On Monday May 3, 2010 our Holy Orthodox Church remembers St. Nicholas of Ochrid and Zhicha.

Golden-mouthed preacher of the Resurrected Christ,guide of the cross-bearing Serbian people through the ages, resonant lyre of the Holy Spirit, joy and glory of priests, teacher of repentance, Bishop of the whole nation, leader of the God-praying army of Christ, O Holy Nicholai of Serbia and all Orthodoxy; with the saints in Heavenly Serbia, pray the Only Lover of mankind to grant peace and unity to our people.

On its afternoon session of April 29 of this year, the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church unanimously adopted recommendations of the competent diocesan bishops and entered into dyptichs of the saints of the Orthodox Church names of the blessed repose of archimandrite Justin Popovic, geront of the monastery Celije near Valjevo (1894-1979), from now  Venerable Justin of Celije, and Simeon Popovic , prior of the monastery Dajbabe near Podgorica (1854-1941), from now Venerable Simeon of Dajbabe.

Liturgical memory of Venerable Justin will be celebrated on June 1, according to the Julian calendar (June 14, according to the Gregorian calendar), a memory of Venerable Simeon will be celebrated on March 19 according to the Julian calendar (April 1, after the Gregorian calendar).

We are bringing you an online edition of our Parish Herald. You can still get your printed copy in our Church.

[Acts 6:1–7; Mark 15:43–16:8]

The tireless women! They would not give sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids (cf. Ps. 132) until they found their Beloved! But the men as if dragged their feet: they went to the tomb, saw it empty, and remained in confusion about what it could mean because they did not see Him. But does this mean that they had less love than the women? No, here was a reasoning love which feared making a mistake due to the high price of this love and its object. When they too saw and touched Him, then each of them, not with his tongue, like Thomas, but with his heart confessed: my Lord and my God (John 20:28), and already nothing could separate them from the Lord. The myrrh-bearers and the Apostles are an image of the two sides of our life: feeling and reasoning. Without feeling life is not life; without reasoning life is blind, offers little sound fruit and much is wasted. We must combine both. Let feeling go forward and arouse; let reason determine the time, place, method and generally the practical arrangement of what the heart suggests for us to do. Within, the heart comes first, but in practical application, reason comes first. When the feelings become educated in discerning good and evil, then perhaps it will be possible to rely on the heart alone. Just as shoots, flowers and fruits grow naturally from a living tree, so does goodness alone emerge from the heart, rationally mingling into the course our life.

(source: Thoughts for Each Day of the Year according to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God by St. Theophan the Recluse)

• Thursday April 1, 2010 – Great Thursday – Divine Liturgy at  10 am
• Thursday April 1, 2010 – Great Thursday – Passions of Christ at 6 pm
• Friday April 2, 2010 – Great Friday – Vespers – Procession of the Holy Shroud at 6 pm
• Saturday April 3, 2010 – Great Saturday – Divine Liturgy at 10 am
• Saturday April 3, 2010 – Great Saturday – Midnight service at midnight
• Sunday April 4, 2010 –  RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST – PASCHA – Divine Liturgy at 10 am. After the service will be served holiday dinner

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up!” (Jn. 2:19)
Thus says the Lord to those who turned the temple into a place of business and he drove them out!

For the God’s Church is a holy place, and not a place for commerce nor “business”, which is
unfortunatly, often ascribed to the Church. Our great Ivo Andric said: “People are not as bad as bad people think they are”.The bad see everything as bad.

The Lord Jesus Christ founded His Church in three days of suffering and pain on the Cross, and by his glorious Resurrection. This is a lesson for us from the Creator Himself for suffering and misfortune awaits us. ” In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” For this reason we pray for peace in the whole world and for the protection of God’s holy churches, and the stability of God’s holy churches and the union of all”.

