Jesus Christ taught us to love and serve all people, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. To understand that, we need to look no further than to the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, it is offered "on behalf of all, and for all." As Orthodox Christians we stand against racism and bigotry. All human beings share one common identity as children of God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatian 3:28)

Members of our Parish Council are:
Greg Jankura - Vice President
Susan Davis- Council Member at Large
Carolyn Neiss - President
Marlene Melesko - Council Member at Large
Susan Egan - Treasurer
Dn Timothy Skuby - Secretary

Pastoral Care - General Information

Emergency Sick Calls can be made at any time. Please call Fr Steven at (860) 866-5802, when a family member is admitted to the hospital.
Anointing in Sickness: The Sacrament of Unction is available in Church, the hospital, or your home, for anyone who is sick and suffering, however severe. 
Marriages and Baptisms require early planning, scheduling and selections of sponsors (crown bearers or godparents). See Father before booking dates and reception halls!
Funerals are celebrated for practicing Orthodox Christians. Please see Father for details. The Church opposes cremation; we cannot celebrate funerals for cremations.

We had applied for a grant to get an AED, however, the company underestimated the number of applicants and ran out of the available defibulators. They have put together a fund raising site for us, which is linked below. I will also place this on our Facebook and Parish web sites. Please share and/or consider making a donation. Thank you.

https://inaheartbeat.networkforgood.com/projects/197916-st-alexis-orthodox-church-aed-campaign 

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops has blessed July 30, 2023 to be “Prison Ministry Awareness Sunday,” the day for Orthodox parishes across the United States to learn more about the work of Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry (OCPM), the national prison ministry of the Orthodox Church and an agency of the Assembly of Bishops.

https://theocpm.org

Feast of the Transfiguration

Dierdre Garfield will be received into the Orthodox Church through the rite of Chrismation. Anne Hosking ([email protected]) is coordinating the coffee hour in honor of Diedre. More information will be forth coming soon. While this is a Feast, it also occurs during the Fast, so please plan accordingly. There is a dispensation for fish on this Feast Day.

OUTREACH COMMITTEE: There will be an Outreach Committee meeting downstairs following Liturgy on Sunday, July 30th, to discuss a Fall project. Everyone is welcome to join us.

School Supplies for Clinton Family Services: The Outreach Committee is again collecting school supplies for the students in the Clinton school system. The following is a list of items requested by Family Services. The last Sunday to bring in supplies is August 13. Please leave any donations on the table downstairs.
Supplies needed for Clinton Family Services:
Plastic 3 ring folders
Highlighters, multi colors
3 or 5 subject lined notebooks…No “one subject notebooks”, please
Colored pencils
Small denomination gift cards $5 or $10 to Staples would be great as well for miscellaneous items families need, like poster paper/project boards, etc. for school projects.

SUNDAY BRUNCH: A new sign-up sheet has been posted on the bulletin board downstairs. If you plan to stay for brunch, please kindly take a turn to bring something to break the fast. And, feel free to sign up with another parishioner.

Good Morning St. Alexis Parish,

We're reaching out on behalf of the Orthodox Youth Mission Team. Our team formed in 2010 out of Holy Trinity Danbury, Fr. Luke Mihaly's ACROD parish, led by Susan Sulich and Beth Ryzyk. OYMT has since grown to include participants from ACROD, GOARCH, OCA, and Antiochian parishes in CT, NY, NJ and beyond. We're in the process of transitioning into Team Coordinator roles, and are looking to reach more Orthodox youth in the area and grow our program!

OYMT's mission is to provide Orthodox youth with opportunities to put their faith into action, by facilitating accessible, short mission trips as well as local service. A pan-Orthodox team from the start, the program allows Orthodox youth to interact and build connections outside of jurisdictional programming. Since 2010, our team has embarked on ten week-long mission trips with Appalachia Service Project to WV, KY, and TN, as well as a two-week-long mission trip to Napaskiak, Alaska with OCMC in 2017. We are the only youth group to ever participate in an OCMC mission. Over a hundred Orthodox youth from the Tri-State area have come through our program, with another hundred joining us on satellite teams from across the country. At our pre-COVID peak in 2019, we had almost ninety participants from a dozen states join us on a single mission trip.

