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)

Members of our Parish Council are:
Greg Jankura - Vice President
Susan Davis- Council Member at Large
Carolyn Neiss - President
Marlene Melesko - Council Member at Large
Susan Egan - Treasurer
Dn Timothy Skuby - Secretary

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.

Many Years Gail Kuziak on the occasion of her birthday; and to Natalie Kurcharski on the occasion of her Name's Day.

Please continue to pray for our catecumens, David, James and Anthony (and his family).

• 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, intolerance and pestilence; all those departed this life in the hope of the Resurrection.

Afterfeast of the Theophany. Sunday after Theophany. Ven. George the Chozebite, Abbot (6th c.). Ven. Domnica of Constantinople (474). St. Emilian the Confessor, Bishop of Cyzicus (9th c.). Ven. Gregory, Wonderworker of the Kiev Caves (Near Caves—1093). Ven. Gregory the Recluse, of the Kiev Caves (Far Caves—13th-14th c.). Hieromartyr Isidore and 72 others at Yuriev (Estonia—1472). St. Paisius of Uglich (1504). Hieromartyr Carterius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (304). Martyrs Theophilus the Deacon, and Helladius, in Libya (4th c.). Martyrs Julian and his wife, Basilissa, and with them Marcionilla, her son Celsus, Anthony, Anastasius, 7 children and 20 soldiers, at Antinoë in Egypt (313). Ven. Elias the Hermit, of Egypt (4th c.). Martyr Abo the Perfumer, of Tiflis (Georgia—790).

Tone 5 Troparion (Resurrection)

Let us, the faithful, praise and worship the Word,
co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit,
born for our salvation from the Virgin;
for He willed to be lifted up on the Cross in the flesh,
to endure death,
and to raise the dead//
by His glorious Resurrection.

Tone 1 Troparion (Feast)

When You, O Lord, were baptized in the Jordan,
the worship of the Trinity was made manifest.
For the voice of the Father bore witness to You,
and called You His beloved Son;
and the Spirit in the form of a dove
confirmed the truthfulness of His word.
O Christ our God, You have revealed Yourself//
and have enlightened the world, glory to You.

Tone 5 Kontakion (Resurrection)

You descended into hell, O my Savior,
shattering its gates as Almighty,
resurrecting the dead as Creator,
and destroying the sting of death.
You have delivered Adam from the curse, O Lover of man,//
and we cry to You: “O Lord, save us!”

Tone 4 Kontakion (St. George)

You have appeared as a brilliant light
and have illumined with divine rays those who cry to you, O George.
Pray for us to Christ the Master,
Who appeared in the waters//
to illumine those born on earth!

Tone 4 Kontakion (Feast)

Today You have shone forth to the world, O Lord,
and the light of Your countenance has been marked on us.
Knowing You, we sing Your praises:
“You have come and revealed Yourself,//
O unapproachable Light.”

(Instead of “It is truly meet…,” we sing:)

Magnify, O my soul, the most pure Virgin Theotokos,
more honorable than the heavenly hosts!

No tongue knows how to praise you worthily, O Theotokos;
even angels are overcome with awe praising you.
But since you are good, accept our faith;
for you know our love inspired by God!
You are the defender of Christians, and we magnify you.

Communion Hymn

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest! (Ps. 148:1)
The grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men. (Titus 2:11)
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
BAPTISM OF CHRIST
18 January 1979

In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
When a human enters into the world, he enters from nowhere, of total, radical absence enters through the gates of time in order to grow into eternity. He enters an ephemeral world in order to become citizen of God’s Kingdom. When Christ was born, the Eternal entered into the narrow limits of time; He Who was immensity itself was limited by space and became a man in the flesh although the fullness of the Godhead abided, dwelt in this human frame. He entered into a world of sin in order to overcome sin, and in a world of suffering to endure it all together with us.
But on the day of His Incarnation God delivered unto us in the frailty of the child of Bethlehem the fullness of His love, and love is always defenseless and frail, abandoned and surrendered. It was an act of God by which He gave Himself to us and in which the humanity of the Incarnate Son of God was helplessly delivered into the history of mankind.
When we are baptised, we are plugged into waters that cleanse us from sin. When Christ came unto Jordan, He came sinless, but this time in the maturity of manhood, at a point at which His human will, identified with the will of God, made Him a self-offering; He brought Himself there to begin, to start the way to the Cross. Thousands were baptised in the Jordan, and each of them proclaimed his sins and these waters of Jordan were heavy with the murderous sins of men. Christ had no sin to proclaim and to confess, and when He entered into these waters of Jordan, He entered, to use an image of a contemporary divine, as one plunges, walks into a dye — He was dyed with the darkness of our sins. He came out of it carrying all the sins of the world. He came out of the waters of Jordan loaded with the condemnations that lay upon the world. And this is the time when He begins His ascent to the Cross.
We are now keeping the feast of the Baptism of Christ, a dread event, an event that should keep us spellbound, in awe: Him Who is pure shares the impurity of human sin so that He may save us. We will bless the waters, the natural waters that surround us. Let us pray the Lord to send upon these waters grace and blessing for them to become pure and holy, endowed with the power to cleanse and to renew, to make us and all the objects and all the places where they will be sprinkled, partakers of this purity of the waters of Jordan which had touched the holy and pure body of the Incarnation, of The One Who had taken upon Himself all the evil of world. Let us pray that the grace of the Spirit of God may come upon these waters and that they may be truly blessing and salvation by the power of Christ, by the power and dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Begin Everything with Prayer
Since we are reminded in Scripture to begin whatever we do with prayer, it has been the practice of Orthodox Christians for centuries to have new dwellings blessed either before or just after settling in. This has been extended to one’s business or office, and even college dorm rooms. “The service performed by the priest to bless the new dwelling is somewhat similar to the consecration of a church [in the Russian practice] in that holy water, holy oil, and incense are used and a lesson from the holy Gospel is read. All the rooms of the house are sprinkled with holy water and each of the four outer walls are anointed with the sign of the Cross with holy oil, a candle placed before them, and after the censing of the house, the lesson from the Holy Gospel is read [in Greek practice the service of the Small Blessing of Waters is generally done]. At the conclusion of the blessing, the inhabitants are blessed with holy water: the husband first, followed by the wife and then the children – the oldest first. Relatives and friends present are then blessed.” (Marriage and the Christian Home, by Rev. Michael B. Henning, p.24.)

