Schedule of Events and Services for November 29 – December 6

WE ARE IN THE ADVENT FAST
Today is the Last Day to bring in your used clothes for the Parish Clothing Drive! 

Don’t forget your parish Secret Santa and their present for next Sunday! 

Tuesday, December 1
9 AM Perogie Session

Wednesday, December 2
7 PM – Catechism Class

Thursday, December 3
8:30 AM– Akathist to St. Nicholas

Friday, December 4
9:30 AM – Old Testament Class

Saturday, December 5
7:30 PM – Vespers

Sunday, December 6
9 AM – Church School
10 AM –Liturgy
11:30 AM – St. Nicholas Brunch
3 PM – Fundraising kick-off

Readers Schedule
11/29 – Robert Faubel
12/6 – Susan Paltauf
12/13 – Jeff Szymanowicz
12/20 – Luke Mihaylo

Coffee Hour
11/29 – Fong
12/6 – St. Nicholas Brunch
12/13 – Breakfast to raise funds for St. Nicholas Fund/Syrian relief
12/20 – Toaso
12/27 – Suzanne

Schedule of Services and Events for November 22 – November 29

WE ARE IN THE ADVENT FAST
Today is our drawing for our parish Secret Santa

Monday, November 23
6 PM – Prayer Group
7 PM – Spirituality Class

Tuesday, November 24
8:30 AM – Hours

Wednesday, November 25
7 PM – Moleben/Akathist of Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 26
Happy Thanksgiving  – NO Fasting/Dispensation from Fasting on Friday

Saturday, November 28
7:30 PM – Music on the Mount concert – St. Petersburg Ensemble

Sunday, November 29
9 AM – Church School

Sunday, November 29
10 AM Liturgy
11:30 AM – Church School
Last Day of the Parish Clothing Drive. Bring in your used clothes!

Readers Schedule
11/22 – Nicholas Fong
11/29 – Robert Faubel
12/6 – Susan Paltauf
12/13 – Luke Mihaylo
12/20 – Suzanne Molineaux
12/25 – Harry Fong
12/27 – Sandi Fong

Coffee Hour
11/22 – Mihaylo
11/29 – Fong
12/6 – St. Nicholas Brunch

Thanksgiving Bake Sale 2015: Online Purchasing Form!

Saturday, November 21 from 10 am to 3 pm
Sunday, November 22 from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm

As a reminder, we will have other baked goods and assorted items available on the day of sale, including jams, jellies, and more!

We now have online pre-ordering and purchasing available via paypal!! Place your order online and come to the sale to pick it up!

Online ordering for this sale is now closed. Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow where more baked goods etc. will be available in the church hall.

Potato/Cheese
Perogies
$7.00/dozen
Potato/Onion
Perogies
$7.00/dozen
Potato/Cheese/
Jalepeno Perogies
$7.00/dozen
Prune Perogies
$7.00/dozen
Sauerkraut Perogies
$8.00/dozen
Fully Cooked!
Just Heat and Serve!
Walnut Roll
$12.00/roll
Poppyseed Roll
$11.00/roll
Lekvar Roll
$11.00/roll
Apricot Roll
$11.00/roll
Russian Tea Cookies
0.5lb package
$6.00/pkg
Stuffed Cabbage
1.5lb package
(3-6 pieces)
$12.00/pkg

Questions??
Call:
(203) 797-8326
Email: 
[email protected]

Please join our mailing list!

Join Our Bake Sale Mailing List!

