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Transfiguration of Our Saviour Greek Orthodox Church
Publish Date: 2016-10-09
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Allsaint
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Transfiguration of Our Saviour Greek Orthodox Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • (978) 458-4321
  • Fax:
  • (978) 458-8726
  • Street Address:

  • 25 Fr. John Sarantos Way

  • Lowell, MA 01854
  • Mailing Address:

  • 25 Fr. John Sarantos Way

  • Lowell, MA 01854


Contact Information






Services Schedule

Sunday Schedule:

Orthros: 8:30 a.m.
Divine Liturgy: 9:30 a.m.

Bible Study:

Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.


Past Bulletins


Announcements

COFFEE FELLOWSHIP

Everyone is welcome to join us for coffee fellowship in the hall following services.

BACKPACK PROJECT

Our parish has donated 30 backpacks with school supplies to a local school. If you would like to donate one or more backpacks to a local student, please make your $20 donation (per backpack) payable to Transfiguration Church. In the memo section, please write “FOCUS BACKPACK."

SPECIAL DONATIONS FOR IOCC

Today and during the next couple of weeks, we are providing the opportunity to make a special donation to the IOCC to assist those whose lives have recently been devastated by natural disasters here at home and throughout the world. Please make your check payable to the Transfiguration Church or IOCC.

PARISH COUNCIL NOMINATIONS

Nominations for the 2017-2018 term of the Parish Council are welcome. Any parishioner in good standing interested in being nominated must contact the parish office to request an official nomination form. Completed forms must be returned to the office by 1:00pm on November 4, 2016. Elections will be held on December 11, 2016.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

Interested in helping serve dinner at the Lowell Transitional Living Center (LTLC)? To volunteer, please speak with Christian Zouzas, Chuck Karayianis, or Fr. Tom. Upcoming Saturday dates are November 12 and December 10. 

COMMUNITY OUTREACH DONATIONS NEEDED

Although we are still asking for Market Basket gift cards, we will also be giving food items to those in need. We are collecting the following to be given to families in the community that go without. Your help is appreciated. Items needed include: canned tuna, canned chicken, canned beans, peanut butter, crackers, pasta, pasta sauce, cookies, cereal, granola bars, juice boxes, and other non-perishable items.

Non-perishable food items for the LTLC can be placed in the large green bin.

PHILOPTOCHOS LITERACY PROGRAM 

Please remember to keep the books coming for the 2016-2017 school year!  

SAVE THE DATE FOR THE 63rd ANNUAL BENEFIT CHRISTMAS TEA

The Philoptochos 63rd annual Benefit Christmas Tea will be held on Sunday, December 4 at 2pm at Indian Ridge Country Club. Reservations will be taken beginning October 16.

                                                                                                                                                                                          

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Weekly Calendar

 

Sunday, October 9 THIRD SUNDAY OF LUKE

†Orthros, 8:30am

†Divine Liturgy, 9:30am

Parish Council Meeting, 12:00pm

 

Tuesday, October 11             

Tuesday Morning Ladies Meeting, 9:30am          

                                                                                          

Wednesday, October 12        

Bible Study, 10:00am

Kafeneion @ TOC, 10:00am

 

Saturday, October 15            

Open House at Hellenic College Holy Cross, 8:30am-2pm

                                               

Sunday, October 16 SUNDAY OF THE 7TH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL

†Orthros, 8:30am

†Divine Liturgy, 9:30am

Ordination of Greg Floor                                            

 

TODAY’S PARISH COUNCIL:  Bill, Amanda, and Dean

TODAY’S GREETER:  Cindy Rios

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday, October 18              
Tuesday Morning Ladies Meeting, 9:30am
Sunday school staff meeting, 7:00pm

Wednesday, October 19         
Bible Study, 10:00am
Kafeneion @ TOC, 10:00am

Sunday, October 23                
Memorial for James Wilson                                        

Wednesday, October 26         
St. Demetrios Liturgy, 9:30am
Kafeneion @ TOC, 10:00am

Thursday, October 27             
House of Hope

Saturday, October 29              
Philoptochos Craft Fair, 9:00am

Tuesday, November 1            
Tuesday Morning Ladies Meeting, 9:30am

Wednesday, November 2       
Bible Study, 10:00am
Kafeneion @ TOC, 10:00am

Saturday, November 12          
Philoptochos Meeting, 10:00am
LTLC Dinner                                                              

Sunday, November 13            
Parish Council Meeting, 12:00pm
Stewards Luncheon

                                                          

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Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the Grave Mode

By your cross you destroyed death, and opened paradise to the thief. You transformed the sorrow of the Myrrh-bearers, and commanded the apostles to proclaim that you have risen from the dead, Christ our God, granting to the world great mercy.

Apolytikion for Apostle James, Son of Alphaeus in the Third Mode

O Holy Apostle James, intercede to our merciful God, that He may grant our souls forgiveness of sins.

Seasonal Kontakion in the Second Mode

A protection of Christians unshamable, intercessor to our Holy Maker, unwavering, please reject not the prayerful cries of those who are in sin. Instead, come to us, for you are good; your loving help bring unto us, who are crying in faith to you: hasten to intercede and speed now to supplicate, as a protection for all time, Theotokos, for those who honor you.
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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. Grave Mode. Psalm 28.11,1.
The Lord will give strength to his people.
Verse: Bring to the Lord, O sons of God, bring to the Lord honor and glory.

