The 12th Annual Pan-Orthodox Bible Bowl will be held on Saturday, February 9th, 2019 at St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church in Hunt Valley, MD. The competition begins at 2:00PM. Following the competition, Great Vespers will be served at 5:00PM with an awards ceremony concluding the evening. Come watch and encourage our youth and all the youth of the Church schools as they participate in this annual event!
Please join us this evening at 8:00PM as we begin our new weekly book study. We will be going through Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, pastor of St. Paul Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania. We hope to see you there! Please see Fr. Gregory with any questions.
Please join us at 9:00AM on Saturday, February 2, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. The blessing of candles will follow.
The Feast of Presentation of Out Lord (also commonly called the Meeting of Our Lord) is one of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church. Commemorated is the presentation of Jesus into the Temple by Mary and Joseph 40 days after Our Lord’s Nativity.
In the Gospel of St. Luke 2:22-35, Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem. There he was received by the elder Simeon, who held Jesus and prayed, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.” At this Mary and Joseph marveled.
The celebration of the Meeting of the Lord in the church is not merely a historical commemoration. Inspired by the same Holy Spirit as Simeon, and led by the same Spirit into the Church of the Messiah, the members of the Church also can claim their own “meeting” with the Lord, and so also can witness that they too can “depart in peace” since their eyes have seen the salvation of God in the person of his Christ. (Fr. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith – Vol. 2)
The Feast of the Presentation is the last feast of the Nativity cycle. It has a forefeast of one day and an afterfeast of seven days. This feast is also unique among the feasts of the Church in that is simultaneously a feast of Our Lord and the Theotokos. Also customary in both Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions is to bless candles on this day, hence the name Candlemas.
Visit the Meeting of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Temple article from the Orthodox Church in America website to learn more about this Feast Day.
Fr. Gregory will be performing House Blessings this year on the following Tuesdays and Thursdays during month of February. Please note that there are two available time slots per evening. If you would like Father to bless your home, please contact him at fr.gregory1@verizon.net with your desired date and time. If none of these dates/times works for you, then Father Gregory will arrange a time with you that is more convenient.
Tuesday, February 5 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Thursday, February 7 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Tuesday, February 12 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Tuesday, February 19 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Thursday, February 21 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Tuesday, February 26 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
Thursday, February 28 / 7:30PM + 8:30PM
When You, O Lord were baptized in the Jordan / The worship of the Trinity was made manifest / For the voice of the Father bore witness to You / And called You His beloved Son. / And the Spirit, in the form of a dove, / Confirmed the truthfulness of His word. / O Christ, our God, You have revealed Yourself / And have enlightened the world, glory to You! (Troparion for the Feast)
Please join us on January 6 for the celebration of the Feast of the Theophany of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (And don’t forget, please bring a water container to church on Sunday and take some blessed water for home use. See here for the wise words of St. John of San Francisco and Shanghai regarding holy water use at home).
Vespers for the Feast – Saturday, Jan 5, 6PM
Festal Divine Liturgy w/ Blessing of the Waters – Sunday, Jan 6, 9:30AM
After the Divine Liturgy this morning, several sets of new vestments were blessed for use among among our altar servers. Just in time for Nativity services! A big thank you to Alex and Lia K. for getting this project underway!
