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:

Carolyn Neiss- President     Greg Jankura - Vice President
Boris Doph - Treasurer     Dierdre Cottergarfield - Secretary
Sharon Hanson - Member at Large
Luba Martins - Member at Large    
Brett Malcolm - Member at Large

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.

Fencing 

Martins Building And Remodeling LLC, will be replacing the "east" section of the fence. They will be donating the labor (approximately $2400). This means that we need approximately $3200 for materials and disposal. Section of fence run from $80 to $125 depending on whether you wish to include posts and disposal in your donation. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

Thank you for your prayerful contributions.

New Filesharing

As mentioned previously, there is a new filesharing site for you to obtain information shared with the parish. Please use the following site URL.

https://sites.google.com/stalexischurch.net/parish/home

If you are asked to enter a username and password, please contact Fr Steven via email.

Memory Eternal! on the anniversary of the repose of Deborah Bray.

Many Years! to the Reader Joseph Boruch on the anniversary of his tonsure; and to Katy Jankura on the occasion of her birthday.

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 and dispossesed, 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, predjudice; pestilence and natural disaster; all those departed this life in the hope of the Resurrection.

Please let Fr. Steven know via email if you have more names for which to pray.

• Departed:  Annette, Peter, Helen, Fr Paul, Alan, Edmund, Dorthy
• Clergy and their families: Fr Sergei B, Fr Vladimir, Matushka Anne, Matushka Sharon Anne, Fr Vladimir, Fr John, Fr Steven
• ​Catechumen: Paige, Jordan, Diedre
• Individuals and Families: Luba, Suzanne, Rosemary,  Daniel & Dayna, Kristen, Victor, Susan, Gregory, Nancy, Boris
• Birthdays and Name’s Days this Month: Joe Boruch (Tonsuring 9/10),Katie Jankura (B 9/12), Carolyn Neiss and Meissa Josefiak (B 9/16),  Fr Steven (Ordination 9/18)
• Anniversaries this Month: 
• ​Expecting and Newborn: Kristen and her unborn child, Christina and her unborn child
• ​Traveling: 
• ​Sick and those in distress:  Thomas, Sheri, Joanna, Joshua, Julia, Stormy, Anne, Noah, Sophia, Gregory, Tomas, Nicholas, Carol, Matthew, Mark, Hermon, Sandra, Alan, Richard, Peter, Loretta, James, Christian, Mitchel, Stephanie, Sharon, Susan, Amelia, Katherine

Today’s commemorated feasts and saints

13th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 4. Forefeast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. Sunday before Elevation. Martyr Sozón of Cilicia (ca. 304). St. John the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Novgorod (1186). Ven. Serapion of Spaso-Eleazar Monastery (Pskov—1481). Martyrdom of St. Makáry, Archimandrite of Kanev (Pereyaslavl’—1678). Apostles Evodia (Euodias) and Onesiphorus of the Seventy (66). Martyr Eupsychius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (2nd c.). Venerable Luke, Abbot of Batheos Ryako (10th c.). Ven. Cloud (Clodoald), Abbot, founder of Nogent-sur-Seine near Paris (560). Venerable Cassiani the Hymnographer.

Again we pray for those who have lost their lives because of the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East: that the Lord our God may look upon them with mercy, and give them rest where there is neither sickness, or sorrow, but life everlasting.

Again we pray for mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, for those who are suffering, wounded, grieving, or displaced because of the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

Again we pray for a cessation of the hostilities against Ukraine and the Middle East, and that reconciliation and peace will flourish there, we pray thee, hearken and have mercy.

Tone 4 Troparion (Resurrection)
When the women disciples of the Lord
learned from the angel the joyous message of Your Resurrection,
they cast away the ancestral curse and elatedly told the apostles:
“Death is overthrown! Christ God is risen,// granting the world great mercy!”

Tone 4 Troparion (Forefeast)
Today from the stem of Jesse and from the loins of David, 
the handmaid of God Mary is being born for us.
Therefore all creation is renewed and rejoices.
Heaven and earth rejoice together.
Praise her, you families of nations, for Joachim rejoices and Anna celebrates crying out:// “The barren one gives birth to the Theotokos, the Nourisher of our life!”

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 4 Troparion (St. Sozón)
Your holy martyr Sozón, O Lord, through his sufferings has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries,
and shattered the powerless boldness of demons.//
Through his intercession, save our souls!

Tone 4  Kontakion (Resurrection)
When the women disciples of the Lord learned from the angel the joyous message of Your Resurrection, they cast away the ancestral curse and elatedly told the Apostles: Death is overthrown! Christ God is risen, granting the world great mercy! 

