St. George Greek Orthodox Church - Bakersfield, CA : 2022-01-09 Bulletin

Click here to stream our services if you are not able to join us in person.

There are several inserts at the end of this bulletin, please scroll to the end when done reading and look at all the inserts.There is more info on those inserts thruout the bulletin.
If you don't YOU will miss out.
In Christ,
editor, Demetris <-- Click here to send your questions via email to editor@ourparish.us

General Announcements:

State of California has implemented

a 30 day mask mandate.

Masks are required in church,

regardless wether vaccinated or not.

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Here is our schedule for services for the holidays.

Thursday, January 6th: Epiphany services- Orthros 8:30am and Divine Liturgy 9:30am
Sunday January 9th: Orthros 8:30am and Divine Liturgy 9:30am with Vasilopita to follow

Sunday regular schedule will be, Orthros at 8:30am and Divine Liturgy at 9:30am.

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Father Jim and Father Christian will be performing house blessings by appointment only. Should you wish to schedule a house blessing, please contact the church secretary by email or phone to be added to the schedule. Since Father Jim and Father Christian come in town on the weekends, this will be the most convenient time for them to do so; however, weekday availability may arise dependent on their schedules.

Father Jim will be able to hold confessions by appointment only, on the weekends when he arrives in town for service. Should you wish to schedule a confession with Father Jim, please contact the church secretary by phone or email to set up a time and date.

If you may have any questions for Father Jim or Father Christian, please contact the church secretary by email or phone. All messages and requests will be forwarded their way.

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Congratulations to our new elected Parish Council members;
Nikoli Hackleman, Tom Drulias, Christopher Key, and Christopher McNaughton.

January 9th, the priest will do the oath of office for the 2022 board members.

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Annual Vasilopita Breakfast Fundraiser – January 9th

Immediately After Divine Liturgy in the Hellenic Hall

Please mark your calendars to attend this year’s 2022 celebration and help us raise funds for St Basil’s Academy in Garrison N.Y. This beautiful center houses orphans, unwanted children, children from broken homes as well as children that families cannot economically or emotionally provide for – these children are all Orthodox, not necessarily of Greek heritage. This beautiful institution located on the Hudson River is owned and operated by the National Philoptochos Society and this event helps to raise the needed funds to care for the children – please plan on attending!

You may also make donations to this worthwhile cause ahead of time by giving cash to a Philopotochos Board Member, by mailing a check made out to
St George Philoptochos
7727 Davin Park Drive
Bakersfield, 93308
or scanning the code below with your Venmo account or through the church PayPal account on the church website. (see below instructions for PayPal)

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

Donate via Venmo

Scan on your phone or click here
https://venmo.com/u/SGPhiloptochos-Bakersfield

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CROSS ROADS

It's almost here! Your last chance to receive priority consideration and a $50 tuition discount if accepted! All we need are your essays, transcripts, and general info to qualify. Apply at the link below or scan QR code in the flyer, and spread the word!
See flyer at end of this bulletin. You can click on various parts of the flyer to get more info or click HERE to see more.

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Young Adult Winter Retreat

Register today

Click here for more info or to register

See flyer at end of this bulletin

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Get excited, Summer Camp is Back!!

More info in flyer at the end of this bulletin.

Register here

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Youth Group Announcements

We have a volunteer opportunity for our youth ages 15 and up to help out at Hoffman Hospice.
Please contact Joyce Cisneros for more information.

Youth Group is planning to attend a CSUB Men’s Basketball game on December 30th at 7:00 pm.
Tickets are only $6 if we have a group of at least 12. Contact Joyce for more information.

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Sign up to host a Sunday lunch! See sign up list in the hall bulletin board.

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Stewardship

Read November 2021 Stewardship News on our site (click here)

If you have not yet fulfilled your stewardship commitment you can easily give online using your credit card. There are two ways to donate; using your PayPal Account or your Debit/Credit Card:

Using a PayPal account:

Note: If you don’t have a PayPal account you’ll need to open one.

