Saint Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church - ACROD
Publish Date: 2025-05-04
Bulletin Contents
Announcements
Bulletin Inserts
Hymns of the Day
Gospel and Epistle Readings
Wisdom of the Fathers
Saints and Feasts

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Saint Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church - ACROD

General Information

  • Phone:
  • (732) 254-7155
  • Street Address:

  • 24 Burke Road

  • Freehold, NJ 07728

Contact Information

Parish Administration His Eminence Metropolitan Gregory of Nyssa
Diocesan Bishop


Rev. Father Thomas K. Kovalak
Parish Priest - Administrator


Very. Rev. Father Andrew Fetchina
Dean - Emergency Contact


Services Schedule

Sunday 

Hours:              9:00 AM

Divine Liturgy:  9:30 AM

 

Confessions Prior to all Divine Liturgies

Past Bulletins


Announcements

Welcome to St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church - Freehold, NJ

 Mission Parish of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of North America

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

  

Christ is Risen!  Indeed He is Risen!
   

May 04, 2025

Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

Upcoming Church Schedule:

Sunday May 04, 2025 

Divine Liturgy - 9:30AM 

 

On the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women - S I L O U A N

Christ is Risen! Indeed he is Risen! ~ Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!

 

Listen to Hyms of Pascha and Plain Chant

  

 

New parish email:  [email protected]. Please spread the word.

  

SPECIAL INTENTIONS:

Please keep in your minds and hearts our parishioners, family, and friends in need of our prayers.  May God grant them peace, health and happiness for many blessed years! 

Please pray for Catechumens and inquirers, for those preparing for Marriage, for Expecting Mothers, for those serving in the Armed Forces and Civil Authorities. 

Please pray for Jacob Cochran, son of Father David and Pani Andrea.

 

FOR FURTHER THOUGHT:

The myrrh-bearers had brought funeral spices and ointments to finish committing Christ’s body to the grave. They were the first to see the empty tomb and were instructed by the risen Lord to bring the joyful news to the apostles. Sts. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are also commemorated on this day.

There are eight women who are generally identified as the myrrh-bearers. Each of the four Gospels gives a different aspect of the roles of these eight women at the cross and at the tomb on Easter morning, perhaps since the eight women arrived in different groups and at different times. The eight were:

Mary Magdalene
Mary, the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary)
Joanna
Salome
Mary the wife of Cleopas (mother of James)
Susanna
Mary of Bethany (sister of Lazarus)
Martha of Bethany (sister of Lazarus)

These eight women had been together throughout Jesus’ public ministry. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and others (Luke 8:3) are described as providing for Jesus out of their possessions. These same women also faithfully followed him from Galilee and came up with him to Jerusalem.

References:

Information taken from the Antiochian Archdiocese’s website: http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/18609.

 

Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women They came to anoint Jesus’ body, but found an EMPTY tomb.

We also commemorate Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemos

 

Please support our diocesan seminary bookstore:  

If you have any religious items to purchase such as icons, jewlery, books, and various Orthodox decor, please visit: www.orthodoxgoods.com

Also, please continue to pray for vocations:

O Lord, the High Priest of God's people, You have shown us that it is Your will that men be called to the service of Your Holy Church. From the ranks of fishermen, You called Andrew and Peter and James and John, and made them and their successors in every age to be the "fishers of men." We, your people in this age, call upon Your great love to inspire for our churches, young men to be Your future priests. Touch their lives with Your Holy Spirit; give them the courage to answer Your call and the strength to work all the days of their life for Your service. Continue to shower upon our Diocesan Seminary Your choicest blessings and make us aware of her needs so that it may continue to be a place where the souls of those called to Your service may be trained and prepared to teach and preach, to pray and labor, to forgive and heal - to care in every way as priests of Your fold, O Good Shepherd. You told us with Your precious lips, "Without me, you can do nothing." As we call upon Your Name for more vocations, O Great High Priest, hear us and have mercy.

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Bulletin Inserts

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Hymns of the Day

Apolytikion of Great and Holy Pascha in the Fifth Tone

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life!

Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: American Carpatho-Russian Diocese


Resurrectional Apolytikion in the Second Tone

When You submitted to death, O Immortal Life,* You made death powerless by the radiance of Your Divinity.* When You raised the dead from the depths of the earth,* all the heavenly powers exclaimed:* "O Giver of Life Christ our God Glory to You!"

Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: American Carpatho-Russian Diocese


Apolytikion for Holy Myrrhbearers Sunday in the Second Tone

The noble Joseph, * having taken Your most pure body down from the Cross, * wrapped it in a clean shroud * and anointed it with fragrant spices * and laid it in a new tomb. * But You, O Lord, arose on the third day, * granting Your great mercy to the world.

Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: American Carpatho-Russian Diocese


Apolytikion for Holy Myrrhbearers Sunday in the Second Tone

The angel stood by the tomb and to the women bearing spices he cried aloud: * Myrrh is fitting for the dead * but Christ has shown Himself a stranger to corruption. * So now cry out, "The Lord has risen, * bestowing great mercy upon the world."

Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: American Carpatho-Russian Diocese


Seasonal Kontakion in the Eighth Tone

You descended into the grave, O Immortal One, * yet You destroyed the power of death. * As Conqueror You arose, O Christ God, * saying to the myrrh-bearing women, "Rejoice!", * granting peace to Your Apostles, * and offering resurrection to the fallen.

Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: American Carpatho-Russian Diocese


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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. Second Tone. Psalm 117.14,18.
The Lord is my strength and my song.
Verse: The Lord has chastened me sorely.

The reading is from Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.

In those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, "it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." And what they said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochoros, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaos, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands upon them. And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Gospel Reading

Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women
The Reading is from Mark 15:43-47; 16:1-8

At that time, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

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Wisdom of the Fathers

They [the women] had followed Him ministering to Him, and were present even unto the time of the dangers. Wherefore also they saw all; how He cried, how He gave up the ghost, how the rocks were rent, and all the rest.
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 88 on Matthew 27, 4th Century

And these [the women] first see Jesus; and the sex that was most condemned, this first enjoys the sight of the blessings, this most shows its courage. And when the disciples had fled, these were present.
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 88 on Matthew 27, 4th Century

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Saints and Feasts

May 04

Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

About the beginning of His thirty-second year, when the Lord Jesus was going throughout Galilee, preaching and working miracles, many women who had received of His beneficence left their own homeland and from then on followed after Him. They ministered unto Him out of their own possessions, even until His crucifixion and entombment; and afterwards, neither losing faith in Him after His death, nor fearing the wrath of the Jewish rulers, they came to the sepulchre, bearing the myrrh-oils they had prepared to annoint His body. It is because of the myrrh-oils, that these God-loving women brought to the tomb of Jesus that they are called the Myrrh-bearers. Of those whose names are known are the following: first of all, the most holy Virgin Mary, who in Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40 is called "the mother of James and Joses" (these are the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, and she was therefore their step-mother); Mary Magdalene (celebrated July 22); Mary, the wife of Clopas; Joanna, wife of Chouza, a steward of Herod Antipas; Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus; and Susanna. As for the names of the rest of them, the evangelists have kept silence (Matt 27:55-56; 28:1-10. Mark 15:40-41. Luke 8:1-3; 23:55-24:11, 22-24. John 19:25; 20:11-18. Acts 1:14).

Together with them we celebrate also the secret disciples of the Saviour, Joseph and Nicodemus. Of these, Nicodemus was probably a Jerusalemite, a prominent leader among the Jews and of the order of the Pharisees, learned in the Law and instructed in the Holy Scriptures. He had believed in Christ when, at the beginning of our Saviour's preaching of salvation, he came to Him by night. Furthermore, he brought some one hundred pounds of myrrh-oils and an aromatic mixture of aloes and spices out of reverence and love for the divine Teacher (John 19:39). Joseph, who was from the city of Arimathea, was a wealthy and noble man, and one of the counsellors who were in Jerusalem. He went boldly unto Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, and together with Nicodemus he gave Him burial. Since time did not permit the preparation of another tomb, he placed the Lord's body in his own tomb which was hewn out of rock, as the Evangelist says (Matt. 27:60).

May 04

Pelagia the Nun-martyr of Tarsus

This Saint was from Tarsus of Cilicia and contested in martyrdom under Diocletian, in 284: she was cast into a bull fashioned of bronze, which had been heated with fire.

May 04

Hilary the Wonderworker

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