Thanksgiving Preparations at SSKP
 
 

  

   

ct food bank mobile 

    

The Shoreline Basic Needs Task Force is a collaboration of community groups and concerned people, working to affect change that increases self-sufficiency among vulnerable individuals and families in need along the Connecticut Shoreline.

 

 

 

 

 

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Prayers, Intersessions and Commemorations

Cross2

Olga, Richard, Daria, Daria, Evelyn, Alla, June, Nina, Joan, Aaron, Alex, Alan, Nadia, Kathryn, Ivan, Elena & Jevon and their unborn child, William, Christine, Kyra, Roderick, Albert, Barbara, Irene, Susan, Eva, Richard, Douglas, Kathleen, Dionysia, Krystal and Ezekiel, Elisha, Michael, Sharon & William and their unborn child.

Many Years! to Daria Krawchuk and Christine Boyd on the occasion of her birthday: to Rick and Liberty Page on the occasion of their anniversary: and to Alex Martins, Kathryn Brubaker and Dori ‘Catherine’ Kuziak on the occasion of their Name’s Days.

 

We commemorate: Afterfeast of the Entry Into the Temple. Repose of Rt. Blv. Great Prince Alexander Nevsky, in schema Aleksy (1263). St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (394). St. Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum (6th-7th c.). St. Metrophán, in schema Makáry, Bishop of Vorónezh (1703). Martyr Sisinius, Bishop of Cyzicus (3rd c.). Martyr Theodore of Antioch (4th c.).

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Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the 7th Tone

Thou didst abolish death by Thy Cross; Thou didst open Paradise to the thief; Thou didst transform the myrrh-bearers' lamentation, and didst bid Thine Apostles to preach that Thou art risen, O Christ God, granting great mercy to the world.

Apolytikion for Afterfeast of the Entry of the Theotokos in the 4th Tone

Today is the prelude of God's good will and the heralding of the salvation of mankind. In the temple of God, the Virgin is presented openly, and she proclaimeth Christ unto all. To her, then, with a great voice let us cry aloud: Rejoice, O thou fulfilment of the Creator's dispensation.

Seasonal Kontakion in the 4th Tone

Today, the most pure temple of the Savior, the precious bridal chamber and Virgin, the sacred treasure of God, enters the house of the Lord, bringing the grace of the Divine Spirit. The Angels of God praise her. She is the heavenly tabernacle.
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Saints and Feasts

Vmentrnc
November 23

Afterfeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple


Amphilochios
November 23

Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium

Saint Amphilochius, who was born in Cappadocia, shone forth in asceticism and divine knowledge even from his youth. He was consecrated Bishop of Iconium in 341, he struggled courageously against the blasphemies of Eunomius, Macedonius the enemy of the Holy Spirit, and the followers of Arius. He was present at the Second Ecumenical Council of the 150 Fathers, which took place in Constantinople, convoked during the reign of Theodosius the Great in the year 381. In 383 Amphilochius wished to persuade the Emperor Theodosius to forbid the Arians from gathering in Constantinople and to commit the churches to the Orthodox, but the Emperor was reluctant to do such a thing. The next time that Amphilochius entered the palace, he addressed Theodosius with proper honour, but slighted his young son Arcadius in his presence. Theodosius was indignant, and said the dishonour shown to his son was equally an insult to himself. To this Saint Amphilochius answered that as he would not suffer an insult to his son, so he ought to believe that God is wroth with those who blaspheme His Only-begotten. Saint Theodosius understood and admired Amphilochius' ingenious device, and he issued the desired edict in September of the same year. Saint Amphilochius, having reached deep old age, reposed in peace about the year 395. Saint Basil the Great wrote many letters to Saint Amphilochius, his friend and Fellow champion of the Faith, and at his request wrote his treatise On the Holy Spirit, which besides demonstrating the divinity of the Holy Spirit and His equality with the Father and the Son, defends the Church's unwritten ancient traditions, such as making the sign of the Cross, turning towards the East in prayer, no kneeling on Sunday, and so forth.


1123aalexandernevsky
November 23

St Alexander Nevsky

The Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky was born on May 30, 1220 in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessk. His father Yaroslav II, Theodore in Baptism (+1246), “a gentle, kindly and genial prince”, was the younger son of Vsevolod III Large Nest (+ 1212), brother of the Holy Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich (February 4). St Alexander’s mother, Theodosia Igorevna, a Ryazan princess, was Yaroslav’s third wife. Their older son was the Holy Prince Theodore (June 5), who departed to the Lord at age fifteen. St Alexander was their second son.