Building on the momentum of two successful post-COVID trips, we're looking to bring more Connecticut Orthodox youth into this life-changing program. We'd love to come do a short presentation for your parish to share more about OYMT and our vision for its future. Our presentation is beneficial for potential participants (youth aged 13-17), their parents, and the larger parish community. When missionaries are sent out as fishers of men, an entire community has already built their net; hence, OYMT would not be where it is today without the ongoing support and prayers of all our participants' parishes.

We're happy to discuss OYMT further and answer any questions you may have about our program. If there is interest in your parish, we would love to set a time to join you for liturgy, followed by presentation and discussion of the work we do and the opportunities OYMT provides. As we like to finalize our team rosters in November, we'd appreciate the opportunity to meet with your parish in the next couple of months.

We look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you!

In Christ,
Lexi Klimaszewski and Jamison Dunne
[email protected] | [email protected]

Orthodox Youth Mission Team
Holy Trinity Orthodox Church
74 Joes Hill Road
Danbury, CT 06811

Follow Facebook/Instagram @oymt1
www.oymt.info
[email protected]

Many Years! to Michael Kuziak and Susan Davis on the occasion of their birthdays.

Please continue to pray for our catecumen Dierdre.

Please pray for Evelyn Leake and Victor Hoehnebart who are in need of God's mercy and healing; and for Kelley Hosking-Billings.

• Pray for: All those confined to hospitals, nursing homes, and their own homes due to illness; for all those who serve in the armed forces; widows, orphans, prisoners, victims of violence, and refugees;
• All those suffering chronic illness, financial hardship, loneliness, addictions, abuse, abandonment and despair; those who are homeless, those who are institutionalize, those who have no one to pray for them;
• All Orthodox seminarians & families; all Orthodox monks and nuns, and all those considering monastic life; all Orthodox missionaries and their families.
• All those who have perished due to hatred, intolerance and pestilence; all those departed this life in the hope of the Resurrection.

Apostles Silas and Silvanus of the Seventy, and those with them: Crescens, Epenetus, and Andronicus (1st c.). Martyr John the soldier at Constantinople. Uncovering of the Relics of Ven. Herman of Solovétsky Monastery (1484). Hieromartyr Polychronius, Bishop of Babylon, and Martyrs Parmenius, Helimenas, and Chrysotelus—Presbyters, Luke and Moscius—Deacons, and Abdon, Sennen, Maximus and Olympius (ca. 251). Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna (Terni) in Italy, and Martyrs Proculus, Ephebus, Apollonius and Abundius, youths (ca. 273). 

Tone 7 Troparion (Resurrection)

By Your Cross You destroyed death.
To the thief You opened Paradise.
For the Myrrhbearers You changed weeping into joy.
And You commanded Your disciples, O Christ God,
to proclaim that You are risen,//
granting the world great mercy.

Tone 3 Troparion (Apostles)

Holy Apostles Silas and Silvanus,
entreat the merciful God//
to grant our souls forgiveness of transgressions!

Tone 7 Kontakion (Resurrection)

The dominion of death can no longer hold men captive,
for Christ descended, shattering and destroying its powers.
Hell is bound, while the Prophets rejoice and cry:
“The Savior has come to those in faith;//
enter, you faithful, into the Resurrection!”

Tone 4 Kontakion (Apostles)

You were revealed to be branches of the vine of Christ, O wise ones,
bearing clusters of virtues that pour out on us the wine of salvation.
Receiving it, we are filled with gladness,
and we celebrate your most honored memory, Apostles of the Lord, Silas and Silvanus.//
Therefore, intercede that great mercy and remission of sins may be granted to us.

