Please see our online calendar for dates and times of Feast Day services.
Jesus Christ taught us to love and serve all people, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. To understand that, we need to look no further than to the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, it is offered "on behalf of all, and for all." As Orthodox Christians we stand against racism and bigotry. All human beings share one common identity as children of God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatian 3:28)
Weekly Services
Tuesdays at 8:30a - Daily Matins
Wednesdays at 6:00p - General Confession; First Wed of the Month
(The Church is open at 4:30p for "Open Doors" - during fasting seasons or by appointment).
Thursday at 8:30a - Daily Matins
Saturday at 5:30p - Great Vespers
Sunday at 9:30a - Divine Liturgy
Members of our Parish Council are:
Joseph Barbera - Council Member Elect
Dori Kuziak - Council Member Elect
Natalie Kucharski - Council Treasurer
Glenn PenkoffLidbeck - Council Secretary
Kyle Hollis - Member at Large
Roderick Seurattan - Member at Large
Pastoral Care - General Information
Emergency Sick Calls can be made at any time. Please call Fr Steven at (860) 866-5802, when a family member is admitted to the hospital.
Anointing in Sickness: The Sacrament of Unction is available in Church, the hospital, or your home, for anyone who is sick and suffering, however severe.
Marriages and Baptisms require early planning, scheduling and selections of sponsors (crown bearers or godparents). See Father before booking dates and reception halls!
Funerals are celebrated for practicing Orthodox Christians. Please see Father for details. The Church opposes cremation; we cannot celebrate funerals for cremations.
Please see the accomanying attachment for information about our Nativity outreach.
William, Sophia, Robert, Ann, Evelyn, Nina, John, Alex, Vincent, James, Luke, Aaron, Kathryn, Veronica, Richard, Darlyne, Irene, Nancy, Susanne
All of our College Students: Alex, Sam, Nadia, Isaac, Jack and Matthew.
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Many Years! For Dori Kuziak on the occasion of her birthday; to Anne Hosking, Ann Pavlik and Marlene Melesko on the occasion of their Name's Day.
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Pray for: All those confined to hospitals, nursing homes, and their own homes due to illness; for all those who serve in the armed forces; widows, orphans, prisoners, victims of violence, and refugees;
All those suffering chronic illness, financial hardship, loneliness, addictions, abuse, abandonment and despair; those who are homeless, those who are institutionalize, those who have no one to pray for them;
All Orthodox seminarians & families; all Orthodox monks and nuns, and all those considering monastic life; all Orthodox missionaries and their families.
All those who have perished due to hatred and intolerance and all those departed this life in the hope of the Resurrection.
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Today we commemorate:
Ven. Patapius of Thebes (8th c.). Ven. Kirill, Abbot of Chelmogorsk (1378). Holy Apostles of the Seventy: Sosthenes, Apollos, Cephas, Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Cæsar, and Onesiphorus (1st c.). Holy 362 Martyrs of Africa, martyred by the Arians (477). Martyr Anthusa, at Rome (5th c.)..
Fellowship and Stewardship Ministry
10th Sunday of Luke
9:15AM Reading of the 3rd Hour
9:30AM Divine Liturgy
The Conception by St. Anna of the Most Holy Theotokos
The Holy Martyrs Menas, Hermogenes, and Eugraphus
Dori Kuziak - B
8:30AM Matins
9:00AM Bible Study
Daniel the Stylite of Constantinople
4:30PM Open Doors
Spyridon the Wonderworker of Trymithous
8:30AM Matins
7:00PM Bible Study
Herman the Wonderworker of Alaska & First Saint of America
Repose of St. Herman of Alaska
8:30AM Akathist to St Herman
The Holy Martyrs Thyrsus, Leucius, and Callinicus of Asia Minor, and Philemon, Apollonius, and Arian of Alexandria
5:30PM Great Vespers
11th Sunday of Luke
Evangelism and Outreach Ministry meeting
9:15AM Reading of the 3rd Hour
9:30AM Divine Liturgy
The Holy Prophet Aggaeus (Haggai)
This Saint was from the Thebaid of Egypt and struggled many years in the wilderness. He departed for Constantinople, and having performed many miracles and healings, he reposed in peace in a mountain cave on the Gulf of Corinth, where his holy relics are found incorrupt to the present day.
According to the ancient tradition of the Church, since Saint Anna, the Ancestor of God, was barren, she and her husband Joachim remained without children until old age. Therefore, sorrowing over their childlessness, they besought God with a promise that, if He were to grant them the fruit of the womb, they would offer their offspring to Him as a gift. And God, hearkening to their supplication, informed them through an Angel concerning the birth of the Virgin. And thus, through God's promise, Anna conceived according to the laws of nature, and was deemed worthy to become the mother of the Mother of our Lord (see also Sept. 8).
Saint Herman (his name is a variant of Germanus) was born near Moscow in 1756. In his youth he became a monk, first at the Saint Sergius Hermitage near Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland; while he dwelt there, the most holy Mother of God appeared to him, healing him of a grave malady. Afterwards he entered Valaam Monastery on Valiant Island in Lake Ladoga; he often withdrew into the wilderness to pray for days at a time. In 1794, answering a call for missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Aleuts, he came to the New World with the first Orthodox mission to Alaska. He settled on Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam, and here he persevered, even in the face of many grievous afflictions mostly at the hands of his own countrymen in the loving service of God and of his neighbour. Besides his many toils for the sake of the Aleuts, he subdued his flesh with great asceticism, wearing chains, sleeping little, fasting and praying much. He brought many people to Christ by the example of his life, his teaching, and his kindness and sanctity, and was granted the grace of working miracles and of prophetic insight. Since he was not a priest, Angels descended at Theophany to bless the waters in the bay; Saint Herman used this holy water to heal the sick. Because of his unwearying missionary labours, which were crowned by God with the salvation of countless souls, he is called the Enlightener of the Aleuts, and has likewise been renowned as a wonderworker since his repose in 1837.
