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St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church
Publish Date: 2022-05-22
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St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • (908) 968-4004
  • Fax:
  • (908) 968-4002
  • Street Address:

  • 85 Voorhees Corner Road,

  • Flemington, NJ 08822


Contact Information






Services Schedule

Sunday Services:  Orthros 8:30 am; Divine Liturgy 9:30  am.  

Weekday Services:  See parish website calendar link for updates.

 


Past Bulletins


Parish News

CHRISTOS ANESTI!  CHRIST IS RISEN!

His Grace Bishop Apostolos of Medeia will be visiting our parish on Sunday, May 22!  Please attend and welcome His Grace back to our parish as he presides at the morning services which begin at 8:30 AM.  Several altar boys will be blessed by His Grace (tonsured) at the end of the Divine Services.  This is also HS Senior Recognition Day. Fellowship in our Nicholas and Anna Bouras Memorial Hall will follow.  

2022 Paver Campaign.  Do you see all those beautiful bricks with names on them in front of the church?  You too can participate in the Paver Program 2022 and have your personalized brick installed this year!  Here are some details:

4 x 8 paver for $300.
12 x 12 paver for $800 if ordered by 8/1/22 then $1,000 after that. The order form is on our parish website. Please contact any PC member (especially Evan Sakellos, the Paver Campaign Chair) with any questions about the program.  This is a historic year (20th Anniversary) and this is a beautiful way to honor or memorialize our loved ones.
 
Choir News  Our Choir is now singing regularly. If you would like to sing please contact choir director Diana Grina at dianakg2003@yahoo.com. Adults and Youth 9 yrs old and up are welcome! 

Congratulations to all the honorees who were recognized for their contributions to our St. Anna parish and its community. The following award recipients were celebrated at the 2022 GOMNJ Northern NJ Honoree Grand Banquet this past Monday evening, May 9, at The Venetian in Garfield:

  • Community Honoree - Peter Ypsilantis
  • Parish Council Honoree - Stephen Kehayes
  • Philoptochos Honoree - Olympia Tzolovos
  • Youth Advisor Honoree - George Coutros
  • GOYA Honoree - Demitra Ypsilantis
  • Essential Medical Worker Honoree - Dr. John Douvris
  • Religious Education Honoree - Aimee Douvris
  • Senior Parishioner Honoree - Eugenia Procyk

PC CORNER

SAVE THE DATE! SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13 - 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION!  His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America is expected to preside at services this day along with other clergy.  We are planning a wonderful 20th Anniversary Luncheon locally for all to celebrate our 20th Anniversary together!  More details soon...
 
CHURCH BEAUTIFICATION: The stained glass for the South-facing windows was installed last week!  The Holy Week appeal for the East-facing (Altar) stained glass windows was successful.  That installation will take place in the coming months. Thank you to all the donors who have made this possible.

Ladies Philoptochos

Philoptochos has been reinvigorated to continue outreach where we can be of service to our St. Anna family as well as to our Hunterdon County community.  Many parishioners (old and new friends) are Philoptochos members and enjoy this very important ministry of the church.  If you are not a current member, Philoptochos invites you to become a member and welcomes your talents and support.  For membership information and an enrollment form, please contact either Maria Tattoli at mtattoli@gmail.com or Arge Mardakis at mardakis@co.somerset.nj.us.  We look forward to hearing from you.

GOYA  Open Gym today, May 22 from 1:30 to 3 pm.  Coed Volleyball practice to prepare for the Olympics at Monmouth U on May 28-29. God bless our youth next weekend as they represent our St. Anna parish a the Metropolis Outdoor Olympics!
 
Young Adults - Fr. A is helping to organize the Young Adult ministry in the region.  Many events are being planned for our region!  Please be sure that Fr. A has the email and cell numbers of all our 18-35-year-olds so that he can reach out to them.  See Fr. A for information on upcoming Young Adult events.  Next regional event:  Dinner out in Cranford, NJ on Thursday, June 16.

Sunday School:   Sunday, May 22: Last Day of Sunday School.  High School Senior Recognition Day. 

Holy Land Trip - January 2023!!!  This trip was delayed 2 years due to COVID.  Fr. A is organizing a Holy Land Trip for our parish from January 10-21, 2023.  Special presentation by Edita at Select International Tours for those interested on Sunday, June 26 (new date!) from 11:30 AM to 12 PM.  Please let Fr. A know if you are interested so he can share the details with you.

