St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Church
Publish Date: 2016-02-28
Bulletin Contents
Welcome
Announcements
Saints and Feasts
Parish Calendar
Prayers, Intersessions and Commemorations
Bulletin Inserts
Hymns of the Day
Gospel and Epistle Readings
Wisdom of the Fathers
In House
Prodson
Organization Icon
St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • 860-664-9434
  • Street Address:

  • 108 E Main St

  • Clinton, CT 06413-0134
  • Mailing Address:

  • PO Box 134

  • Clinton, CT 06413-0134

Contact Information

Rector Fr Steven Hosking

frsteve@stalexischurch.org | 860-866-5802

Services Schedule

Weekly Services

Tuesdays at 8:30a - Daily Matins

Wednesdays at 6:00p - Daily Vespers

Thursday at 8:30a - Daily Matins

Saturday at 5:30p - Great Vespers

Sunday at 9:30a - Divine Liturgy

The Church is also open on Wednesdays for "Open Doors" - confession, meditation and reflection.

Please see our online calendar for dates and times of Feast Day services.

Past Bulletins


Welcome

Gospel1

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:

Phyllis Sturtevant - President, ad hoc Ministries (Red House, 25th Anniversary)

Sophia Brubaker - Vice President, Building/Grounds

Susan Hayes - Secretary, Communications

Susan Egan - Treasurer,

Deborah Bray - Member at Large, Fellowship/Stewardship

Demetra Tolis - Member at Large, Outreach/Evangelism

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Announcements

Lenten Retreat

Holy Ghost Church in Bridgeport, CT will host Fr Michael Oleksa as guest speaker on Saturday, April 2, 2016 for the parish’s annual Lenten Retreat. Fr Michael’s topic is entitled: "THAT ALL MAY BE SAVED: What can we learn about urban outreach from the Alaskan Mission?”  All are welcome to attend. The day’s events begin at 10am.  Registration is $15.00 per person and includes two talks and a Lenten lunch.  Please RSVP to Fr Steven Belonick by Monday, March 28 via phone: 203.290.4023; or by email: belonick@svots.edu.

Fr Michael was born in Allentown, PA, and was educated at Georgetown University and St Vladimir’s Seminary.  He has spent his entire adult life serving as a parish priest, a church administrator, seminary dean and professor of Alaskan Native history and cross-cultural communications at the University of Alaska. He is the author of several books on Alaskan Native History and Cultures and is a recipient of numerous awards from the University of Alaska and the Alaska State Legislature. His four-part PBS Television series, Communicating Across Cultures, has been widely acclaimed.  He currently resides with his Yup’ik wife, Xenia, in Anchorage and still serves as parish priest for St Alexis Orthodox Church there. 

 

 

Food for All Garden Update

My dear friends,

Despite last week’s sub-zero temperatures, it now feels like Spring is in the air, and I just wanted to say hi and I hope you haven’t forgotten our wonderful garden! A lot of planning has happened already, thanks to about 18 people who met in mid-January and about 6 who met subsequently to fine-tune the details. We have met with Suzanne Baker of Shoreline Gardens, and she is ready to help us once again in her incredibly generous way. (Also St. Mary’s Garden!) Seeds have been ordered from Hart’s, and we have soil and compost thermometers ready to take the beds’ temperatures. The tractor is getting a tune-up and other good things are in the works.

Blessings all around,

Margaret

 
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Saints and Feasts

Prodson
February 28

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

Through the parable of today's Gospel, our Saviour has set forth three things for us: the condition of the sinner, the rule of repentance, and the greatness of God's compassion. The divine Fathers have put this reading the week after the parable of the Publican and Pharisee so that, seeing in the person of the Prodigal Son our own wretched condition -- inasmuch as we are sunken in sin, far from God and His Mysteries -- we might at last come to our senses and make haste to return to Him by repentance during these holy days of the Fast.

Furthermore, those who have wrought many great iniquities, and have persisted in them for a long time, oftentimes fall into despair, thinking that there can no longer be any forgiveness for them; and so being without hope, they fall every day into the same and even worse iniquities. Therefore, the divine Fathers, that they might root out the passion of despair from the hearts of such people, and rouse them to the deeds of virtue, have set the present parable at the forecourts of the Fast, to show them the surpassing goodness of God's compassion, and to teach them that there is no sin -- no matter how great it may be -- that can overcome at any time His love for man.

Allsaint
February 28

Basil the Confessor

Saints Procopius and Basil, fellow ascetics, lived about the middle of the eighth century, during the reign of Leo the Isaurian (717-741), from whom they suffered many things for the sake of the veneration of the holy icons. They ended their lives in the ascetical discipline.