Communion Hymn

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest! (Ps. 148:1)
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Reading of the Five Loaves
13 August 1989

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We read the Gospel from year to year, and from generation to generation in new contexts, in the face of now situations, whether they are historical or personal. And every time, a passage or another may strike us in a new way.
Today we have read the passage about the feeding of the multitude by Christ. And more often than not I have read in the Fathers and in the spiritual writers their sense of wonder at the mercy of God and of the power of God Who could feed so many with so little, Who could indeed, work miracles within a world so much estranged from Him, when just a glimpse of faith, a crack in our armour of faithlessness allowed Him to act.
And reading today this passage of the Gospel I was struck anew with words of Christ. The disciples call upon Him to send away the multitudes, because the day is spent, distance from the place where they are to the neighbouring villages is great, tiredness will overcome them, and darkness, if they stay longer. And yet, they have not eaten a whole day, listening to the life-giving word of Christ.
And Christ says to the disciples: No, they need not depart; y o u give them to eat... How can they feed a multitude of that kind? A thousand men, women, children, and all they have is five loaves of bread and two fishes? And here is a challenge of Christ to them, and of Christ to us. Yes — in a way, God alone can perform this miracle; but not if we do not contribute with openness of heart, and with an open hand. He did not say to His disciples: Keep as much as you need for yourselves, and give the rest, your left-over to others. He says to them: Take all you have, and give it all...
Isn't it something which the Lord says to us n o w, in a very special way, in days where we are so secure, so rich, so opulent, and when we hear day after day of the hunger, the misery, the death indeed from starvation of thousands and thousands of people. And what the Lord says to us is simply: Give what you have and let Me act afterwards; do not ask Me to work a miracle where you could do the thing yourselves...
The Apostles could do little; they could share only five loaves and two fishes; but we can share so much! If our hearts were open, and from hearts of stone God had made hearts of flesh within us, if we had learned anything of generosity and of mutual responsibility, if we had learned a little, o, so little! — about loving our neighbour actively, there would be no hunger in the world.
And what this Gospel says to us today, is, ‘look round’; look round at every person who is hungry, every person who is homeless, every person who is in need, and r e m e m b e r that each of these persons is your own responsibility, that all their hunger, all their homelessness, all their misery is ultimately the result of you opulence, your comfort, your richness and your refusal to share, to give. Not to give beyond your means — just to give.
If we only remembered, as one Saint, whose name I can't recall now, says in one of his writings, that whenever he eats a morsel which is not a necessity, whenever he acquires or possesses anything beyond his strict needs, he has s t o l e n it from the hungry, s t o l e n it from the homeless, stolen it from the one who has no cloths — he is a thief.
Isn’t that addressed to us much more sharply than to this ascetic?
We must reflect on this, because we are behaving like bad, unworthy stewards; there i s such thing as stewardship of wealth — intellectual, emotional, moral and material. You remember probably the story of the unworthy, the unfaithful steward who had cheated his master, stolen from him, and when he was to be dismissed by his master who had discovered his dishonesty, he called the people who owed money to his master, and reduced their debt. This is something which we could learn. He turned to people, and gave whatever help he could; w e d o n o t. Let us reflect on these words of Christ: They need not depart from My presence to order to eat; give them you what they need... And if we looked round us, not far beyond but just round us at the needs of people who are hungry, who are homeless, who are deprived of rights, or simply our neighbours who are at times s o lonely, need a word of comfort, need friendship, solidarity, we would begin to fulfil this commandment of Christ.
But let us not deceive ourselves; it is not by words of consolation, by kind gestures that we will have fulfilled it. Christ said: Give all you have... and to us perhaps, taking into account the little faith which we have, and the narrowness and hardness of our heart, He will say: Give what is superfluous in your life — but give true thought to what is superfluous, to what you spend on yourself unnecessarily, without even deriving true joy and pleasure, an advantage from it — g i v e it, and then, leave it to God to fulfil the gift, to do the rest.
This is the judgement of God upon me; it is also the call of God addressed to each of you. Amen!