 

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STEWARDSHIP 2022

2022 Stewardship Status: we have 141 Pledges totaling $161,220 and $106,456 received to date.  We also have 10 families who have contributed $5,200 to date but have not submitted a stewardship card.  It is important that all families complete a stewardship card to be considered a steward.  The current Stewardship List and other stewardship information are posted on the bulletin board by the water cooler.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 


     
 
Fr. A will be out of town most of this week.  Monday - Metropolis Clergy-Laity Assembly in Delaware.  Tues-Thurs - 25th Year Reunion at Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline, MA (1 year postponement due to pandemic).  Please text or call Fr. A with any pastoral emergency while he is out of town.
 
PARISHIONER IN NEED:  During Lent, as Orthodox Christians, we are called to strengthen our prayer life, intensify our fasting, and commit ourselves to almsgiving.  When we think of almsgiving, we tend to associate it with supporting those who are in financial need.  However, we can think in broader terms and consider helping those who have different types of needs.
 
Andrea Kalliaras is a parishioner within our Metropolis who has a health need. She has been diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia that can only be cured by a stem cell transplant. We have an opportunity to help Andrea by volunteering to take a test to determine donor suitability. This 10-second cheek swab test can be done in the convenience of one's home and is free of charge. We ask that you please include Andrea in your prayers and consider participating in the donor process.

Please use the following link to learn more about Andrea's situation and to find the instructions for ordering a test kit. www.swab4andrea.com.
(See Fr. A for more info). Thank you.
 

GREEK DANCE: Please contact Larisa or Fr. A for more information about the Junior Greek Dance practices (OPA! Festival is always the 2nd weekend in September.)

Kidney Donor Needed for 18-year-old: Melina Galias of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Egg Harbor Township, NJ has been on dialysis since June 2021.  She has been accepted to Drexel University but needs a kidney transplant.  Please register with VirtualHealth Kidney Donor Program on behalf of Melina.  A donor must be older than 18 and in good overall health.  A living donor is sought with O or B blood types. For more info re: registration --> virtua.org/KidneyDonation or call Jennie Roggio at 856-796-9376.  Thank you.

 

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Saints and Feasts

Allsaint
May 22

Basiliscus the Martyr, Bishop of Comana

This Martyr was from the city of Amasia on the Black Sea, and a nephew of Saint Theodore the Tyro (Feb. 17). When his fellow Martyrs Eutropius and Cleonicus had been crucified (see Mar.8), Basiliscus was shut up in prison. As he was praying the Lord to count him also worthy to finish his course as a martyr, the Lord appeared to him, telling him first to go to his kinsmen and bid them farewell, which he did. When it was learned that he had left the prison, soldiers came after him, and brought him to Comana of Cappadocia, compelling him to walk in iron shoes set with nails. He was beheaded at Comana, and his body was cast into the river, during the reign of Diocletian (284-305).


Allsaint
May 22

John-Vladimir, Ruler of Serbia


Jcsamwom
May 22

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

One of the most ancient cities of the Promised Land was Shechem, also called Sikima, located at the foot of Mount Gerazim. There the Israelites had heard the blessings in the days of Moses and Jesus of Navi. Near to this town, Jacob, who had come from Mesopotamia in the nineteenth century before Christ, bought a piece of land where there was a well. This well, preserved even until the time of Christ, was known as Jacob's Well. Later, before he died in Egypt, he left that piece of land as a special inheritance to his son Joseph (Gen. 49:22). This town, before it was taken into possession by Samaria, was also the leading city of the kingdom of the ten tribes. In the time of the Romans it was called Neapolis, and at present Nablus. It was the first city in Canaan visited by the Patriarch Abraham. Here also, Jesus of Navi (Joshua) addressed the tribes of Israel for the last time. Almost three hundred years later, all Israel assembled there to make Roboam (Rehoboam) king.

When our Lord Jesus Christ, then, came at midday to this city, which is also called Sychar (John 4:5), He was wearied from the journey and the heat, and He sat down at this well. After a little while the Samaritan woman mentioned in today's Gospel passage came to draw water. As she conversed at some length with the Lord and heard from Him secret things concerning herself, she believed in Him; through her many other Samaritans also believed.

