We welcome all visitors to our Divine Liturgy and services. While Holy Communion may only be received by prepared Orthodox Christians, our non-Orthodox guests are welcome to participate in our prayers and hymns and to join us in venerating the Cross and and receiving blessed bread at the conclusion of the Liturgy. Please sign our guest book and join us for refreshments and fellowship after the services.

Feel free to ask questions before or after the services. Any member of our Council or Congregation are glad to assist you. Literature about the Orthodox faith and this parish can be found in the narthex (back of the Church).

Members of our Parish Council are:

Deborah Bray - Secretary

Natalie Kucharski - Treasurer

Glenn PenkoffLidbeck - Member at Large

Demetra Tolis - Member at Large

Phyllis Sturtevant - President

Sophia Brubaker - Vice President

Susan Egan - Member Elect

Susan Hayes - Member Elect

Hungry on Purpose and Feeding the Involuntarily Hungry

The Nativity Fast is the 40 Day time of preparation between November 15 and December 25.  It is the same length of time as the Great Fast, prior to Great and Holy Pascha, however it does not enjoy the same formal structure and movement of Great Lent. 

It is a season of Prophets--Look at the commemorations in the month of December. But we do not have a "Great Canon" like that of St Andrew in Great Lent.  It is not really until December 20 that we have devoted services for the Pre-Feast of Christmas (though we have already begun to sing a hymn here and there--can you find them?--in various services.

Still, the Nativity Fast is a time for us to go hungry.  True, fasting is not about food (that is, it is not a refrigerator-police-are-coming-to-get-me-exercise).  And St John Chrysostom scolds his hearers when he says, "You fast from meat, but you devour your brother!"  Still, we practice our basic, common routine of fasting through abstinence from certain foods together.  You and I, who are able, will go voluntarily hungry--if we could even call it that--while others are involuntarily hungry.  So what is the purpose of our fast?  Is it simply to be in "need"?  Well, that would do most of us some serious good.  But the point is an inner conversion:  I need God.  Life is meaningless without him.  The Lord provides.  And then, that inner conversion is turned out to my neighbor.  Experiencing the blessing of God, I voluntarily go out to try to be a blessing to others.

Let's try it.

From an article published by Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church in Mount Pleasant, SC

Warm The Children is a program whose mission is to provide new warm winter clothing for children of needy families. The mission is accomplished with the cooperative effort of Warm The Children, Inc., a local newspaper, a local charity partner (if the newspaper chooses to have one), social service agency or schools, volunteer shoppers, and cooperating retailers.

Early in the fall and into the winter a newspaper asks its readers (with ‘house ads’ and news stories) for monetary donations for its Warm The Children program.. Every penny collected is used to buy new winter clothing and footwear for needy children in the newspaper’s circulation area. No donation funds are used for administration.

The newspaper may create its own Warm The Children tax exempt organization (a few have done so) or, like most others, partner with a local service organization (Like Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions) that has IRS 501 (c) (3) recognition (this allows donations to be tax deductible). Families to be served are identified by staff at local schools, social service agencies, or similar organizations whose job it is to know of families in need. Contact information for each family is given to a Warm The Children coordinator (someone appointed by the newspaper/service organization) who assigns each family to a volunteer shopper. Shopper and family meet at a local store and together select appropriate winter wear for the children. No money changes hands, the store bills the Warm The Children program for all purchases.

Warm The Children Inc.’s job is to make it easy to accomplish all of the above with the least effort, and to be available at all times with support.

Guildford/Madison CT

Shoreline Times

Madison Rotary Foundation

Ruth Desarbo, (860) 664-0888 ruthdesarbo@gmail.com

57 Nolin Road, Westbrook, CT 06498

Old Saybrook CT

Shoreline Times

Old Saybrook Rotary Foundation

Kathy Callinan, kcallinan@essexsavings.com, (860) 388-3543; also Dick Campbell, rpc06475@sbcglobal.net, (860) 388-5644

P.O. Box 1125, Old Saybrook CT 06475

Middletown CT

The Middletown Press

Kiwanis Foundation of Middletown

Lynn Baldoni, warmthechildrenmiddletown@gmail.com

505 Main Street, 3rd floor, Middletown CT 06457

http://warmthechildren.org

Robert, Joseph, Christine, Raymond, Olga, Daria, Daria, Dori, John, Evelyn, Alla, June, Nina, Joan, John, Alex, Alan, Nadia, Glenn, Kathryn, Ivan, Elena & Jevon and Jocean, Darlyne, Albert, Irene, Nancy, Dionysian

- and for…

John, Jennifer, Nicholas, Isabel, Elizabeth, John, Jordan, Michael, Lee, Eva, Neil, Gina, Joey, Barbara, Michael, Madelyn,Sofie, Katrina, Olena,Valeriy.

Many Years! to Christine Boyd and Daria Krawchuk on the occasion of their birthdays and to Liberty and Richard Page on the occasion of their anniversary and to Alex Martins and Kathryn Brubaker, Dori (Kathryn) Kuziak and Katy Jankura on the occasion of their Name’s Days.

Today we commemorate:

Afterfeast of the Entry Into the Temple. Apostles of the Seventy Philemon and Archippus, Martyr Apphia, wife of Philemon and Equal-to-the-Apostles, and Onesimus, disciple of St. Paul (1st c.). Martyrdom of St. Michael, Prince of Tver’ (1318). Rt. Blv. Yaropolk, in Baptism Peter, Prince of Vladimir in Volyn’ (1086). Martyrs Cecilia, Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, at Rome (ca. 230). Martyr Procopius the Reader, at Cæsarea in Palestine (303). Martyr Menignus at Parium (250). St. Agabbas of Syria (5th c.). Righteous Michael the Soldier, of Bulgaria (866). Ven. Callistus Xanthopoulos (Mt. Athos—1363)