How to open a PayPal account

1.   Click here to create a PayPal account, then come back here when done.
2. Once you create your PayPal account, come back to this page and click on the "Make donation via PayPal" link below.
3. Enter your donation amount.
4.   Log into your PayPal account
5.   Confirm your donation amount
6.   Enter the donation purpose (click on “Please indicate purpose (i.e. Pledge)”)
7.   Click on “Donate $xxUSD Now”

Using a credit card:

1.   Click on the "Make donation via PayPal" link below.
2.   Enter your donation amount.
3.   Complete your credit card information.
4.   Click “Review Donation and Continue”
5.   Enter the ddonation purpose (click on “Please indicate purpose (i.e. Pledge)”)
6.   Click on “Donate $xxUSD now”

For both methods you’ll receive an email confirmation after you donate.

See links below.

Make donation via PayPal <-- Use paypal; (CC or PayPal) to make a donation.

Click here, to download the 2021 Commitment Card.

Please fill it out and return to the church office or mail it, address at bottom of buletin.

Or you may fill it out the form online and sumbit it online. ---> ONLINE FORM

You may also download here the flyer to read all about stewardship according to the Bible.

Stewardship@ourparish.us

Do you shop at Amazon?

Help your parish...

If you DO, you can help your parish by assigning St. George as your charity and Amazon will donate to St. George with each purchase you make at NO cost to you!

Here's how....

Support St. George by using the Amazon Smile program when shopping on Amazon.
You still get the same Amazon selection, and the same Amazon prices.
Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchase price to our parish at ZERO COST TO YOU.

Thank you for your support of our parish!
God Bless you and keep you!

Here's how to shop AmazonSmile:

1. Visit smile.amazon.com

2. Sign in with your Amazon.com credentials

3. Choose a charitable organization to receive donations, or search for the charity of your choice
(if you wish to donate to our parish, search "st george bakersfield" exactly like that without the quotes).

4. Select your charity

4. Start shopping!

5. Add a bookmark for smile.amazon.com to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile.
You MUST shop at smile.amazon.com not the amazon.com, same site, but does not give to St. George, the smile.amazon.com has been setup specificaly for donating to your charity, same site, same selection, same prices.

Sunday School

Sunday School classes are going.
For more info or to register contact Stavro at pa@ourparish.us

Orthodox Catechism/Faith Classes

We have our Catechism/Faith Class every Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm via Zoom. This is led by your Priest, and assisted by Stavros Emery. We spend an hour presenting and discussing different aspects of our beautiful Orthodox Faith, as well as her history and practice. Here you will have the opportunity to meet some of our other inquirers as well.

The Zoom link is below.
My cell phone is (661) 496-5768 should you have any issues with the connection.

Zoom link Wednesdays 7:30 pm

GOYA/Youth group

Youth Program: The Relationship Project for Grades 7-12 AGES 12 - 18. Thank you all who participated in the summer session. Part 3 will resume in the fall/winter. Please contact Joyce Cisneros for more information and make sure she has your contact information as well for possible Youth outings and get-togethers.

TUESDAY BIBLE STUDY

Bible study is back!
Tuesdays at 7:15 PM
Click here to Join Zoom Meeting

"DAILY" BIBLE READING

Monday-Wednesday-Thrursday-Friday at 7pm
Saturday at 4pm

Use the same link as the Bible Study

Parish Council

Next Parish Council meeting is 1/7/22 at 7:00pm at the back office.

Social Media & website

Follow and join us on Facebook

St George Greek Orthodox Church of Bakersfield

St George Christian Outreach Facebook Page

St George Greek Orthodox Church of Bakersfield YouTube channel

Legacy

Leave your mark!
Consider naming St. George Church as a beneficiary on your life insurance policy. It's a great legacy gift to your parish and very easy to do...just ask your provider for the change beneficiary form and complete and return to them. The legal name for the church is Hellenic Community St. George Church Tax ID #95-3575365 God bless you.

