Sunday Services: Orthros 8:30 am; Divine Liturgy 9:30 am.
Weekday Services: See parish website calendar link for updates.
Schedule of Services for Week of December 22, 2024
Sunday, 12/22 8:30 a.m. Orthros / Divine Liturgy - Sunday before Nativity
Tuesday, 12/24 9:30 a.m. Great Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil the Great
Tuesday, 12/24 7:00 p.m. Orthros and Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
The choir will lead in the singing of Christmas Carols after the Liturgy.
Friday, 12/27 9:00 a.m. Orthros / Divine Liturgy - St. Stephen, Archdeacon and First Martyr
Today, following services, Gerard Pelletier is sponsoring fellowship hour.
The Christmas Pageant and Greek School Program will be TODAY, December 22, 2024! If you would like your child to have a part in this year's pageant sign up via the link. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4EABAE23A7F85-53755446-stanna
Also, signup to bring something to share during coffee hour. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4EABAE23A7F85-53402493-saint
Parish Council Updates:
Pending approval from the NJ Metropolis, the 2025 Parish Council will be comprised of the following 13 individuals - Paul Costalas, John Douvris, Jorge Ferreira, Benjamin Gimbel, Diana Grina, Bill Johnson, Chris Kamnitsis, Stamati Manoussakis, Anthony Mariani, Leo Sideris, Dean Soteropoulos, Nikol Toulatos, and Paul Vespa.
After multiple terms of service on the Parish Council, John Giannouris and George Staikos have decided not to seek another term on the Council. Both John and George have agreed to continue to be active and support our Ways & Means Committee and fundraising efforts. Please join us in thanking them for their many years of leadership and service on the Parish Council.
SAVE THE DATE: Greek Independence Day Parade in Philadelphia, PA - Sunday April 6, 2025. The annual Greek Independence Day Parade is happening on Sunday April 6, 2025. Last year we had over 40 parishioners marching down the Ben Franklin Parkway. Let's try and top that number this year! Further details will be forthcoming. Please see Bill Johnson with any questions.
LADIES PHILOPTOCHOS CORNER:
A Very Merry and Blessed Christmas to all!
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." Luke 2:7
Our Annual Christmas/New Year Luncheon is Saturday, January 11th at 1:00 pm at the Stoney Brook Grille in North Branch, NJ. Cost is $37/person and please bring a canned/non-perishable food item for the Outreach Connection Food Pantry in Washington, NJ, when you register and pay at the Philoptochos table. Spouses and/or guests are welcome at the same cost!
We will have a "White Elephant" gift exchange, so bring a fun/serious $10 gift with you to the luncheon to exchange!
Christmas Bake Sale order pick up is TODAY after the Christmas Pageant!
Thank you to all who placed a Vasilopita order from Holy Protection Monastery!!
Please pick up TODAY!
Parea: SAVE THE DATE, January 7, 2025, for the next Parea event.
YOUTH MINISTRY:
Sunday School: The Christmas Pageant will be TODAY December 22nd. There will be no Sunday school on 12/29/24.
Greek School: The Greek School program will be held TODAY December 22nd. There is No Greek School 12/23 and 12/30. Enjoy the Christmas break!
First Sundays are Youth Sundays at St. Anna. GOYA, HOPE & JOY (grades K-6th), and our Little Blessings (Pre-K and under) ministries will meet on the First Sunday of the month. Our next meeting is January 5th.
YAL: The YAL Potluck Christmas Party will be held on Friday, December 27, 2024 from 7-11 pm in the gym. Please reach out to Nikol Toulatos at [email protected] if you would like to join the festivities!
Adult Greek school: Adult Greek School for Beginners started Monday, December 2nd. Classes are now a hybrid model running on Mondays from 7:30pm-8:30pm at St Anna. There are a few spots still available if you are interested. Please contact Maria Sfondouris at [email protected].
ST. ANNA BOOKSTORE - Christmas is around the corner!! Come see our extensive collection of books and other gift items. If there is something in particular you are looking for, email [email protected]. Here are some recommendations:
FOR CHILDREN: Nativity sets; Theotokos doll; Saints matching game and puzzles; Christmas coloring books; Our Church (book).
FOR ADULTS: Prayer ropes; Christmas cards; ceramic incense burners; Wounded by Love (book); A Faith Encouraged Devotional (book).
Procedure for Holy Communion:
Enter into the center aisle. Please wait until a member of the Parish Council calls your pew. The order is as follows:
-Any Newly illumined (newly Baptized, Chrismated)
- Choir
-Sunday School students and Teachers
-Pew by pew per PC direction. Please wait until your pew is called.
-Those remaining in the narthex.
Sunday Fellowship Hour Sponsors: Please sponsor a fellowship hour to support the Saint Anna parish. The requested fellowship hour sponsorship donation is $50.
