Please see our online calendar for dates and times of Feast Day services.
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
Position Vacant- President
Sharon Hanson - Member at Large
Luba Martins - 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) 322-2906, 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.
The Outreach Ministry is collecting gift cards for a needy family as our Advent project this year. The family requested gift cards to Big “Y”, Aldi’s, TJ Maxx and Walmart. There will be a basket on the table to the right of our church entrance to deposit the cards. We ask that all donations be brought in by Sunday, December 15. Please contact Deacon Timothy or Marlene Melesko with any questions. Thanking you in advance for your generosity.
On Sat., Dec. 14th from 9 am – 12 pm Three Saints Orthodox Church in Ansonia will hold their Annual Cookie Walk. Plan to visit and purchase a box of cookies at $9 /lb. Choose from a wide variety of cookies and Russian baked goods. Also available are tickets for a chance to be a winner in the Basket Raffles and a visit from St. Nicholas at 11:30 am. Snow date is Sun., Dec. 15th following liturgy.
Parish Council Meeting via Zoom on 12/10. Any parishinor may attend.
Nativity Services Schedule
Forefeast of the Nativity (21/22/23)
Eve of the Nativity (24)
Nativity
*Services so marked will be held at the church, all services will be streamed.
Many Years! to all those who take Dori Kuziak on the occasion of her birthday.
Memory Eternal! on the anniversary of the repose of Luke Hosking and to those who lost their lives in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School
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;
Please let Fr. Steven know via email if you have more names for which to pray.
Today’s commemorated feasts and saints
24th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 7. 362 Martyrs of Africa (62 Clergy and 300 Laypeople) (475). Ven. Patapius of Thebes (8th c.). Ven. Kirill, Abbot of Chelmogorsk (1378). Holy Apostles of the Seventy: Sosthenes, Apollos, Cephas, Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Cæsar, and Onesiphorus (1st c.). Martyr Anthusa, at Rome (5th c.).
A Prayer for Seminarians
Again we pray that the Lord our God will show favor to these students and will inspire their hearts, their minds, and their lips with the spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of holiness and fear; that He will enlighten those students with the light of His knowledge and will give them strength and perseverance, so that they may eagerly learn His divine law; that He will enable them to grow in wisdom, understanding, and virtue, for the glory of His holy name, and will give them health and long life for the upbuilding of His holy Church, we beg Thee, O Lord, hear us and have mercy.
10th Sunday of Luke
9:30AM Divine Liturgy
The Conception by St. Anna of the Most Holy Theotokos
8:00AM Akathist of Conception of Mary
Menas, Hermogenes, & Eugraphos, Martyrs of Alexandria
Dori Kuziak - B
8:30AM Matins
6:00PM Parish Council Mtg
Daniel the Stylite of Constantinople
Spyridon the Wonderworker of Trymithous
Saint Mardarije (Uskokovic) of Libertyville
8:30AM Matins
6:00PM Vigil for St Herman
Martyrs Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius, and Orestes of Greater Armenia
Repose of St. Herman of Alaska
8:30AM Akathist to St Herman
Martyrs Thyrsus, Leucius, and Callinicus of Asia Minor, and Philemon, Apollonius, and Arian of Alexandria
5:00PM Memorial (Panikhida)
5:30PM Great Vespers
11th Sunday of Luke
Righteous Aaron
9:30AM Divine Liturgy
The Holy Prophet Aggaeus (Haggai)
Daniel Cummings
This Saint was from the Thebaid of Egypt and struggled many years in the wilderness. He departed for Constantinople, and having performed many miracles and healings, he reposed in peace in a mountain cave on the Gulf of Corinth, where his holy relics are found incorrupt to the present day.
According to the ancient tradition of the Church, since Saint Anna, the Ancestor of God, was barren, she and her husband Joachim remained without children until old age. Therefore, sorrowing over their childlessness, they besought God with a promise that, if He were to grant them the fruit of the womb, they would offer their offspring to Him as a gift. And God, hearkening to their supplication, informed them through an Angel concerning the birth of the Virgin. And thus, through God's promise, Anna conceived according to the laws of nature, and was deemed worthy to become the mother of the Mother of our Lord (see also Sept. 8).