His childhood was spent at Pereslavl-Zalessk, where his father was prince. The princely tonsure of the lad Alexander (a ceremony of initiation to be soldier) was done in the Savior Transfiguration Cathedral of Pereslavl by St Simon, Bishop of Suzdal (May 10), one of the compilers of the Kiev Caves Paterikon (Lives of the Fathers). From this Elder-hierarch, St Alexander received his first blessing for military service in the name of God, to defend the Russian Church and the Russian Land.

In 1227 Prince Yaroslav, at the request of the people of Novgorod, was sent by his brother Yuri, the Great Prince of Vladimir, to rule as prince in Novgorod the Great. He took with him his sons, Sts Theodore and Alexander. Dissatisfied with the Vladimir princes, the people of Novgorod soon invited St Michael of Chernigov (September 20), and in February 1229 Yaroslav with his sons departed to Pereslavl. The matter ended peacefully: in 1230 Yaroslav with his sons returned to Novgorod, and St Michael’s daughter Theodosia was betrothed to St Theodore, the elder brother of St Alexander. After the death of the bridegroom in 1233 the young princess went to a monastery and became famous in monastic exploits as the nun St Euphrosyne of Suzdal (September 25).

From his early years St Alexander went along on his father’s campaigns. In 1235 he participated in a battle at the River Emajogi (in present-day Estonia), where the forces of Yaroslav totally routed the Germans. In the following year Yaroslav went to Kiev, “settling” his son, St Alexander, to rule independently as prince at Novgorod. In 1239 St Alexander entered into marriage, taking as wife the daughter of the Polotsian prince Briacheslav. Some histories relate that the day the princess was baptized was the Name Day of her saintly spouse, and she was named Alexandra. His father, Yaroslav, blessed them at betrothal with the holy wonderworking icon of the Theodore Mother of God (the father was named Theodore in Baptism). Afterwards, St Alexander constantly prayed before this icon. Later, it was taken from the Gorodetsk Monastery, where he died, by his brother Basil of Kostroma (+1276), and transferred to Kostroma.

A very troublesome time had begun in Russian history: from the East came the Mongol Horde destroying everything in their path; from the West came the forces of the Teutonic Knights, which blasphemously and with the blessing of the Roman Pope, called itself “Cross-bearers” by wearing the Cross of the Lord. In this terrible hour the Providence of God raised up for the salvation of Russia holy Prince Alexander, a great warrior, man of prayer, ascetic and upholder of the Land of Russia. “Without the command of God there would not have been his prince.”

Abetted by the invasion of Batu, by the ruin of Russian cities, by the dismay and grief of the nation, by the destruction of its finest sons and leaders, a horde of crusaders made incursions into the borders of Russia. First were the Swedes. “A king of Roman faith from the midnight land,” Sweden, in 1240 gathered a great armed force and sent them to the Neva on many ships under the command of his son-in-law, Yarl (Prince) Birger. The haughty Swede sent his messengers to Novgorod to say to St Alexander: “Fight me if you have the courage, for I am already here and I am taking your land captive.”

St Alexander, then not yet twenty years old, prayed a long time in the church of St Sophia, the Wisdom of God. He recited the Psalm of David, saying: “Judge, O Lord, those who injure me, fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and rise up to help me” (Ps. 34/35). Archbishop Spyridon blessed the holy prince and his army for the battle. Leaving the church, St Alexander exhorted his troops with words of faith: “The power of God is not in numbers, but in truth.” With a smaller force, trusting in the Holy Trinity, the prince hastened towards the enemy to await help from his father, not knowing whether the enemy would attack, nor when.

But there was a miraculous omen: at dawn on July 15 the warrior Pelgui, in Baptism Philip, saw a boat, and on it were the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb, in royal purple attire. Boris said: “Brother Gleb, let us help our kinsman Alexander.” When Pelgui reported the vision to the prince, St Alexander commanded that no one should speak about the miracle. Emboldened by this, he urged the army to fight valiantly against the Swedes.

“There was a great slaughter of the Latins, and a countless multitude was killed, and their leader was left with a mark upon his face from a sharp spear.” An angel of God invisibly helped the Orthodox army: when morning came, on the opposite bank of the River Izhora, where the army of St Alexander was unable to proceed, was a multitude of the slain enemy. Because of this victory at the River Neva on July 15, 1240, the nation called the saint Alexander Nevsky.