2024 Stewardship Status: Growth in the number of stewards is annually assessed by the Archdiocese and the New Jersey Metropolis and is a key indicator of stability and progress. All families and individuals must complete a stewardship card to be considered a steward. We have 167 Pledges totaling $215,356 and $206,640 received as of 18 December 2024. We also have 4 families who have contributed $540 to date but have not submitted a stewardship card. The current Stewardship List and other stewardship information is posted on the bulletin board by water cooler.
KIDNEY DONOR NEEDED: Joanne Kakoyiannis, a long-standing National Philoptochos Board member is currently facing stage 5 chronic kidney disease and urgently requires a kidney transplant, preferably from a suitable living donor. The following website tells Joanne’s story: http://www.helpingjoannefindakidney.com/.
PARISH LINKS:
St Anna Website: https://www.stannagoc.org/
St Anna Greek Orthodox Church Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/[email protected]&ctz=America/New_York
For questions to the parish council: [email protected]
To be added to the weekly bulletin email or for general questions: [email protected]
On the Sunday that occurs on or immediately after the eighteenth of this month, we celebrate all those who from ages past have been well-pleasing to God, beginning from Adam even unto Joseph the Betrothed of the Most Holy Theotokos, according to genealogy, as the Evangelist Luke hath recorded historically (Luke 3:23-38); we also commemorate the Prophets and Prophetesses, and especially the Prophet Daniel and the Holy Three Children.
This Saint, who was from Rome, was a most comely, wealthy, and virtuous maiden, the daughter of Praepextatus and Fausta. It was her mother who instructed her in the Faith of Christ. The Saint was joined to a man named Publius Patricius, who was prodigal in life and impious in disposition, but she was widowed after a short time. Henceforth, she went about secretly to the dwellings of the poor and the prisons where the Martyrs of Christ were, and brought them whatever was needed for their daily subsistence. She washed their wounds and loosed them from their fetters, and consoled them in their anguish. Also, because the Saint, through her intercessions, has healed many from the ill effects of spells, potions, poisons, and other harmful substances, she has received the name "Deliverer from Potions." Since the fame of her deeds had spread about, she was arrested by Diocletian's minions, and after enduring many torments she was put to death by fire in the year 290.
The incomprehensible and inexplicable Nativity of Christ came to pass when Herod the Great was reigning in Judea; the latter was an Ascalonite on his fathers's side and an Idumean on his mother's. He was in every way foreign to the royal line of David; rather, he had received his authority from the Roman emperors, and had ruled tyrannically over the Jewish people for some thirty-three years. The tribe of Judah, which had reigned of old, was deprived of its rights and stripped of all rule and authority. Such was the condition of the Jews when the awaited Messiah was born, and truly thus was fulfilled the prophecy which the Patriarch Jacob had spoken 1,807 years before: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a prince from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him; and he is the expectation of the nations" (Gen.49:10).
Thus, our Saviour was born in Bethlehem, a city of Judea, whither Joseph had come from Nazareth of Galilee, taking Mary his betrothed, who was great with child, that, according to the decree issued in those days by the Emperor Augustus, they might be registered in the census of those subject to Rome. Therefore, when the time came for the Virgin to give birth, and since because of the great multitude there was no place in the inn, the Virgin's circumstance constrained them to enter a cave which was near Bethlehem. Having as shelter a stable of irrational beasts, she gave birth there, and swaddled the Infant and laid Him in the manger (Luke 2:1-7). From this, the tradition has come down to us that when Christ was born He lay between two animals, an ox and an ass, that the words of the Prophets might be fulfilled: "Between two living creatures shalt Thou be known" (Abbacum 3:2), and "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib" (Esaias 1: 3).
But while the earth gave the new-born Saviour such a humble reception, Heaven on high celebrated majestically His world-saving coming. A wondrous star, shining with uncommon brightness and following a strange course, led Magi from the East to Bethlehem to worship the new-born King. Certain shepherds who were in the area of Bethlehem, who kept watch while tending their sheep, were suddenly surrounded by an extraordinary light, and they saw before them an Angel who proclaimed to them the good tidings of the Lord's joyous Nativity. And straightway, together with this Angel, they beheld and heard a whole host of the Heavenly Powers praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men" (Luke 2:8-14).
Prokeimenon. 4th Tone. Daniel 3.26,27.
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers.
Verse: For you are just in all you have done.
The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 11:9-10; 32-40.
BRETHREN, by faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has foundation, whose builder and maker is God.
And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets - who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated - of whom the world was not worthy - wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Sunday before Nativity
The Reading is from Matthew 1:1-25
The book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amon, and Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
PDF copy of 2024 St Anna Stewardship Pledge Card
St. Anna Ladies Philoptochos is offering the service of preparing Koliva, the boiled and sweetened wheat berries, for any memorial service needed. All requests should be made 2-3 weeks in advance to allow time for proper preparation of Koliva. If you would like to place an order, please complete the form.
SAVE THE DATE: Greek Independence Day Parade in Philadelphia, PA - Sunday April 6, 2025.
Stewardship List as of 18 December 2024