 

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Schedule of Services and Events for November 15 – November 22

Sunday, November 15
ADVENT FAST BEGINS TODAY 
 

Wednesday, November 18
7 PM – Adult Catechism Class

Thursday, November 19
8:30 AM – Akathist
7 PM – St. Nectarios Service

Friday, November 20
9:30 AM – Old Testament Class

Saturday, November 21
10 AM to 3 PM- Thanksgiving Craft & Bake Sale
 5 PM – Vespers

Sunday, November 22
9 AM – Church School
10 AMLiturgy
11:30 AM – Craft & Bake Sale Continues

Readers Schedule
11/15 – Stasia Mihaly
11/22 – Nicholas Fong
11/29 – Robert Faubel
12/6 – Susan Paltauf

Coffee Hour
11/15 – Sophia Baroody
11/22 – OPEN
11/29 – Fong
12/6 – St. Nicholas Brunch

Schedule of Services and Events for November 8 – November 15

Tuesday, November 10
8:30 AM
– First Hour
6 PM –Stuffed Cabbage Session

Wednesday, November 11
7 PM – Adult Catechism Class

Thursday, November 12
9 AM
– Akathist
9:30 AM – Tea Cookie Session

Friday, November 13
9:30 AM
– Old Testament Class

Saturday, November 14
8 AM
– Roll Baking session
10 AM – Cemetery Clean up
5 PM – Vespers

Sunday, November 15
9 AM
– Church School
10 AM –Liturgy and blessing of new wooden icon

Readers Schedule
11/15 – Stasia Mihaly
11/22 – Nicholas Fong
11/29 – Robert Faubel

Coffee Hour
11/15 – Sophia Baroody
11/22 – OPEN
11/29 – Fong
12/6 – St. Nicholas Brunch

Upcoming Events
Roll Baking Day – November 14
Cemetery Clean Up – Saturday, November 14
Music on the Mount – Saturday, November 28
St. Nicholas Day Brunch – Sunday, December 6
Christmas Bake Sale – Saturday, December 12
Christmas Eve Holy Supper – Thursday, December 24
Christmas/Nativity of Christ – Friday, December 25

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Mother Maria of Paris says “OXI!” to the Nazi Mass Murder Machine

Mother Maria of Paris Mother Maria of Paris

On the occasion of OXI Day, when we commemorate the occasion when a tiny, run down nation had the guts to stand up against the bullying of the Nazi/fascist juggernaut, I want to bring up another underdog who deserves some recognition. No, she isn’t Greek, although she is Orthodox Christian. She isn’t American either. She probably never even stepped foot in Greece. But she is a heroine. She displays the ideal of “philotimo” (or doing the honorable thing for the honorable thing’s sake). She too had the courage to say “NO” to the Nazi murder machine. For her sacrifices to her immigrant community and the poor and the stranger, and ultimately in her ultimate sacrifice of her life, she is recognized as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. Her name is Maria Skobtsova or more simply Mother Maria of Paris.

I can’t summarize her entire life story in one short article as this would not do justice to the complexities of her thought and her being. (But you can get a more detailed account by reading Jim Forest’s bio of her at http://incommunion.org/2004/10/18/saint-of-the-open-door/). Suffice it to say that she was a character; she, like Dorothy Day, her Catholic counterpart, believed that Christ took the guise of the poor, the wretched, the ill, and that instead of glorious towering temples,the Church could be found “in the streets.”

Here are some life notes:

  • she was born in Riga, Latvia, then part of Russia to a family that included politicians and the last governor the Bastille in Paris
  • a socialist sympathizer, she would spend nights writing poetry and arguing about a “just society” with the radical literary groups she frequented, which included symbolist poet Alexander Blok
  • although raised devoutly Orthodox, the death of her beloved father when she was 14 caused her to have a lapse of faith. As a result, she went through several years of her life a sworn atheist.
  • she married a Bolshevik and was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party, much more democratic than the Bolsheviks, but her marriage ended in divorce
  • she published books of poetry in the Symbolist School and later many theological essays
  • she applied to an all-male theology school in St. Petersburg and was accepted as the first female student
  • she escaped execution by a Bolshevik for being in the wrong party but using her gift of gab convinced him that she was a friend of Lenin’s wife
  • she became deputy mayor of her home town of Anapa during the onset of the Russian Civil War in 1918, and was surprisingly able to sustain it with vital services
  • when the opposing side in the civil war, the White Army took over her small town she was put on trial and would have been executed for looking too much a “red” except that her judge at the trial, a former schoolteacher she knew,  fell in love with her and had it dismissed. She fell in love with him and married husband number 2 a few days after the trail
  • she and her family went into exile after the Bolsheviks took over by taking a perilous journey through the Black Sea through the mountains of Georgia, to Turkey through Yugoslavia that finally ended in Paris. Two years and two newborn children later, they arrived as refugees in Paris
  • she lost her daughter to the flu and meningitis, an experience that changed her life forever causing her to take on the calling as a “mother to all”
  • very unconventionally, she smoked and drank beer in a nun’s habit in Parisian coffee shops
  • after her second marriage fell apart, she founded a spiritual/social work house that connected spiritual life to service for the most needy, serving thousands of impoverished refugees, the mentally ill, and the poor of Paris