Endowment

Click here to read how you can leave a lasting legacy to your parish.
Church Beautification and Capital Improvements. Click here for the 2021 update.

Text Notifications

If you would like to be part of our system, please provide your phone number to the church secreatary at Secretary@ourparish.us.

This service will only be used to notify parishioners of any changes to service times or to provide information on events or occurences that affect the entire parish. We see this as being used infrequently but feel that we need to an effective way to communicate important information quickly.

Father Joseph

If you need to contact Fr. Joseph, you may email him at greekpapa@protonmail.com

If you need to contact Fr. Jim or Fr. Christian you may email them at priest@ourparish.com

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Secretary hours: (subject to change w/o notice)
Tues - Thurs 9-2
Please call the office for updated hours.

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Prayers for Thanksgiving-Healing and Help:

Please add to your daily prayers

Orthodox: Ernie, Bert, George, Abram, Vickie, Elaina, Maher, Nabel, Magdy, Daniel, Natalia and family, Nickolas, Irene, Pamela, Virginia, Paraskevi, Michael, Dimitris Mary, Margarita, Jennifer, Nikolas, Pamela
Non-Orthodox: Judith, Nayeli and David, Peggy

For the rest of the soul of our departed:

Orthodox: Nicolas, Louise, George, George, Sooad, George, Leonid, Nikos, Vivian, John, Mary, Louise, Nektarios, Nicholas, Elephtheria.

From our Pastoral Assistant Stavros

Excerpt from the book "Alexander Schmorell - Saint of the German Resistance" by Elena Perekrestov. . .

Resisting the Dictatorship of Evil: "Our twentieth century," observed Solzhenitsyn in his Nobel Lecture (1970), "has turned out to be more cruel than those preceding it." But, as St. Paul says, "where sin abounded, grace abounded much more." It is not surprising, therefore, that the twentieth century contributed a great multitude of saints to the calendar of the Orthodox Church and that the majority of these saints were martyrs. Among these is a radiant soul whose story is as unique as it is inspiring - St. Alexander of Munich, whose short but vibrant life came to a martyric end in 1943.

The fact that these twentieth-century martyrs lived at a time so close to ours is both a blessing and a challenge. On the one hand, the availability of letters, diaries, reminiscences, and official documents allows us to form a picture of a person's disposition and the circumstances of his or her life and death that is much more detailed and comprehensive than we can reconstruct for saints of earlier ages. On the other hand, we are challenged to come to terms with the fact that these saints are people who were much like ourselves, who lived lives so much like ours, and dressed in the familiar attire of the twentieth century instead of the robes more commonly seen in the saints depicted on our icons.

The perplexity that this evokes in us is echoed by a friend of St. Alexander, who commented on the fact of his glorification by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2012 by saying, "He would have laughed out loud if he'd known. He wasn't a saint - he was just a normal person."

Just a normal person. How is it that this normal, life-loving young man chose to embark on a course of action that he knew would put his life in jeopardy, and then ultimately came to sacrifice his life? What prompted and, more important, what enabled him, together with a group of close friends (the circle of young students at the University of Munich known to the world as the White Rose), to bear witness as profoundly believing Christians to their convictions and culture, which were being systematically and brutally annihilated by the Nazis? What gave Alexander and his friends the strength to exhort their fellow Germans to join them in opposing the Nazi regime, which had opposed itself to the Divine Order, and, in so doing, to be among the first to "make the voice of resistance audible in Hitler's Germany"?

And - can a normal, ordinary person indeed be a saint?

Before attempting to answer these questions, we must first recall the backdrop against which the story of the noble and courageous quest of Alexander Schmorell and his circle of friends unfolded.

With Adolf Hitler's rise to power and subsequent imposition of National Socialism throughout all spheres of life in Germany, some people felt compelled (many of them by their Christian faith) to oppose the incursions into their lives and values of a system that sought to control, dominate, and ultimately destroy everything in which they believed. Germany had become a place where "one could no longer speak as one's heart and mind dictated; in which wrong could no longer be called wrong, falsehood could no longer be called falsehood."