Concerning the Samaritans we know the following: In the year 721 before Christ, Salmanasar (Shalmaneser), King of the Assyrians, took the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel into captivity, and relocated all these people to Babylon and the land of the Medes. From there he gathered various nations and sent them to Samaria. These nations had been idolaters from before. Although they were later instructed in the Jewish faith and believed in the one God, they worshipped the idols also. Furthermore, they accepted only the Pentateuch of Moses, and rejected the other books of Holy Scripture. Nonetheless, they thought themselves to be descendants of Abraham and Jacob. Therefore, the pious Jews named these Judaizing and idolatrous peoples Samaritans, since they lived in Samaria, the former leading city of the Israelites, as well as in the other towns thereabout. The Jews rejected them as heathen and foreigners, and had no communion with them at all, as the Samaritan woman observed, "the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John 4:9). Therefore, the name Samaritan is used derisively many times in the Gospel narrations. After the Ascension of the Lord, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the woman of Samaria was baptized by the holy Apostles and became a great preacher and Martyr of Christ; she was called Photine, and her feast is kept on February 26.


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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. 4th Tone. Psalm 103.24,1.
O Lord, how manifold are your works. You have made all things in wisdom.
Verse: Bless the Lord, O my soul.

The reading is from Acts of the Apostles 11:19-30.

In those days, those apostles who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabos stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius. And the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.


Gospel Reading

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman
The Reading is from John 4:5-42

At that time, Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly." The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, "What do you wish?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They went out of the city and were coming to him.

Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him food?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony. "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this is indeed Christ the Savior of the world."


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Hymns of the Day

Apolytikion of Great and Holy Pascha in the Plagal 1st Tone

Christ is risen from the dead, by death hath He trampled down death, and on those in the graves hath He bestowed life.

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the 4th Tone

Having learned the joyful proclamation of the Resurrection from the Angel, and having cast off the ancestral condemnation, the women disciples of the Lord spake to the Apostles exultantly: Death is despoiled and Christ God is risen, granting great mercy to the world.

Apolytikion for Mid-Pentecost in the Plagal 4th Tone

At Mid-feast give Thou my thirsty soul to drink of the waters of piety; for Thou, O Saviour, didst cry out to all: Whosoever is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Wherefore, O Well-spring of life, Christ our God, glory be to Thee.

Seasonal Kontakion in the Plagal 4th Tone

Though You went down into the tomb, You destroyed Hades' power, and You rose the victor, Christ God, saying to the myrrh-bearing women, "Hail!" and granting peace to Your disciples, You who raise up the fallen.
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Wisdom of the Fathers

THE persecution turned out to be no slight benefit as "to them that love God all things work together for good." (Rom. viii. 28.) If they had made it their express study how best to establish the Church, they would have done no other thing than this--they dispersed the teachers.[*] Mark in what quarters the preaching was extended. "They travelled," it says, "as far as Phenice and Cyprus and Antioch; to none however did they preach the word but to Jews only." Dost thou mark with what wise purposes of Providence so much was done in the case of Cornelius? This serves both to justify Christ, and to impeach the Jews. When Stephen was slain, when Paul was twice in danger, when the Apostles were scourged, then the Gentiles received the word, then the Samaritans. Which Paul also declares: "To you it was necessary that the Word of God should first be spoken; but since ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy, lo, we turn unto the Gentiles." (ch. xiii. 46.)..."And the hand of the Lord," it says, "was with them," that is, they wrought miracles; "and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." (v. 21.) Do you mark why now also there was heed of miracles (namely) that they might believe? "Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch." (v. 22.) What may be the reason that, when such a city received the word, they did not come themselves? Because of the Jews. But they send Barnabas. However, it is no small part of the providential management even so that Paul comes to be there. It is both natural, and it is wisely ordered, that they are averse to him, and (so) that Voice of the Gospel, that Trumpet of heaven, is not shut up in Jerusalem..."And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch." (v. 26.) Verily this is the reason why it was there they were appointed to be called Christians, because Paul there spent so long time!
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 25 on Acts 11, 4th Century

The example of the good Samaritan shows that we must not abandon those in whom even the faintest amount of faith is still alive.
St. Ambrose of Milan
Two Books of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Concerning Repentance, Chapter 11

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