As we near the end of 2024, we are blessed to have fulfilled 88% of our Stewardship pledges. To those who have given, we thank you deeply. If you haven't yet completed your pledge, this is your opportunity to help us keep the light of our parish burning brightly. Your generosity ensures that our ministries, programs, and spiritual outreach continue to thrive.
Looking to 2025, we invite you to become a luminary of our parish by making a new stewardship commitment. As a new steward, you are a beacon of faith, lighting the path for others, and helping our church grow stronger for generations to come. Your gift sustains the life of our parish, nurtures the community, and ensures that the flame of our Orthodox faith burns brightly into the future.
Together, with God's grace, we can fulfill our mission and keep His light shining in our church and beyond. Thank you for your continued love, faith, and generosity.
To help the parish council and the office, please identify what year your stewardship donations are going towards.
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE- We are looking for members who are interested in helping us bolster our Social Media presence, our Website, and other communications. Please talk to Fr. Anastasios, Connie, or Raina if you are interested.
CHRISTMAS PROGRAM - The Christmas Ornament Story- THIS SUNDAY
It’s hard to believe that the Christmas Holiday is upon us. The Sunday School cordially invites all of you to attend our annual Christmas program The Christmas Ornament Story following the Divine Liturgy in Pappan Hall. Come and watch as we tell the Christmas Story and decorate the Christmas Tree. Many thanks to the Sunday School teachers and students for making the ornaments. Hope to see you there.
PARISH COUNCIL ELECTED- We thank our Board of Elections: Jackie Bennis, Kathy Stern, and Bob Hamilton for conducting the election. We congratulate Joel Brady, James Cain, Joanne Cottage, Zachery Economos, James Galitsis, Luke Mawhinney, Alexander Vasilakis, and Bruce Wilson for all being elected to serve the 2025-2026 term and they will take the oath of office with the returning council members in the new year once ratified by the Metropolitan.
ANDERSONS CANDY: Forms for the Philoptochos' annual Anderson's Christmas Candy sale are downstairs in the church hall. Forms are due on December 15 for pick up of candy on December 22. Please give the completed forms and payment to Joanne Cottage.
YOUNG ADULT CHRISTMAS NIGHT - December 19th at 7pm: Calling all of our Young Adults to gather for an evening event for some faith, fun, and fellowship. Please let Kristen, Alex, or Fr. Anastasios know if you are planning on attending.
CHRISTMAS EVE LUMINARIES:Christmas Luminaries to honor or in memory of your loved ones are being sold to benefit the Georgia Antinopoulos Scholarship Fund. Please complete the form and give it to Jackie Bennis on or before Sunday, December 22, 2024.
NEW YEARS EVE DANCE - Make your reservation today by calling the office 724-266-5336! Dress to impress, Food included, Cash Bar, and music by Alpha Omega with Georgio from the Grecian Keys.
18 & Over—$50 10-17—$25 5-9—$15 Under 5—Free
Contact Jimmy Gregorakis to get involved.
2025 THEOPHANY HOUSE BLESSINGS - Please sign up by filling out the form here or calling the office.
PARISH PLEDGES $20,000 FOR THE NEW METROPOLIS CENTER at last week's Parish Assembly. If you would like to add your own personal donation or pledge to the completion of the New Metropolis Center, please go to pittsburgh.goarch.org/pledge .
SUNDAY SCHOOL:The spiritual and religious education for our children is not only the 20-minute class following holy communion, it is attending each and every Sunday, hearing the hymns of the day, the readings for the day, Fr. Anastasios' kids' sermon, and worshipping alongside their family and community. Their formation also takes place in the home and in the example led by their parents, fortify yourself for the journey by coming to church too.
2024 STEWARDSHIP CARDS
Thank you to our 147 families that have turned in their pledge cards totaling $222,090 pledged!
That puts us at 67.3% toward our pledge goal of $330,000 for 2024.
If you haven’t submitted your 2024 pledge card, grab one today at the pangari. We need a current pledge card on file for eligibility to vote in upcoming assemblies and election.
YOUTH SAFETY - Please register at https://ncsrisk.org/goarch/. This includes all Youth Safety Workers as well as Parish Council
PRAYER CHAIN - Members of Holy Trinity are being brought together in efforts to pray for those in need of prayers. Please contact Joanie Ondrako at 724-601-6298, Fr. Anastasios, or the Office to join the prayer team, a group of people who will pray for the names given each day.
Prayer requests can be submitted anonymously and will be on the prayer list as long as your request is wanted, even up to a year.
ONLINE GIVING & STEWARDSHIP: Is OPEN! Online giving can be found by clicking here! Please consider your continued support of our church through becoming one of our online giving families. You can make general contributions and stewardship contributions.
REGULAR GIVING: The church is still accepting donations in normal ways through the mail and drop-off. Thank you to all of those who have continued to contribute in these challenging times.
YOU CAN NOW DONATE SECURITIES TO THE CHURCH
In response to inquiries regarding the donation of securities to Holy Trinity, a new brokerage account has been established with PNC Investments to receive stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Donating appreciated securities is often preferable to donating cash as the donor may benefit from the current tax code, creating the opportunity for donors to consider even larger gifts. Currently, this account can receive securities in lieu of cash for the fulfillment of stewardship pledges as well as directed gifts for special projects. If after consulting with your financial advisor, you are interested in this form of giving, please contact any parish council member or the office for more information.