Although resistance to the Nazi regime within Germany was not a mass movement, opponents of National Socialism included people from all walks of life and of different convictions: monarchists, Communists, Protestant and Catholic clergy, farmers, aristocrats, students, and army generals. Resistance was based on political, moral, and religious principles.

For some, opposition meant an inner aversion and rejection of Nazism, which could spill over into overt gestures: using 'Gruss Gott' (may God greet you), the customary south German greeting, instead of the prescribed 'Heil Hitler', or criticism of the Fuhrer voiced within a close circle of friends. Others were moved to express their opposition to the regime in a more consistent and definitive manner. Such resistance ranged from the actions of isolated individuals who defied Nazi laws and policies, and acted according to their consciences instead, to intricate conspiracies such as the unsuccessful coup d'etat and attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, known as Operation Valkyrie.

In both passive and active resistance to Nazism, Christian ideals and idealism played a significant role. In breaking up the structures and sensibilities of old Germany, Hitler and the Nazi Party progressed from covert to overt antagonism to Christianity, using a variety of methods to attack and obliterate it. Far from being purely a political ideology, National Socialism was, in Hitler's own words, "a form of conversion, a new faith." Accordingly, he would stamp out Christianity in Germany, because "one is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both."

Measures to subordinate and then eradicate Christianity included the closure of monasteries, convents, and religious schools; prohibitions against pilgrimages and religious processions; hate and slur campaigns against clergymen; arrests, incarceration, and execution of religious opponents of the regime; along with attempts to bring the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church under the authority and influence of the state and to institute a Nazi-controlled Protestant state-church, known colloquially as the Reich Church. ...

.. Gaining control over the minds of the rising generation was critical; thus, the Nazis made sure that political indoctrination started at an early age. To this end, religious (predominantly Catholic) youth groups and organizations were dissolved and mandatory participation in the Hitler Youth was instituted. Meetings of the Hitler Youth were conducted on Sunday mornings, and included the singing of blasphemous songs. Initiation ceremonies into the organization were scheduled at Whitsun to conflict with Catholic confirmation services.

In opposition to Hitler's Reich Church, a church structure known as the Confessing Church arose within the ranks of Protestant clergy and lay people. Well-known members of the Confessing Church were Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When in 1934 a statement was read from the Confessing Church pulpits declaring that the church owed its allegiance not to a worldly leader (Fuhrer), but to God and the Scripture, the Nazis retaliated with arrests and incarcerations.

On Palm Sunday 1937, the priests of all Catholic parishes in Germany read the papal encyclical 'Mit brennender Sorge' (With burning concern). It had been smuggled into Germany and printed clandestinely by Catholic presses. In this encyclical, Pope Pius XI expressed his condemnation of the Nazi's racial doctrines, neopaganism, idolatrous cult of state, and blasphemous attitude toward the Old Testament. Reprisals were immediate: trials of Catholic clergy on trumped-up charges of immorality were held, and Catholic printing presses and diocesan publications were shut down.

It wasn't only members of the clergy who recognized the Nazi regime as a manifestation of evil. Many of those who resisted the Nazis or plotted against Hitler and sought to overthrow him did so because they felt that he was destoying Germany morally and spiritually.

Count Helmuth James von Moltke, an officer in the 'Abwehr' (German military intelligence service) wrote in 1942: "An active part of the German people are beginning to realize, not that they have been led astray, not that bad times await them, not that the war may end in defeat, but that what is happening is sin and that they are personally responsible for each terrible deed that has been committed - naturally, not in an earthly sense, but as Christians."

Von Moltke was a member of the clandestine Kreisau Circle, a group of intellectuals who gathered to discuss preparations for the rebirth and restructuring of Germany based on Christian ideals after the downfall of Hitler and National Socialism, which they perceived to be inevitable. This restoration would rectify not only the physical, social, and political devastation of Germany but also the damage that had been inflicted upon the souls, minds, and hearts of the German people. Accused of treason, von Moltke and other members of his circle were arrested and executed.

