Saint Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church - ACROD
Publish Date: 2025-08-17
Bulletin Contents
Announcements
Bulletin Inserts
Hymns of the Day
Gospel and Epistle Readings
Wisdom of the Fathers
Saints and Feasts

Organization Icon
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. Protopresbyter Father Stephen Loposky
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

  

Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory Forever!
   

 

Tenth Sunday of Matthew

Upcoming Church Schedule:

Sunday August 17, 2025 

The Hours - 9:00AM

Typica - 9:30AM

                                                       10th Sunday after Pentecost - St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral

                                            

SPECIAL INTENTIONS:

Please pray for peace in the middle east and throughout the world.

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, Seminarians, and for those serving in the Armed Forces and Civil Authorities. 

Please pray for the health, healing and speedy recovery of Suzie.

Parish News:

  • At your convenience, please complete the 2025 parish stewardship and census form.
  • We are thankful to God that clean out of the dilapidated rectory and parish refresh has begun!  Please excuse the mess while work is completed.
  • Parish Barbeque  August 31, 2025
  • Saint Paul Community Outreach Event
  • Our Church is issuing a fiancial appeal for the Parish Refresh Project.  Please consider donating to this vital cause.  The funds will go towards repairs and improvements of the church property and removal of the dilapidated rectory building.
  • We invite all of our students and teachers to receive a special blessing for the upcoming school year of 2025/2026.  Students are invited to bring their backpacks for the annual backpack blessing on August 31st.

Date September 28, 2025 for a special Community Outreach Parish Event.  We invite all of our parishioners to join us as we participate in a WALK FOR LIFE which will benefit ZOE FOR LIFE, a Christian Orthodox Program serving mothers in crisis pregnancies who CHOOSE LIFE for their pre-born children.

Stay tuned for more information about this event!

ZOE for Life!® | A Christian Ministry

FOR FURTHER THOUGHT:

Zoe for Life is a Christian Orthodox Community Outreach program that serves local mothers who need assistance and want to choose life for their unborn babies. 

Zoe for Life depends fully on donations and help from the public. This program is sucessfully helping mothers everyday by providing supplies, emotional support, doctor and medical care, and shelter for young mothers who need help as they choose LIFE for thier babies.

Pray for the unborn! 

O Holy Theotokos, pray for us!

The Feast of the Dormition

The Holy Scriptures tell us that when our Lord was dying on the Cross, He saw His mother and His disciple John and said to the Virgin Mary, "Woman, behold your son!" and to John, "Behold your mother!" (John 19:25-27). From that hour, the Apostle took care of the Theotokos in his own home.

Along with the biblical reference in Acts 1:14 that confirms that the Virgin Mary was with the Holy Apostles on the day of Pentecost, the tradition of the Church holds that she remained in the home of the Apostle John in Jerusalem, continuing a ministry in word and deed.

At the time of her death, the disciples of our Lord who were preaching throughout the world returned to Jerusalem to see the Theotokos. Except for the Apostle Thomas, all of them including the Apostle Paul were gathered together at her bedside. At the moment of her death, Jesus Christ himself descended and carried her soul into heaven.

Following her repose, the body of the Theotokos was taken in procession and laid in a tomb near the Garden of Gethsemane. When the Apostle Thomas arrived three days after her repose and desired to see her body, the tomb was found to be empty. The bodily assumption of the Theotokos was confirmed by the message of an angel and by her appearance to the Apostles.  continue reading:  https://www.goarch.org/dormition

 

Good News!

This September, The American Carpatho - Rusyn Orthodox Diocese Seminary is welcoming 8 new seminarians for the Fall Semester! Let us pray for these men as they embark on a journey to fulfill the Divine Call! 

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.

BACK TO TOP

Bulletin Inserts

BACK TO TOP

Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the First Tone

Your tomb was sealed with a stone by the Jews,* and the soldiers guarded Your most pure body:* yet You arose on the third day, O savior,* giving life to the world.* The heavenly powers cried out to You, O Giver of Life:* "Glory to Your resurrection , O Christ!* Glory to Your Kingdom!* Glory to Your plan of salvation, for You alone love mankind."

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


Apolytikion for Afterfeast of the Dormition in the First Tone

O Birthgiver of God, in giving birth you retained virginity; * and in your falling asleep you did not forsake the world. * You are the Mother of Life and have passed into life, * and by your prayers have delivered our souls from death.

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


Seasonal Kontakion in the Second Tone

The tomb and death had no power over the Birthgiver of God, * who is ever watchful in her prayers * and in whose intercession lies unfailing hope * For as the Mother of Life she has been transported into life * by Him who dwelt within her ever-virgin womb.

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


BACK TO TOP

Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. First 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 4:9-16.

Brethren, God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the off-scouring of all things. I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Gospel Reading

10th Sunday of Matthew
The Reading is from Matthew 17:14-23

At that time, a man came up to Jesus and kneeling before him said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move hence to yonder place,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day."

BACK TO TOP

Wisdom of the Fathers

Here Christ is not speaking of that faith which believes in Him undoubtingly and knows Him to be true God, but of the faith (needed) to work miracles. If ye have faith, He said, so exceedingly warm and burning as a grain of mustard seed (for these are its qualities), and if it is believed without a doubt that ye will perform signs, then ye will receive such power, that if ye desire to move the very mountains, ye will move them.
St. John Chrysostom
The Gospel Commentary, edited by Hieromonk German Ciuba, 2002, 4th Century

For a man to have such faith appears simple, but it is, on the contrary, something very lofty, not easily attained by many. Such faith is born of boldness before God; but such boldness comes (only) from pleasing God. Beloved, great labour is needed to acquire, through pleasing God, such boldness before Him that one firmly believes that he will grant all that one asks; as it is written, Ask, and it shall be given to you.
St. John Chrysostom
The Gospel Commentary: edited by Hieromonk German Ciuba, 2002., 4th Century

BACK TO TOP

Saints and Feasts

August 17

10th Sunday of Matthew

August 17

Myron the Martyr of Cyzicus

Saint Myron was a priest during the reign of Decius, when Antipater was ruler of Achaia. On the day of our Lord's Nativity, Antipater entered the church to seize the Christians and punish them. Saint Myron, kindled with holy zeal, roundly insulted Antipater, for which he was hung up and scraped, then cast into a raging furnace, but was preserved unharmed. When Myron refused to worship the idols, Antipater commanded that strips be cut in the Saint's flesh from his shoulders to his feet; the Saint took one of the strips of his flesh and flung it in the tyrant's face. He was beaten, and scraped again upon his beaten flesh; then he was thrown to wild beasts, but when Antipater saw them leaving off their fierce nature and protecting the Saint from harm, he was overcome with unbearable shame and slew himself. The Saint was then sent to Cyzicus, where the proconsul had him beheaded, about the year 250.

August 17

Straton, Philip, Eutychian, & Cyprian the Martyrs of Nicomedea

BACK TO TOP