LIVE-STREAM: If you don't have a Facebook account, don't worry: it does not force you to log in.
KIMISIS SPRING GLENDI - May 3, 2025 - We have been invited by our sister parish of Kimisis in Aliquippa to save the date for their Spring Glendi featuring Live Music from the Greek Company. More details to follow.
Philoptochos is selling Vasilopita Breads from Holy Protection Monastery. Orders are due December 8th, pick up on December 22nd. Pre-Order Only - $17. Checks to be made out to "Ladies Philoptochos"
Help us beautifully illuminate our church for Christmas Eve while honoring and remembering those who we love. All donations are to support the Georgia Antinopoulos Scholarship Fund.
You descended from on high, O compassionate One, and condescended to be buried for three days, so that from the passions You might set us free. Our life and resurrection, O Lord, glory be to You.
By faith You justified the Forefathers, having through them betrothed to yourself the Church that came out of the nations. The saints are boasting in glory; for the glorious fruit, the Virgin who without seed gave birth to You, is from their progeny. At their entreaties, O Christ our God, save our souls.
Apolytikion for Hieromartyr Eleutherios and Anthia in the 4th Mode
You were fully adorned with the sacred priestly robes. * You were dripping with streams of your own martyric blood. * In this state, you ran to Christ your Master, O blessed Saint * Eleftherius, destroyer of Satan; you are wise. * Therefore cease not interceding * for us who loyally honor * your blessed contest of martyrdom.
O Blessed are You, O Christ our God; Who has shone forth the fishermen to be most wise, by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit, and through them, You drew the world into Your net, O Lover of Mankind, glory to You.
On this day the Virgin Maid * goes to the grotto to give birth * to the pre-eternal Word * in an ineffable manner. * Dance for joy, all the inhabited earth, on hearing. * Glorify along with Angels and with the shepherds * Him who willed that He appear as * a newborn Child, * the pre-eternal God.
Prokeimenon. Grave Mode. Psalm 115.5,3 (116.15,12). Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Verse: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has given me?
The reading is from St. Paul's Second Letter to Timothy 1:8-18.
TIMOTHY, my son, do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel in the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago, and now has manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, and therefore I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, and among them Phygelos and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphoros, for he often refreshed me; he was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me eagerly and found me - may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesos.
11th Sunday of Luke
The Reading is from Luke 14:16-24
The Lord said this parable: "A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; and at the time of the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come; for all is now ready.' But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.' And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused.' And another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.' And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.' And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. For many are called, but few are chosen.'"
On the Sunday that occurs on or immediately after the eleventh of this month, we commemorate Christ's forefathers according to the flesh, both those that came before the Law, and those that lived after the giving of the Law.
Special commemoration is made of the Patriarch Abraham, to whom the promise was first given, when God said to him, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18). This promise was given some two thousand years before Christ, when Abraham was seventy-five years of age. God called him and commanded him to forsake his country, parents, and kinsmen, and to depart to the land of the Canaanites. When he arrived there, God told him, "I will give this land to thy seed" (Gen. 12:7); for this cause, that land was called the "Promised Land," which later became the country of the Hebrew people, and which is also called Palestine by the historians. There, after the passage of twenty-four years, Abraham received God's law concerning circumcision. In the one hundredth year of his life, when Sarah was in her ninetieth year, they became the parents of Isaac. Having lived 175 years altogether, he reposed in peace, a venerable elder full of days.
December 15
Eleutherios the Hieromartyr, Bishop of Illyricum, and his mother Anthia
This Saint had Rome as his homeland. Having been orphaned of his father from childhood, he was taken by his mother Anthia to Anicetus, the Bishop of Rome (some call him Anencletus, or Anacletus), by whom he was instructed in the sacred letters (that is, the divine Scriptures). Though still very young in years, he was made Bishop of Illyricum by reason of his surpassing virtue, and by his teachings he converted many unbelievers to Christ. However, during a most harsh persecution that was raised against the Christians under Hadrian (reigned 117-138), the Saint was arrested by the tyrants. Enduring many torments for Christ, he was finally put to death by two soldiers about the year 126. As for his Christ-loving mother Anthia, while embracing the remains of her son and kissing them with maternal affection, she was also beheaded.
What was the nature of the invitation? God the Father has prepared in Christ for the inhabitants of earth those gifts which are bestowed upon the world through Him, even the forgiveness of sins, the cleansing away of all defilement, the communion of the Holy Spirit, the glorious adoption of sons, and the kingdom of the heavens.
St. Cyril of Alexandria
Translation courtesy of "The Orthodox New Testament" Volume 1, 4th Century
Come, O faithful,
Let us enjoy the Master's hospitality,
The banquet of immortality.
In the upper chamber with uplifted minds
Let us receive the exalted words of the Word
Whom we magnify.
Last Ode of the Compline Canon
This parable ... proclaims beforehand both the casting out of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles; and it indicates together with this also the strictness of the life required, and how great the punishment appointed for the careless ....
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 69 on Matthew 22, 4th Century
And when were they bidden? By all the prophets; by John again; for unto Christ he would pass all on, saying, "He must increase, I must decrease;" by the Son Himself again, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you;" and again, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 69 on Matthew 22, 4th Century
But not by words only, but also by actions did He bid them, after His ascension by Peter, and those with him. "For He that wrought effectually in Peter," it is said, "to the apostleship of the circumcision, was mighty also in me towards the Gentiles." ...