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 2 Kontakion (St. Sozón)
Let us gather today and together sing to Sozón,
the true and divinely wise martyr,
an expert fighter for the faith,
the mystical seer of divine grace,
a generous provider of healing,//
who prays to Christ God for us all.

now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Tone 3 Kontakion (Forefeast)
Today the Virgin Theotokos Mary,
the bridal chamber of the Heavenly Bridegroom,
by the will of the God is born of a barren woman,
being prepared as the chariot of God the Word.//
She was foreordained for this, since she is the divine gate and the true Mother of Life.

Communion Hymn

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Sunday before Exaltation of the Cross
24 September 1989

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
In today's Gospel we are told that God did not send His Only-Begotten Son into the world to judge the world but to save the world. The Living God became a true and living man, shared with us all our human destiny, our creatureliness, the situation of a fallen world, all its sufferings including the tragedy of death which implies the tragic loss of consciousness of His communion with the Father: My God, My God, why hath Thou forsaken Me?.. And we are saved by His life and by Hid death, we are saved by His words,˜Father, forgive them because they don't know what they are doing. But do such words apply to us who know, who should know ” haven't we heard the Gospel? Do we not know what happened to Christ because of our sinfulness? Are we not aware that the words spoken by Christ apply to all of us? ” and yet, with a difference.
Saint Seraphim of Sarov said to one of his visitors, Yes, be sure of God's forgiveness, be sure that God will respond to your prayer; but remember one thing: the price He had to pay to have power to forgive, and don't ask Him lightly for forgiveness, don't bring unworthy prayers unto Him, because it is His death that pleads our forgiveness. And we cannot, without a response from our deepest self turn to God and ask forgiveness at the cost of His death, if we bring nothing, nothing at all but our desire to be free of the burden that crushes us.
And if we ask ourselves what can we bring ”we can bring first of all our gratitude. Our gratitude for that love which alone can save; a love so great that He accepted not only our human destiny, but to loose communion with the Father in order to identify Himself with us in all ways and respects, He, the Son of God, left God-less upon the Cross, and pleading for us that we may be forgiven...
But there is something else which we can learn from today's second Lesson: the story of the woman taken in adultery. This woman had been sinning, freely, light-mindedly, without understanding, indeed as one of those who did not know what they were doing! And of a sudden she found herself face to face with the fact that sin means death. She was taken in the act, and the Old Testament proclaimed death unto her. She realised then what sin was. And she was brought to Christ by the crowd who wanted to apply the harshness of the old-testamental law to her, without mercy. And Christ saw that at that moment she had understood everything. She knew that sin meant death, an ultimate destruction in the eyes of the people of the Old Testament who died in separation from God because only in Christ do we find our way back to Him. There was no other way than the descent into the sheol, the place of the irremediable and eternal absence of God. She knew that everything was over, not only the things that happen in time, but all eternity had become darkness and death: if she only could return to temporary life, to have time to repent, to have time to live in a way that was worthy of God and of herself,” she would do it!
And this is what Christ saw in her, this is why He turned to the judges, the sinful men and women who were prepared to kill this woman for her sins while they did not realise their own sinfulness and that they were carrying death upon their shoulders because of them.˜Let those of you who are without sin cast the first stones” and no-one dared, because at that moment, these words so simple and so direct brought to their consciousness the fact, that, Yes” no one of them was without sin, and all had deserted God, renounced their dignity, had betrayed their vocation, and there was no other judgement about them than a death sentence: they could not pronounce it against this woman, because to pronounce it meant that they accepted it for themselves.
And Christ Who knew the hearts of those who were before Him, knew that this woman had gone through the gates of death, and could come back by a divine act that would resurrect her: yes, truly bring her back from an anticipated, but certain death. And He told her, Where are those who were condemning thee? Has no one done so? ” No.” Neither do I condemn thee, go in peace, but sin no more!.. And these words she could indeed receive in her heart, those words indeed could become the law of her life, because now she knew in her body, in her soul, in her heart and mind, in all her being that sin was death. And she accepted forgiveness which meant life!
Where do we stand, each of us, when we come to confession, when we ask forgiveness from other people, when we are begged by others to forgive them ”where do we stand? Are we aware that death is at work in us because of our God-lessness, our sinfulness, the fact that we have chosen? This woman did not know what she was doing, but we have the Gospel speaking to us, we have Christ speaking to us, we know all things: where do we stand?
Let us learn from her; and let us learn also from these men who came armed with stones, to stone the sinner, and realised that they were locked in the same tragedy of sin and death with her, and that they could not condemn her, because to condemn her meant to condemn themselves to the same death.
Are we aware of this when we refuse forgiveness? I am not speaking of the light-minded words of forgiveness which we pronounce so easily” but do we forgive from the depth of our heart? Can we say to God: Forgive as I forgive?
Let us stay with this thought, but also with the victorious joy that God has send His Son into the world not to judge it but to save it! That salvation is at hand! That it is for us to take it” and it is given gratuitously, as love is gratuitous and redeeming. Amen.