Tone 8 Troparion (Resurrection)
You descended from on high, O Merciful One!
You accepted the three day burial to free us from our sufferings!//
O Lord, our Life and Resurrection, glory to You!
Tone 8 Troparion (Venerable Patapius of Thebes)
The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Father,
for you took up the Cross and followed Christ.
By so doing you taught us to disregard the flesh for it passes away
but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal.
Therefore your spirit, venerable Patapius, rejoices with the Angels.
Tone 8 Kontakion (Resurrection)
By rising from the tomb, You raised the dead and resurrected Adam.
Eve exults in Your Resurrection,
and the world celebrates Your rising from the dead, O greatly Merciful One!
Tone 3 Kontakion (Venerable Patapius of Thebes)
Your temple is found to be a source of healing,
and the people flock to it eagerly, O saint.
They seek the healing of their diseases
and the forgiveness of their sins,
for you are a protector for all those in need, ven’rable Patápius.
Prokeimenon. 8th Tone. Psalm 75.11,1.
Make your vows to the Lord our God and perform them.
Verse: God is known in Judah; his name is great in Israel.
The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 4:1-7.
Brethren, I, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Attitude of Gratitude
“Where are the nine?...Where are the nine?” This is what Jesus says (v.17) after He heals the ten lepers in today’s Gospel from the Twelfth Sunday of Luke (17:12-19). He says this because only one of the ten returned to Jesus, glorified Him and gave Him thanks (v.15-16). And that one leper was not even a Jew, He was a Samaritan (v.16), a foreigner (v.18). Now some people today might say Jesus should have been nicer and thanked the one leper for returning to Him instead of focusing on the nine who did not. But Jesus did not do this. “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” (v.17) He says, and further emphasizes the point by adding, “Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” (v.18).
The lesson of course is the importance of thanksgiving, being thankful, having an attitude of gratitude. Jesus Himself sets the example when He feeds the 5,000 in the wilderness. 36And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke themand gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude. (Matthew 15:36; Mark 8:6; John 6:11). This event was a prefiguring of the Eucharistic/Last Supper when Jesus did the same thing, 26And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." 27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. (Matthew 26:26-27; Mark 14:3). The word Eucharist comes from the Greek “eucharistia” which literally means ‘thanksgiving.’ Thus, what’s the most profound way we say ‘thanks’ to God? It is by humbly preparing for, the receiving of, and responding to the reception of the Body and Blood of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, many of us do not prepare properly, do not receive frequently, and do not respond appropriately to the receiving of Holy Communion. “Where are the nine?!”
Jesus is not the first person to give thanks to God. He comes in a long line of faithful figures from the Old Testament who were blessed and healed by God and remembered to give Him thanks. King David, the author of the Psalms, started many of them with an expression of thanksgiving. The Church lifts up the Book of Psalms for us as our official prayerbook. And King David shows us the importance of giving thanks to God before asking anything of Him in prayer. Long before King David, after God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He gave them the Law through Moses. And in that Law were instructions for how to worship God. And part of that worship was sacrifices and some were offerings of thanksgiving to God. God made us, He knows how we work and He knows that by being thankful, we work better. Even modern research studies show that people of faith are more thankful and that those who are thankful are more happy and generous.
However, because we live in a fallen world in which are humanity is corrupted by sin, thanksgiving does not come naturally. It is not automatic. It is, like many good, holy and righteous things—a habit—a way of thinking and behaving that must be cultivated and exercised in order to flourish and grow. Instead of cultivating thanks, we often to the exact opposite by wining and complaining. How many of us even bother to take the time to count our blessings? And if we do not, how will we know how blessed we truly are. And if we don’t think we are blessed then we’ll always walk around with a sense of entitlement, like somebody always owes us something.
In the Anaphora Prayer of the Divine Liturgy leading up to the consecration of the Holy Gifts, the priest prays on behalf of the faithful: For all these things we thank You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit; for all things that we know and do not know, for blessings seen and unseen that have been bestowed upon us. Yet, what do we do? When God showers us with blessings, we seldom look up to Him and say, “Why me, Lord?” But when a stone falls on our life, we always look up and complain, “Why me, Lord?” “Where are the nine?”
We don’t think of it often this way, but ingratitude is sinful. It causes us to miss the mark, to fall away from God, not closer to Him. When we had our thirty-year high school reunion a couple summers ago, we invited all of our former teachers. One of the reasons we did that was because we the students had never bothered to thank those teachers for putting up with us and helping us learn and grow. It took us thirty years to properly say thank you. Having just past through Thanksgiving and Christmas, how many of us have taken the time to write thank you notes for the gifts we received? “Where are the nine?”
http://www.stgeorgegoc.org/pastors-corner/fr-ricks-sermons/attitude-of-gratitude
Information about our Nativity Outreach