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Parish Calendar

  • Parish Calendar

    February 28 to March 7, 2016

    Sunday, February 28

    Sunday of the Prodigal Son

    9:30AM Divine Liturgy

    Monday, February 29

    Meatfare Monday

    7:30PM OCF UConn

    Tuesday, March 1

    Meatfare Tuesday

    8:30AM Daily Matins

    Wednesday, March 2

    Meatfare Wednesday

    4:30PM Open Doors

    6:00PM Daily Vespers

    Thursday, March 3

    Michael and Zachary Neiss

    Meatfare Thursday

    8:30AM Daily Matins

    3:00PM PreLenten Clergy Retreat

    Friday, March 4

    Meatfare Friday

    Saturday, March 5

    Saturday of Souls

    5:00PM Akathist for those who have fallen asleep

    5:30PM Great Vespers

    Sunday, March 6

    Baptism of Jocean Chartier

    Judgment Sunday (Meatfare Sunday)

    9:30AM Divine Liturgy

    Monday, March 7

    Cheesefare Monday

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Prayers, Intersessions and Commemorations

Cross2

Robert, Joseph, Olga, Daria, Daria, Dori, John, Evelyn, Alla, June, Nina, Joan, John, Alex, Alan, Nadia, Glenn, Kathryn, Darlyne, Albert, Irene, Nancy, Dionysian.

- and for…

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

Please pray for Jocean Chartier and his parents Elena and Jevon, his brother Ivan and the Brubaker family as they prepare for his baptism.

 

 

Many Years! to:

This week we celebrate:

Michael and Zachary Neiss on the occasion of their birthday.

 

 

 

Today we commemorate:

Ven. Basil the Confessor, Companion of Ven. Procopius at Decapolis (750). Bl. Nikolai, Fool-for-Christ at Pskov (1576). Hieromartyr Proterius, Patriarch of Alexandria (457). Hieromartyr Nestor, Bishop of Magydos in Pamphylia (250). Ven. Marina (Marana), Cyra (Kira) and Domnica (Domnina), of Syria (ca. 450).

 

 

 

 

 

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Bulletin Inserts

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Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the 6th Tone

Angelic powers were above Thy tomb, and they that guarded Thee became as dead. And Mary stood by the grave seeking Thine immaculate Body. Thou hast despoiled Hades and wast not tried thereby. Thou didst meet the Virgin and didst grant us life. O Thou Who didst arise from the dead, Lord, glory be to Thee.

Seasonal Kontakion in the 3rd Tone

O Father, foolishly I ran away from Your glory, and in sin, squandered the riches You gave me. Wherefore, I cry out to You with the voice of the Prodigal, "I have sinned before You Compassionate Father. Receive me in repentance and take me as one of Your hired servants."
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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. 1st Tone. Psalm 32.22,1.
Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us.
Verse: Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous.

The reading is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 6:12-20.

Brethren, "all things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food" -- and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh." But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God.

Gospel Reading

Sunday of the Prodigal Son
The Reading is from Luke 15:11-32

The Lord said this parable: "There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.' And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!' And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"

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Wisdom of the Fathers

But if he had despaired of his life, and, ... had remained in the foreign land, he would not have obtained what he did obtain, but would have been consumed with hunger, and so have undergone the most pitiable death: ...
St. John Chrysostom
AN EXHORTATION TO THEODORE AFTER HIS FALL, 4th Century

... but since he repented, and did not despair, he was restored, even after such great corruption, to the same splendour as before, and was arrayed in the most beautiful robe, and enjoyed greater honours than his brother who had not fallen.
St. John Chrysostom
AN EXHORTATION TO THEODORE AFTER HIS FALL, 4th Century

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In House

056

Commemoration of St Raphael Hawaweeny of Brooklyn

02/28/2016

On November 20, 1860, Rafla Hawaweeny was born in Damascus, Syria. He was baptized in Beruit, Lebanon on the Feast of Theophany, the same day the church celebrates the Baptism of Jesus Christ. As an elementary student, he worked very hard and received very good grades. This helped him to receive a scholarship to study at the School of Theology in Halki Island, Turkey. 

After Rafla was ordained a deacon on December 8, 1885, he wanted to learn even more about the church, so he continued his studies at the Theological Academy in Kiev, Ukraine. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1889. Six years after his ordination, he arrived in Brooklyn, New York. 

In the summer of 1896, he began traveling across the United States. While traveling 3,000 miles between New York and California, he visited people in thirty different cities. At each place he visited, he talked about God. During the visits, he also performed many Sacraments of the church. 

In 1904, on the third Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of the Cross, Saint Raphael became the very first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated in North America. Both Archbishop Tikhon of Moscow (St. Tikhon) and Bishop Innocent performed the consecration of the new Bishop in New York City. 

Bishop Raphael thought it was very important for children to learn about the church and he established evening schools for children. In order for church services and church books to be easier to understand, St. Raphael believed English should be the language used in those books. 

While he served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, he helped establish thirty parishes across the country and in July of 1905 he blessed the land on which St. Tikhon’s Monastery is located. 

On February 27, 1915, at the age of 55, St. Raphael died. In 1989, his relics were taken to the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. In March 2000, the Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America canonized St. Raphael. On Memorial Day weekend of May 2000, his glorification services were held at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, Pennsylvania. 

 


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