• This Week's Children's Word from OCN

Our PTO will host a a buffet luncheon in your honor.

The Phillies Hellenic Heritage Night is on June 6!

When you use this LINK to purchase your tickets, part of the proceeds will benefit our GOYA.
EVERYONE is welcome!

Annunciation GOYA would like to thank everyone who donated to our Agios Stylianos diaper project! Here is the final count for the Philadelphia Diaper Bank:

• Diapers (various sizes) 1410
• Wipes 3212
• Adult Diapers 105

Your generous donations will help many individuals.

God bless you!

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is deeply committed to protecting its children and youth. Those who work with our young people are accountable to God and the community to ensure their safety, well-being, and spiritual formation. As a Church, we must provide a safe and secure environment where young people can grow and mature in the Faith.

At Annunciation Church, we believe that children and youth should be safe at every youth ministry program or event. To this end, we require all of our Staff and Volunteers who come in contact with our children to register and follow the instructions here: Annunciation/Evangelismos Church Youth Worker Registration

2022 Annual Report (10) (fliphtml5.com)

• Monday, May 15: Metropolis Clergy-Laity Assembly at The Venetian, Garfield, NJ.
• May 19-20: Spring OPA Greek Food Festival.
• Ascension Thursday, May 25: Young at Heart get-together after the liturgy.
• All-Saints Sunday, June 11: Graduation Sunday.
• Saturday, September 23: Day Trip to St Nicholas Shrine at the World Trade Center.

Ladies Philoptochos "Nausica" Chapter Board Elections

Elections for the 2023-2025 Board of Directors will take place on Sunday, May 21, 2023, following the Divine Liturgy in the conference room. Please see the official elections notice here.

All eligible Philoptochos members in good standing are invited to vote in this election. 

If you have not completed your membership for 2023 please consider doing so in advance of the election.

The church teaches us that those who have fallen asleep are not dead but still alive in Christ Jesus! In its very essence, prayer for the dead is a proclamation of the Resurrection of Christ. This is a central reoccurring theme for the Saturday of the Souls. Therefore, it is imperative for us, the living, to remember our loved ones who have passed on and pray that the Lord accepts them into His heavenly kingdom.

Please submit here by 3 pm Friday 6/2/23 the names of your loved departed ones to be commemorated.

If you submit your names electronically, you don't have to re-submit them in writing when you attend liturgy in person. 

Matins begin at 8:30 am, and we kindly ask you to bring your koliva (memorial wheat) and printed names to church no later than 9 am on Saturday. Ushers on duty will be here to assist you. We will share a coffee fellowship hour after the liturgy.

Fr. John will visit Lawnview Cemetery and Whitemarsh Memorial Park afterward to offer graveside Trisagion prayers for those who are resting there.

In the Book of Acts, we find Peter embracing his role as a leader of the newborn Church.  he exhorts the crowd, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” We then read that the ones who accepted his message were baptized that day. Peter simply proposed the Good News to them and then left them free to accept or reject the call to repentance and belief in Christ, which is ultimately a call from God.

We can find many parallels in this passage to the call to a stewardship way of life. We, too, are free to accept or reject God’s call to discipleship. We can keep our time, talents, and treasure for ourselves purely to serve our interests. We are free to make that choice.

Or we can embrace the call to discipleship through the stewardship way of life. If we do so, we will find a path to freedom from “this corrupt generation,” just as those first disciples found in the early days of the Church.

In 1 Peter again, St. Peter offers further motivation for embracing this way of life. Peter reminds us that Christ, “bore our sins in his body upon the cross.” And that “by his wounds, you have been healed. For [we] had gone astray like sheep but… have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of [our] souls.” Such an incredibly poignant description of our Savior’s love for us and the kind of relationship He desires to have with us — as shepherd and guardian of our souls.

This endearing image of Jesus as a shepherd, and His personal love for each one of us, is expanded in our Gospel passage from John through the words of Jesus Himself. Here we read Jesus’ description of Himself as the “Good Shepherd.” He says of Himself, “The sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.”

This aspect of our Lord’s tender and personal love for each one of us is yet another reason to embrace the stewardship way of life — in the offering of our time, talent, and treasure to Him, we can express our gratitude to Him for the incomprehensible love He has for us.

Embracing the stewardship way of life certainly requires trust on our part. But Christ has proven Himself worthy of our trust. He “bore our sins in His body.” He calls Himself our shepherd and offers Himself as the guardian of our souls. He has withheld nothing of Himself and His goodness from us. He would never ask anything of us that would bring us harm.

On the contrary, our Lord did not come to take from us but to give to us. Again, we read His own words from the Gospel passage, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

This Pascha season, let us resolve to freely give all of ourselves and our lives gratefully to Him.

Christos Anesti!

Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis - Ph.D., graduated from the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law at the University of Florida in 2022.

Yiorgo will visit eastern Pennsylvania between May 10 and 19 to interview descendants of immigrants from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, Imbros, Tenedos, and the Islands in the Sea of Marmara.

Yiorgo will collect information regarding immigration and settlement of immigrants from the late Ottoman Empire to eastern Pennsylvania between 1900 and 1940. He is personally invested in this research because he is the descendant of refugees from the region of northern Asia Minor (Pontus).

If you or anyone you know is from the aforementioned regions and is interested in being interviewed, please contact Yiorgo directly at 727-207-0623 or ytopalidis@ufl.edu.

AHEPA District Convention June 2nd – 4th at the Valley Forge Casino Resort

• Προγράμματα e-learning του Εθνικού Καποδιστριακού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών
• Distance Education Programme (E-Learning) of the Center of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning of the Univercity of Athens