The Teutonic Knights remained a dangerous enemy. In a lightning-quick campaign in 1241 St Alexander recaptured the ancient Russian fortress of Kopore, expelling the knights. But in 1242, the Germans succeeded capturing Pskov. The enemy boasted of “subjecting all the Slavic nation.” St Alexander, setting forth in a winter campaign, liberated Pskov, that ancient home of the Holy Trinity, and in spring of the year 1242 fought a decisive battle against the Teutonic Order. On the ice of Lake Chud both armies clashed on April 5, 1242. Raising his hands towards the heavens, St Alexander prayed: “Judge me, O God, and judge my strife with a boastful nation and grant help to me, O God, as to Moses of old against Amalek, and to my great-grandfather Yaroslav the Wise against accursed Svyatopolk.”

By his prayer, by the help of God, and by military might the Crusaders were completely destroyed. There was a terrible slaughter, and there was such a crashing of striking spears and swords that it seemed as though the frozen lake were in motion and not solid ice, since it was covered with blood. When they turned to flee, the enemy was pursued and slashed by Alexander’s army “as if they sped through the air, and there was nowhere for the enemy to flee.” Later, they led a multitude of captives behind the holy prince, marching in disgrace.

Contemporaries clearly understood the universal historical significance of the Great Battle of the Ice, and the name of St Alexander was celebrated throughout Holy Russia, “through all the lands, from the Egyptian Sea to Mount Ararat, from both sides of the Varangian Sea to Great Rome.”

The western boundaries of the Russian land were safely secured, and it was time to guard Russia from the East. In 1242 St Alexander Nevsky and his father Yaroslav journeyed to the Horde. Metropolitan Cyril blessed them for this new service of many hardships: it was necessary to turn the Tatars from enemies and plunderers into honorable allies, and this required “the meekness of an angel and the wisdom of a snake.”

The Lord crowned the holy mission of the defenders of the Russian land with success, but this required years of hardship and sacrifice. Prince Yaroslav passed from this life. Having made an alliance with Khan Batu, he was required, however, to travel to faraway Mongolia, to the capital of all the nomadic empire. The situation of Batu himself being precarious, he sought the support of the Russian princes, wishing to break with his own Golden Horde from faraway Mongolia. And there in turn, they trusted neither Batu nor the Russians.

Prince Yaroslav was poisoned. He died in agony, surviving the Holy Martyr Michael of Chernigov, whose relative he nearly became, by only ten days. Since his father bequeathed him an alliance with the Golden Horde, it was necessary for St Alexander Nevsky to hold fast to it in order to avert a new devastation of Russia. Sartak, the son of Batu, had accepted Christianity, and was in charge of Russian affairs with the Horde. He became his friend, and like a brother to him. Vowing his support, St Alexander allowed Batu to launch a campaign against Mongolia, to become the chief power in all the Great Steppes, and to raise up the Tatar Christian leader, Khan Munke (most of his Tatar Christians were Nestorians) on the throne in Mongolia.

Not all the Russian princes possessed the wisdom of St Alexander Nevsky. Many hoped for European help in the struggle against the Mongol Yoke. St Michael of Chernigov, Prince Daniel of Galich, and Andrew, St Alexander’s brother, conducted negotiations with the Roman Pope. But St Alexander well knew the fate of Constantinople, seized and devastated by Crusaders in the year 1204. His own personal experience taught him not to trust the West. The alliance of Daniel of Galich with the Pope, giving him nothing in return, was a betrayal of Orthodoxy, a unia with Rome. St Alexander did not want this to happen to his Church.

When ambassadors of the Roman Pope appeared in 1248 to seduce him also, he wrote in answer that the Russians were faithful to the Church of Christ and to the belief of the Seven Ecumenical Councils: “These we know very well, but we do not accept your teaching.” Catholicism was unsuitable for the Russian Church, and a unia signified a rejection of Orthodoxy, a rejection of the source of spiritual life, a rejection of the historical future foreordained by God, and the dooming of itself to spiritual death.

In the year 1252 many Russian cities rose up against the Tatar Yoke, supporting Andrew Yaroslavich. The situation was very risky. Again there arose a threat to the very existence of Russia. St Alexander had to journey to the Horde once more, in order to prevent a punitive Tatar incursion on the Russian lands. Defeated, Andrew fled to the Swedes seeking the help of those very robbers whom his great brother had crushed with the help of God at the Neva.

St Alexander became the ruling Great Prince of All Rus: Vladimir, Kiev and Novgorod. A great responsibility before God and history lay upon his shoulders. In 1253, he repelled a new German incursion against Pskov; in 1254 he made a treaty with Norway concerning peacetime borders; in 1256 he went on a campaign to the Finnish land. The chronicler called it “the dark campaign,” because the Russian army went along through the polar night, “going to impassable places, unable to see neither day nor night”. Into the darkness of paganism St Alexander brought the light of Gospel preaching and Orthodox culture. All the coastal region was enlightened and opened up by the Russians.