This Saint was from the village of Marutha in the region of Samosata in Mesopotamia. He became a monk at the age of twelve. After visiting Saint Symeon the Stylite (see Sept. 1) and receiving his blessing, he was moved with zeal to follow his marvellous way of life. At the age of forty-two, guided by providence, he came to Anaplus in the environs of Constantinople, in the days of the holy Patriarch Anatolius (see July 3), who was also healed by Saint Daniel of very grave malady and sought to have him live near him. Upon coming to Anaplus, Saint Daniel first lived in the church of the Archangel Michael, but after some nine years, Saint Symeon the Stylite appeared to him in a vision, commanding him to imitate his own ascetical struggle upon a pillar. The remaining thirty-three years of his life he stood for varying periods on three pillars, one after another. He stood immovable in all weather, and once his disciples found him covered with ice after a winter storm. He was a counsellor of emperors; the pious emperor Leo the Great fervently loved him and brought his royal guests to meet him. It was at Saint Daniel's word that the holy relics of Saint Symeon the Stylite were brought to Constantinople from Antioch, and it was in his days that the Emperor Leo had the relics of the Three Holy Children brought from Babylon. Saint Daniel also defended the Church against the error of the Eutychians. Having lived through the reigns of the Emperors Leo, Zeno, and Basiliscus, he reposed in 490, at the age of eighty-four.
Spyridon, the God-bearing Father of the Church, the great defender of Corfu and the boast of all the Orthodox, had Cyprus as his homeland. He was simple in manner and humble of heart, and was a shepherd of sheep. When he was joined to a wife, he begat of her a daughter whom they named Irene. After his wife's departure from this life, he was appointed Bishop of Trimythus, and thus he became also a shepherd of rational sheep. When the First Ecumenical Council was assembled in Nicaea, he also was present, and by means of his most simple words stopped the mouths of the Arians who were wise in their own conceit. By the divine grace which dwelt in him, he wrought such great wonders that he received the surname 'Wonderworker." So it is that, having tended his flock piously and in a manner pleasing to God, he reposed in the Lord about the year 350, leaving to his country his sacred relics as a consolation and source of healing for the faithful.
About the middle of the seventh century, because of the incursions made by the barbarians at that time, his sacred relics were taken to Constantinople, where they remained, being honoured by the emperors themselves. But before the fall of Constantinople, which took place on May 29, 1453, a certain priest named George Kalokhairetes, the parish priest of the church where the Saint's sacred relics, as well as those of Saint Theodora the Empress, were kept, took them away on account of the impending peril. Travelling by way of Serbia, he came as far as Arta in Epirus, a region in Western Greece opposite to the isle of Corfu. From there, while the misfortunes of the Christian people were increasing with every day, he passed over to Corfu about the year 1460. The relics of Saint Theodora were given to the people of Corfu; but those of Saint Spyridon remain to this day, according to the rights of inheritance, the most precious treasure of the priest's own descendants, and they continue to be a staff for the faithful in Orthodoxy, and a supernatural wonder for those that behold him; for even after the passage of 1,500 years, they have remained incorrupt, and even the flexibility of his flesh has been preserved. Truly wondrous is God in His Saints! (Ps. 67:3 5)
Saint Herman (his name is a variant of Germanus) was born near Moscow in 1756. In his youth he became a monk, first at the Saint Sergius Hermitage near Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland; while he dwelt there, the most holy Mother of God appeared to him, healing him of a grave malady. Afterwards he entered Valaam Monastery on Valiant Island in Lake Ladoga; he often withdrew into the wilderness to pray for days at a time. In 1794, answering a call for missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Aleuts, he came to the New World with the first Orthodox mission to Alaska. He settled on Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam, and here he persevered, even in the face of many grievous afflictions mostly at the hands of his own countrymen in the loving service of God and of his neighbour. Besides his many toils for the sake of the Aleuts, he subdued his flesh with great asceticism, wearing chains, sleeping little, fasting and praying much. He brought many people to Christ by the example of his life, his teaching, and his kindness and sanctity, and was granted the grace of working miracles and of prophetic insight. Since he was not a priest, Angels descended at Theophany to bless the waters in the bay; Saint Herman used this holy water to heal the sick. Because of his unwearying missionary labours, which were crowned by God with the salvation of countless souls, he is called the Enlightener of the Aleuts, and has likewise been renowned as a wonderworker since his repose in 1837.