But what would garner her a golden medal on OXI Day deals with her bravery in smuggling out Jewish children headed for the death camps in an undercover operation aptly titled “The Trash Can Rescue” (the story is described vividly in the children’s book Silent as Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue, also by her biographer Jim Forest and founder of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. You can purchase your own copy on Amazon).

Mother Maria and the Trash Can Rescue
Mother Maria and the Trash Can Rescue

The story occurs after Mother Maria had established the house with the blessing and help of her bishop, Metropolitan Evlogy Georgievsky, on rue de Lourmel. Word got out that something was happening at the stadium, not far from the house. “. . .There was a mass arrest of Jews — 12,884, of whom 6,900 (two-thirds of them children) were brought to the Velodrome d’Hiver . . . Held there for five days, the captives in the stadium received water only from a single hydrant, while ten latrines were supposed to serve them all. From there the captives were to be sent via Drancy to Auschwitz. (http://incommunion.org/2004/10/18/saint-of-the-open-door/)

Mother Maria of Paris wrote both poetry and religious essays in addition to running a soup kitchen and community center in a ghetto of Paris.

Because Mother Maria was well-known to the police and sanitation crews as she would scour the back alleys of Paris and the central market gathering day old food and recyclables for the poor of her community, she was granted access into the stadium. She quickly sized up the situation. The stadium had become a central transfer and processing hub for the thousands of Jews of Paris.

She prayed for assistance. The idea came to her. By employing the confidence of the local sanitation workers in charge of hauling the garbage from the stadium, Mother Maria perpetrated a plot that would at least save the children from the gas chambers: stuff them into the garbage bins, haul them out on the trucks from the stadium, and then under the cover of night, sneak the children to the house on rue de Lourmel where she then could orchestrate their continued passage to the south of France, an area outside of Nazi control, and to safety.

As her biographer recounts, “It would have been possible for her to leave Paris when the Germans were advancing toward the city, or even to leave the country to go to America. Her decision was not to budge. “If the Germans take Paris, I shall stay here with my old women. Where else could I send them?”(http://incommunion.org/2004/10/18/saint-of-the-open-door/)

No one is sure how many children Mother Maria and her garbage crew saved. But what is certain is that she eventually was found out by the Nazis. The priest, Father Dimitri Klepinin who had served alongside her in the “monasticism in the world” and her son Yuri were arrested. They had been guilty of forging fake baptismal certificates for Jews who came begging for help. Yuri and Father Dimitri eventually died in Buchenwald camp while Mother Maria was sent to Ravensbruck.

Even while undergoing unspeakable torment, Mother Maria still saw hope in the smoke stacks that plumed from the crematoria. “But it is only here, immediately above the chimneys, that the billows of smoke are oppressive,” Mother Maria said. “When they rise higher, they turn into light clouds before being dispersed in limitless space. In the same way, our souls, once they have torn themselves away from this sinful earth, move by means of an effortless unearthly flight into eternity, where there is life full of joy.” Even in the camp, she would give away her own meager portion of bread to others more needy.