The reading is from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians 6:1-10.

BRETHREN, working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation." Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in any one's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.


Gospel Reading

3rd Sunday of Luke
The Reading is from Luke 7:11-16

At that time, Jesus went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!"


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Wisdom of the Fathers

There is an old saying: 'Excesses meet.' Too much fasting and too much eating come to the same end. Keeping too long a vigil brings the same disastrous cost as ... sluggishness... Too much self-denial brings weakness and induces the same condition as carelessness. Often I have seen men who would not be snared by gluttony fall, nevertheless, through immoderate fasting and tumble in weakness into the very urge which they had overcome. Unmeasured vigils and foolish denial of rest overcame those whom sleep could not overcome. Therefore, 'fortified to right and to left in the armor of justice,' as the apostle says (2 Cor. 6:7), life must be lived with due measure and, with discernment for a guide, the road must be traveled between the two kinds of excess so that in the end we may not allow ourselves to be diverted from the pathway of restraint which has been laid down for us nor fall through dangerous carelessness into the urgings of gluttony and self-indulgence.
St. John Cassian
Conferences, Conference Two: On Discernment no. 16; Paulist Press pg. 76, 5th century

That dead man was being buried, and many friends were conducting him to his tomb. But there meets him Christ, the Life and Resurrection, for He is the destroyer of death and of corruption; He it is "in Whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28); He it is Who has restored the nature of man to that which it originally was; and has set free our death-fraught flesh from the bonds of death.
St. Cyril of Alexandria
Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Homily 36.42, p. 153., 5th Century

The virgin's son met the widow's son. He became like a sponge for her tears and as life for the death of her son. Death turned about in its den and turned its back on the victorious one.
St. Ephrem the Syrian
Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron, 6.23. (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. vol. 3: Luke, Intervarsity Press)

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Saints and Feasts

Allsaint
October 09

The Righteous Patriarch Abraham and his nephew Lot

The holy Patriarch Abraham, born a pagan, ten generations after Noah, when the knowledge of God had perished from among men, became the beginning of God's dispensation for the universal renewal and salvation of man. He was called out of his country--the land of the Chaldees, that is, Mesopotamia--to the land of Canaan, and received the promise that through his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed; through his singular faith in the promises of God, he was justified before the giving of the Law and the coming of Grace; through his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, he portrayed the love wherewith God loved the world in sacrificing His only-begotten Son. The greatness of Abraham, and the trials that he and his righteous nephew Lot underwent, are set forth in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, chapters twelve through twenty-five. See also the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, December 11-17.


Allsaint
October 10

Eulampius & Eulampia the Martyrs

The Martyrs Eulampius and Eulampia were from Nicomedia, and contested for Christ during the reign of Maximian, in the year 296.


Philipap
October 11

Philip the Apostle of the 70, one of the 7 Deacons

Saint Philip, who had four daughters that prophesied, was from Caesarea of Palestine. He preached throughout Samaria; it was he also who met the eunuch of Candace, the Queen of the Ethiopians, as the eunuch was reading the Prophet Esaias, and he instructed and baptized him (Acts 8:26-39). He reposed in Tralles of Asia Minor while preaching the Gospel.


Symeonnewspious
October 12

Symeon the New Theologian

Saint Symeon became a monk of the Studite Monastery as a young man, under the guidance of the elder Symeon the Pious. Afterwards he struggled at the Monastery of Saint Mamas in Constantinople, of which he became abbot. After enduring many trials and afflictions in his life of piety, he reposed in 1022. Marvelling at the heights of prayer and holiness to which he attained, and the loftiness of the teachings of his life and writings, the church calls him "the New Theologian." Only to two others, John the Evangelist and Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople, has the church given the name "Theologian." Saint Symeon reposed on March 12, but since this always falls in the Great Fast, his feast is kept today.


Allsaint
October 13

Carpus, Papylus, Agathodorus, & Agathonica, the Martyrs of Pergamus

Saint Carpus was Bishop of the Church of Thyatira in Asia Minor and Papylus was his deacon, whom he had ordained. Seized as Christians and tormented in Thyatira, they were taken to Sardis, whither Agathodorus, their servant, followed them, and also confessed Christ, and was tormented with them. Together with Agathonica, the sister of Saint Papylus. they were all beheaded during the reign of Decius, in the year 250.


Allsaint
October 14

Righteous Paraskeve of Serbia

Saint Paraskeve was born in Thrace in the eleventh century. In her youth she went to Constaninople, and thence journeyed to the Holy Land in pursuit of the ascetical life. After struggling for many years in the wilderness of the Jordan, she was moved by God to return to her homeland. She continued her monastic labours there for a few more years, and then reposed in peace.


Allsaint
October 15

Lucian the Martyr of Antioch

This Saint was from Samosata, the son of pious parents. He established a catechetical school in Antioch, and taught the correct doctrines of the Faith and made clear the parts of the divine Scriptures that were difficult to understand. He edited the Old Testament translation from the Hebrew tongue, and published it in an excellent edition, free from every heretical corruption and interpolation. He travelled to Nicomedia to strengthen the faithful there in their contests for Christ, and was accused before Maximinus, with whom he conversed openly. When he had made a defence of the Christian Faith, he was condemned to imprisonment where, in 311, he died of hunger and thirst.


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