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 4 Troparion (St. Alexis)
O righteous Father Alexis,
our heavenly intercessor and teacher,
divine adornment of the Church of Christ!
Entreat the Master of All
to strengthen the Orthodox Faith in America,
to grant peace to the world
and to our souls great mercy.
Tone 8 Troparion (Ven. Patapius)
The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Father,
for you took up the Cross and followed Christ.
By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh for it passes away;
but to care instead for the soul, for it is immortal.//
Therefore your spirit, venerable Patapius, rejoices with the angels.
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 5 Kontakion (St. Alexis)
Let us, the faithful praise the Priest Alexis,
a bright beacon of Orthodoxy in America, a model of patience and humility,
a worthy shepherd of the Flock of Christ.
He called back the sheep who had been led astray
and brought them by his preaching to the Heavenly Kingdom.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit
Tone 3 Kontakion (St. Patapius)
Your temple is found to be a source of healing,
and the people flock to it eagerly, O saint.
They seek the healing of their diseases
and the forgiveness of their sins,//
for you are a protector for all those in need, ven’rable Patapius.
now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Tone 6 Kontakion (Steadfast Protectress)
Steadfast Protectress of Christians,
Constant Advocate before the Creator;
despise not the entreating cries of us sinners,
but in your goodness
come speedily to help us who call on you in faith.
Hasten to hear our petition and to intercede for us,
O Theotokos, for you always protect those who honor you!
COMMUNION HYMN
Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest!
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
Prokeimenon. 7th Tone. Psalm 28.11,1.
The Lord will give strength to his people.
Verse: Bring to the Lord, O sons of God, bring to the Lord honor and glory.
The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 2:14-22.
Brethren, Christ is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh
SERMON ON GRATITUDE
17 December 1989
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Ten lepers came to the Lord; ten men who were ritually unclean and therefore, ritually rejected by their community, unable to attend the common worship of the Temple, unable to come near the habitations of men; and unclean also in the eyes of men because their sickness could be transmitted to others: others could become impure, others could be sick unto death.
They came to Christ and stood afar off because they knew that they had no right to come near, to touch Him as had done the woman who had an issue of blood and who had been healed. From afar off they cried for mercy, and the Lord healed them; He sent them to the priests in order to be ritually cleansed. Ten of them went, and nine never came back. One of them, discovering on his way that he was healed, let go of every other concern but his gratitude to Him that had restored him to wholeness. He came back and thanked the Lord, and the Gospel tells us that this man was a Samaritan, a man who was outside of the Hebrew community, a man who had no rights within the people of Israel, a man who was not only a stranger, but a reject.
Why is it - and Christ Himself asks the question - why is it that nine of them never thought of returning? Because they felt that now that they were clean they were restored to the wholeness of the people of Israel; they needed nothing more, they had everything. The Samaritan knew that he had been cleansed, healed, made whole without having any right to this love of God and this act of Christ.
Isn't it true that gratitude springs up in our hearts more powerfully, more gloriously when what we receive is undeserved, when it is a miracle of divine and human love? When we think that we deserve something and receive it, we receive it as our due; so did the nine Jews. But the Samaritan knew he had no right to the mercy of God, no right to this miracle of healing, and his heart was filled with gratitude.