It is for us to do, but it is for God to perform miracles. We must abide by what Church has prescribed and not to involve ourselves in what Church has forbidden. It is for us to be witnesses even at the cost of sacrifice, for it is only then that we are pillars of Church which God has founded. And when we have done everything, it remains for us, together with St. Basil to pray and recite that wonderful prayer after Communion: “Completed and perfected, so far as is in our power, O Christ our God, is all the mystery of thy dispensation, for we have had the memorial of thy death, we have seen the type of thy Resurrection, we have been filled with thine unending life, we have enjoyed thine inexhaustible bounty, which is also in the age to come be pleased to vouchsafe us all, through the grace of thy Father, who is without beginning, and of thy holy, and good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

At the Mystical Supper, prior to His suffering, Christ the Lord informed his disciples, and through them to us, to do acts of love in His memory. Then He said: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandaments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kindom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). How much of an effort do we make to be great in the Kingdom? Little, very little.

If we comprehend the Holy Liturgy as it has remained from St. Basil the Great, we will know to watch out for those who would like to change it according to their intellect.

In these days preceding the Resurrection, we should reflect on this great gift from God. If we perceive Christ in His suffering, then we will easily rejoice in Him in the glory of the Heavenly Father. With the prayers of our Most Holy Patriarch Irinej, and our prayers that he leads us in a Christ-like manner in the Serbian Church of Saint Sava, we have send the Paschal greeting: CHRIST IS RISEN!

Your Intercessor before the Resurrected Lord,

Bishop Georgije of Canada

On Saturday March 27, 2010, our Holy Orthodox Church marks Lazarus Saturday.

Lazarus Saturday is the day before Palm Sunday (the feast of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem). This Saturday and Sunday are the connection between Great Lent and Holy Week. On the eve of the celebration of the Resurrection of Lazarus, the forty days of Great Lent are formally brought to an end at Vespers. These two days are the unique and paradoxical days before the Lord’s Passion.

Troparion (Tone 1)

By raising Lazarus from the dead before Your passion,
You did confirm the universal Resurrection, O Christ God!
Like the children with the palms of victory,
We cry out to You, O Vanquisher of death;
Hosanna in the Highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord!

Kontakion (Tone 2)

Christ the Joy, the Truth and the Light of all,
The Life of the World and the Resurrection
Has appeared in His goodness to those on earth.
He has become the Image of our Resurrection,
Granting divine forgiveness to all!

fr. Obrad will serve Divine Liturgy at 10am

The great and glorious Baptist John was beheaded according to the wish and instigation of the wicked Herodias, the wife of Herod. When John was beheaded, Herodias ordered that his head not be buried with his body for she feared that this awesome prophet, somehow, would resurrect. Therefore, she took his head and buried it deep in the ground in a secluded and dishonorable place. Her maidservant was Johanna, the wife of Chuza a courtier of Herod. The good and devout Johanna could not tolerate that the head of the Man of God remain in this dishonorable place. Secretly she unearthed it, removed it to Jerusalem and buried it on the Mount of Olives. Not knowing of this, King Herod, when he learned of Jesus and how He worked great miracles, became frightened and said: “This is John whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead” (St. Mark 16:16). After a considerable period of time, an eminent landowner believed in Christ, left his position and the vanity of the world and became a monk, taking the name, Innocent. As a monk, he took up abode on the Mount of Olives exactly in the place where the head of the Baptist was buried. Wanting to build himself a cell for himself, he dug deep and discovered an earthen vessel and in it a head, which was mysteriously revealed to him, to be the head of the Baptizer. He reverenced it and reburied it in the same spot. Later, according to God’s Providence, this miracle-working relic [The head of St. John] traveled from place to place, sunk into the darkness of forgetfulness and again was rediscovered. Finally, during the reign of the pious Empress Theodora, the mother of Michael and the wife of Theophilus and at the time of Patriarch Ignatius it was translated to Constantinople. Many miraculous healings occurred from the relic of the Forerunner [Precursor]. It is important and interesting to note that while he was still alive, “John did no miracles” (St. John 10:41), however, his relics have been endowed with miraculous power.

(Source: Prologue of Ohrid by St. Niikolaj Zhichki)

Few more pictures from our church’s “Slava” St. Simeon Mirotocivi on Sunday Feb 28, 2010

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