In 1256 Khan Batu died, and soon his son Sartak was poisoned, the one who was like a brother to Alexander Nevsky. The holy prince journeyed a third time to Sarai in order to confirm peaceful relations of Rus and the Horde with the new Khan, Berke. Although the successor to Batu had accepted Islam, he needed the alliance with Orthodox Rus. In 1261, by the diligent efforts of St Alexander and Metropolitan Cyril, a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established at Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde.

There followed an epoch of great Christianization of the pagan East, and St Alexander Nevsky prophetically speculated about the historical vocation of Rus. The holy prince used every possibility to uplift his native land and the ease its allotted cross. In 1262 by his decree in many of the cities the Tatar collectors of tribute and the conscription of soldiers were stopped. They waited for a Tatar reprisal. But the great intercessor of the nation again journeyed to the Horde and he wisely directed the event into quite another channel. Having been dismissed for the uprising of the Russians, Khan Berke ceased to send tribute to Mongolia and proclaimed the Golden Horde an independent entity, making it a veritable shield for Russia from the East. In this great uniting of the Russian and Tatar lands and peoples the future multi-national Russian State was matured and strengthened. Later, within the bounds of the Russian Church, was encompassed nearly the entire legacy of Ghenghis Khan to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean.

This diplomatic journey of St Alexander Nevsky to Sarai was his fourth and last. The future of Rus was rescued, his duty before God was fulfilled. But his power was wholly devoted, and his life put to the service of the Russian Church. On the return journey from the Horde St Alexander fell deathly ill. Unable to reach Vladimir, in a monastery at Gorodets the prince-ascetic gave up his spirit to the Lord on November 14, 1263, completing his difficult earthly path by receiving the monastic schema with the name of Alexis.

Metropoltan Cyril, the spiritual Father and companion of the holy prince, said in the funeral eulogy: “Know, my child, that already the sun has set for the land of Suzdal. There will be no greater prince in the Russian land.” They took his holy body to Vladimir, the journey lasted nine days, and the body remained undecayed.

On November 23, before his burial at the Nativity Monastery in Vladimir, there was manifest by God “a wondrous miracle and worthy of memory.” When the body of St Alexander was placed in the crypt, the steward Sebastian and Metropolitan Cyril wanted to take his hand, in order to put in it the spiritual gramota (document of absolution). The holy prince, as though alive, reached out his hand and took the document from the hand of the Metropolitan. “Because of their terror, and they were barely able to stumble from his tomb. Who would not be astonished at this, since he was dead and the body was brought from far away in the winter time.”

Thus did God glorify the saintly Soldier-Prince Alexander Nevsky. The universal Church glorification of St Alexander Nevsky took place under Metropolitan Macarius at the Moscow Cathedral in 1547. The Canon to the saint was compiled at that time by the monk Michael of Vladimir.


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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

The Reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 2:14-22

BRETHREN, Christ is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.


Gospel Reading

9th Sunday of Luke
The Reading is from Luke 12:16-21

The Lord said this parable: "The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." As he said these things, he cried out: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."


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Wisdom of the Fathers

I cannot be silent about the story of Hesychius the Horebite. He passed his life in complete negligence, without paying the least attention to his soul. Then he became extremely ill, and for an hour he left his body.
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

And when he came to himself, he begged us all to leave him immediately. And he built up the door of his cell, and he stayed in it for twelve years without ever uttering a word to anyone, and without eating anything but bread and water.
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

And, always remaining motionless, he was so wrapt in spirit in what he had seen in his ecstasy that he never changed his place but was always as if out of his mind, and silently shed hot tears.
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

But when he was about to die, we broke open the door and went in, and after many questions this alone was all we heard from him: 'Forgive me! No one who has acquired the remembrance of death will ever be able to sin.'
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

We were amazed to see that one who had before been so negligent was so suddenly transfigured by this blessed change and transformation. We reverently buried him in the cemetery near the fort and after some days we looked for his holy relics, but did not find them.
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

So by his true and praise-worthy repentance the Lord showed us that even after long negligence He accepts those who desire to amend. The remembrance of death and sins precedes weeping and mourning ... The remembrance of death is a daily death ...
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

The thought of death is the most necessary of all works ... He who hourly yields himself to it is a saint- insensibility of heart dulls the mind, and abundance of food dries the fountains of tears ...
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

Just as the Fathers lay down that perfect love knows no sin, so I for my part declare that a perfect sense of death is free from fear ... The remembrance of death, like all other blessings, is a gift of God- He who has died to all things remembers death ...
St. John Climacus
Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 6: On Remembrance of Death, 6th Century

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