Does this not apply to us? Indeed, it does! Indeed it does so sadly, because all of us do feel that we have a right: a right to human concern, to human love, a right to everything which the earth and human relationships can give, ultimately, a right for God's care and love for us. And therefore, when we receive a gift we are superficially grateful, we say a perfunctory 'thank you'; but it does not transform our relationship, either to God or to those who have been merciful to us. We receive it as our due, and we are grateful to those who were instrumental in conveying to us what 'naturally' we had a right to have.
The first Beatitude speaks to us in that respect very clearly: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God......Who are the poor in spirit? It is not those who are simply poor; poverty does not call out the great virtues simply by itself; the poor in spirit are those who in their heart and mind, in their whole self, know that they possess nothing which is not a gift, and deserve nothing of what gratuitously is given to us. Let us reflect one moment on this.
We did not come into being of our own volition; God brought us into being, and not by command, by an act of power. He brought us into being by an act of love, He loved us into existence. By doing this, He says to us: I love you! Without you, the world which I have created would be incomplete in my eyes; but also, I have faith in you that you will not betray my trust. I put my hope in all the good there is in you; My love will never falter, My faith and hope in you will remain unshaken - respond to them! The wonder is that however little we believe in God, God believes in us. Is not this a marvel, a wonder? And we exist only because of this faith of God in us, because of this hope and love He has vested in us.
And if we think further we have not only existence - we are alive, alive with the breath of God that makes us akin to Him, capable of knowing Him! And again, He has revealed Himself to us in so many ways, but ultimately in the Incarnation: God Himself has become man for us to see how much we are loved, and how great we are in His eyes, and indeed how great we are potentially in our humanity; we can all become by communion to Christ the sons and daughters of the Living God, partakers of the Divine nature. And to achieve this Christ has given us His life, His teaching, His death, the forgiveness He gave to those who crucified Him: Forgive them, Father, they don't know what they are doing! This applies to us also, all the time, day in, day out, of His Resurrection, and the manifestation of our human glory by His sitting at the right hand of God, Saint John Chrysostom says, If you want to know how great man is, look up to the throne of God - you will see Man enthroned at the right hand of glory!
Is not that enough for us to be grateful, to be grateful before any other particular gift is bestowed: the love of our closest, and of other people that care, the security of life, food, air, health! But we all take this for granted; we are not poor in spirit - we take it as our due; why should we be grateful that we are given what is our right? Why shouldn't God give us all that is His obligation to give. This is our attitude, we don't formulate it so crudely, but we live by it!
The Samaritan did not; he had no right to share anything that was the right of Israel - and he was given it! And his gratitude was aflame, aglow! Can we not learn something from him? And also, can we not realise how wonderful it would be if out of gratitude we lived in such a way as to give God joy, the joy of knowing that He has not created us in vain, that He does not believe in us in vain, that He has not put His trust in us in vain, that His love has been received, is now incarnate, not only in emotion, but in action! Saint Paul says, It is a greater joy to give than to receive; is that our attitude? If we are truly grateful for the gifts which are ours - how generously, how joyfully we would give to everyone around us in an act of love which would be our sharing in the love of God... And if we realised that all we have, in body, in soul, in circumstances of life, even in the tragedies of life, comes because God has sent us into the world as His messengers to bring divine presence at a cost, if necessary, of our lives - how grateful we would be, and how we would live in order that God should look at us, each of us, and say, Here is a disciple of Mine who has understood, and who lives accordingly!
Let us reflect on this; let us learn to live out of gratitude, out of the joy of being loved, out of our communion with God, but knowing that it is an act of gratuitous generosity, that we have no rights - and yet we possess all things. Saint Paul said that: I have nothing, and I possess all things. Each of us could be such a rich person in our utter poverty, rich with all the love and power and richness of God.
Let us reflect, and let us give God, in an act of gratitude not only spoken, not only dimly felt, but lived in every action of our life: let us give Him joy, and the certainty that He has not created us in vain, not lived and died for us in vain, that we are truly disciples who have understood and who want to live His Gospel. Amen.
Information about the fund raiser for St Tikhon's seminary.
Three Saints Cookie Walk