Among the youth of Germany, a number of groups arose that expressed their opposition to the Third Reich. .. The Gestapo cracked down on these groups and hundreds were sent to jail or juvenile concentration camps. Some of the more militant resisters paid for their opposition with their lives.

A group of friends, students at the University of Munich, were impelled by their high ideals and Christian consciences to pit themselves against the tyranny of National Socialism. They felt that, by seeking to dominate the entire person through coercion and terror, National Socialism was robbing Germany of its spiritual freedom. Moreover, it grieved them to see that the Third Reich was sacrificing thousands of lives in a senseless war. Calling themselves the White Rose, the students clandestinely wrote and, in the face of terrible danger, distributed throughout several cities six bold and eloquent leaflets exhorting Germans to abandon their apathy, to offer resistance to the insidious oppression of Hitler's regime, and, in so doing, to "fulfill their responsibility as members of Christian and Western civilization." Together with one of their professors, five students, ranging in age from twenty-one to twenty-five years old, were sentenced to death and executed by guillotine in 1943. Among them was a young man of the Russian Orthodox faith, Alexander Schmorell, who was glorified among the saints as a martyr in 2012 by the Russian Orthodox Church."

PROSPHORO OFFERING

Elaine: 1/2, 2/6, 3/13, 4/17, 5/22, 6/26, 7/31, 9/4, 10/9, 11/13, 12/18

Joyce: 1/9, 2/13, 3/20, 4/24, 5/29, 7/3, 8/7, 9/11, 10/16, 11/20, 12/25

Mary: 1/16, 2/20, 3/27, 5/1, 6/5, 7/10, 8/14, 9/18, 10/23, 11/27

Basema: 1/23, 2/27, 4/3, 5/8, 6/12, 7/17, 8/21, 9/25, 10/30, 12/4

Olympia: 1/30, 3/6, 4/10, 5/15, 6/19, 7/24, 8/28, 10/2, 11/6, 12/11

Thank you!

Father Jim would like the Prosphoro brought to the church Sunday morning between 7:30 AM
and no later than 8:30 AM.
We are looking for more people to make the blessed bread.
Please approach Father if interested.
If you want to learn more about how to make Prosphora, you can visit our Prosphoro site
Thank you.

JANUARY

ANNIVERSARIES

1/9 Tom & Elaine Dorlis

BIRTHDAYS

1/2 Melena Cain
1/3 Hesham Ayoub
1/3 Athina Kinsley
1/6 Cathleen Budy
1/9 Chris McNaughton
1/11 Alexandra Valos
1/14 Angela Becerra
1/16 Fentanesh Birehanu
1/16 Pamela Yanney
1/18 Achilles Canellis
1/21 Matt Jennings
1/24 Chuy Cisneros
1/24 Sofia Asmerom
1/25 Joseph Chaffee

If your Anniversary or Birthday is not listed and would like to be added or if it's incorrect, please contact Presbytera directly or send her an email at secretary@ourparish.us

PLEASE NOTE: All bulletin announcements must be received each week by 6:00 pm Wednesday to be included in the Sunday bulletin for that week.

A note from the publisher:

PLEASE READ CONTENT AFTER THE CALENDAR, THERE IS MORE, there are inserts of interest!

If you have ANY kind of a challenge reading this bulletin or ANY part of it, like unable to or know how to open various inserts at the end of the bulletin, PLEASE contact me at editor@ourparish.us
I'll be happy to help you! And any suggestions for improvement are welcome!

Please send email with your request or suggestion to editor@ourparish.us

General Information

Contact Information

Services Schedule

Past Bulletins

St. George News and Events

Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Gospel Reading

Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone

Apolytikion for Theophany Afterfeast in the First Tone

Seasonal Kontakion in the Fourth Tone

Calendar

St. George Greek Orthodox Church Calendar

January 9 to January 23, 2022

Inserts

Cross Roads

Young Adult Winter Retreat

Summer Camp is Back