Back to “The Fall”
From Scripture we know that whatever God created was good, but with “the Fall”, evil entered the world, corrupting the creation. God the Father sent His Son Jesus to save it by effecting a “new creation”. This is celebrated at Theophany, specifically with the Great Blessing of Water. “The consecration of the waters on this feast places the entire world – through its ‘prime element’ of water – in the perspective of the cosmic creation, sanctification, and glorification of the Kingdom of God in Christ and the Spirit.” (The Orthodox Faith, Vol. II, Worship, by Fr. Thomas Hopko, p.127.) All the readings, hymns, prayers, and actions of the day speak of God’s presence in our entire world and universe, His creation.
Through water all of the creation is once again sanctified by God, becoming good again, the way God had intended.

The Feast Of Theophany
The Feast of Theophany (or Epiphany) commemorates the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. We know from the troparion of the day that “the Trinity was made manifest” to us. But there’s more to it than this. “When Jesus descends into the depths of the river, there occurs a profound upheaval. It is not the one baptized who is purified, for he is spotless; but it is the water that is transfigured and illumined. This water, which was believed to be transparent and purifying, is in fact polluted, inhabited by evil spirits, servants of the old gods. ... By purifying the elements, by sanctifying matter, Jesus frees the cosmos from the powers of evil.” (The Incarnate God, Vol. I, Catherine Aslanoff, French edition editor, translated by Paul Meyendorff, p.163.)

The Great Blessing of Water and the Home
The Great Blessing of Water takes place at the end of that day’s Liturgy. Since our homes cannot be brought to the Church, the Church – through the priest and cantor – go to the homes. There the service of blessing, which began in the church, is finished with the sprinkling of water in the home. Traditionally, in most Orthodox parishes, the priest personally visits all his parishioners each year to pray with them in the place where they live, and to bless their surroundings with the newly sanctified water of Theophany (January 6/13). By sanctifying our living quarters, our private place, we extend the grace of God to our individual dwellings. (In very large parishes a yearly visit may not be possible. In areas of the country where the winter is harsh, I know of at least one parish where houses are blessed at the beginning of the ecclesiastical year in September.) We also bring the blessed water to our homes to use throughout the year to bless our homes and to drink whether we are ill or as part of our daily prayer life. “There are many occasions in family life when a sip of holy water can help to remind us of the blessing that was given ‘to bestow sanctification’, ‘unto healing of soul and body’, ‘to be a fountain welling forth unto life eternal’, as the priest prayed in the litany of Epiphany day.” (Little Falcons: Water, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1998, p.33.)

Weaving Christ into Our Lives
The blessing of homes by these holy waters maintains the spiritual association between the ‘family church’ and the parish, as well as again providing for the sharing of God’s spiritual gifts. ... This annual blessing is not as elaborate as the blessing of the new dwelling, but because of this it should not be overlooked, for it is in this way that the grace of God is extended to individual dwellings.” (Marriage and the Christian Home, p.25.) If the priest comes to bless the home when the children are present, they have the opportunity to see the parish priest in a different and personal situation. If the priest permits, they can lead the way through the house, or hold a candle. They can show him their rooms or pets or favorite toys. They receive a blessing with water. For children, the house blessing shows the connection of the Church to the home.

In Summary
What does it mean to ask God to bless something? All things in the world have beenspoiled right along with us. God must bless His world again in order for it to be the way that He wants it to be. For this reason God sent His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the world: to bless everyone and everything that He made, to make all things good again. When the priest comes to bless our homes, he asks God to have mercy on the house, to rid it of every evil and to fill it with every blessing. What a wonderful way to begin the New Year!

Useful Resources and References

Parish Shared Folder (for all documents, bulletins etc) - http://bit.ly/St-Alexis

The QR Code here may be used as well.

Parish Web Site - http://www.stalexischurch.org ; calendar (https://bit.ly/StA-Calendar)

Facebook - @stalexisorthodox

Youtube Channel - https://bit.ly/StA_Youtube

Join Zoom Meeting

https://bit.ly/StA-Zoom

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Troparion to St Alexis

O righteous Father Alexis, / our heavenly intercessor and teacher, / divine adornment of the Church of Christ! / Entreat the Master of All / to strengthen the Orthodox Faith in America, / to grant peace to the world / and to our souls, great mercy!

Troparion to St Herman

O blessed Father Herman of Alaska, / north star of Christ’s holy Church, / the light of your holy life and great deeds / guides those who follow the Orthodox way. / Together we lift high the Holy Cross / you planted firmly in America. / Let all behold and glorify Jesus Christ, / singing his holy Resurrection.

Troparion to St Elizabeth

Emulating the Lord’s self-abasement on the earth, / you gave up royal mansions to serve the poor and disdained, / overflowing with compassion for the suffering. / And taking up a martyr’s cross, / in your meekness / you perfected the Saviour’s image within yourself, / therefore, with Barbara, entreat Him to save us all, O wise Elizabeth.