The Russian Orthodox Church took a long time to declare Mother Maria a saint probably because of her unorthodox ways and thinking

She too found escape through the smoke stacks of the gas chambers. It was Good Friday, March 30th, on the eve of the liberation of Paris, 1945, that Mother Maria was one of those chosen for death. According to other accounts, she took the place of another prisoner who was marked for the gas chamber that day.This little-known wayward nun who downed vodka and scribbled poetry had the courage to risk her life to do the Christ-like thing. (When Nazis interrogated her about whether she had seen any Jews, she would point to an icon of the Mother of God or else point to the body of Christ on her crucifix.) To stand up against injustice and hatred, not just in the abstract as she had criticized the early revolutionaries and even the ultra-nationalistic Church leaders, but in the real, the here-and-now. In the shiny-black-boots-ringing-at-the-doorbell-come-to-take-you-away real type of terror and injustice. The monster of barbarism that has mass appeal and seems unstoppable. It is in front of this monster that a tiny woman dressed in black stood up and said “NO!” No, that is not right. And it didn’t matter that those she risked her life for weren’t Russian or Greek or even Orthodox, she did it because it was the right thing to do. It was what Christ would have done. The same way the pathetic, no shoes, no power Greeks did to Hitler and Mussoulini. All they did was stand up and say “NO!” It takes courage to stand up and say “No!” when you are deemed puny and powerless. But it is that act that makes you powerful and makes all the difference; it is small acts of kindness and truth that echo down the annals of history and the alleys of Paris.

greekamericangirl.com

03 / 11 / 2015

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/87325.htm

Sheep Among Wolves

As the summer months have come to a close many young people are heading off to college, some for the very first time. A scripture passage comes to my mind as I think of these wonderful young people preparing to leave home: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).” College professors almost universally enjoy challenging young college students to question authority, yet are taken aback when their own authority is questioned. They know they are addressing a class of impressionable minds and almost make sport of attacking the positions of their students.

My advice to Orthodox students is to refuse to be intimidated and don’t be discouraged. Most of these professors took years to acquire the knowledge and the skill to successfully defend their belief system, or lack thereof, including atheism. These professors usually only ask you to question the authority of those who have instructed you thus far, such as your parents or your religious leaders, but are highly indignant when someone questions their authority. Their pattern of teaching is nothing new, for there have been antagonists like them from before recorded history. Furthermore, their arguments are nothing new, for there were teachers of atheism and other false teachings who confronted the Apostle Paul when he was preaching the gospel in Athens. The arguments may be new to you, but suffice to know these challenges to your faith have been answered by a great many apologists since the beginning of Christianity.

Textbooks, be they geared towards history, science, or philosophy, have always tended to expound anti-Christian viewpoints, and it is important to remember that publishing companies produce textbooks that will sell to such academic mindsets. Christianity may be ridiculed as being closed minded and backward looking, but academics can not claim to be insulated from the same unhealthy trait. Some of the most closed minded individuals I have ever known were academics. I find it interesting that Christian writers expounding the Christian Faith are often accused of being biased, while secularists thinkers expose their own arrogance, hypocrisy and narrow mindedness, disallowing others their freedom of opinion. Dismissing the faith of young people, these pompous academics move to crush that which they themselves do not understand.

The best advice I can offer the young Orthodox Christian heading off to college is this: know from the moment you enter the classroom that the professor is a better debater than you, so don’t place yourself in his scope. If you do, expect to be blown out of the water. Secondly, don’t be embarrassed by your commitment to your Orthodox faith. My experience teaching on both secular and religious campuses is that most students are secretly wishing to find a spiritual basis for the meaning of life. They may secretly envy you for your faith. My final advice, “Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).”

Build a support system for yourself by gathering together with other college students to form a chapter of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship. Meet on a weekly basis for worship, study, and networking. Get to know your faith to the degree that you can stand up to the best of them when defending your beliefs. If you do, you may one day be the reason an atheist professor finds Christ, and becomes an Orthodox Christian.

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example…in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

About Abbot Tryphon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tryphon is a priest-monk of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR) and abbot of the All-Merciful Saviour Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington.

http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/morningoffering/2015/11/sheep-among-wolves/

Schedule of Services and Events for November 1 -November 8

Sunday, November 1
1 PM Deanery DDD dinner at
The Original Vazzy’s, 513 Broadbridge Avenue, Bridgeport

 Monday, November 2
6 PM – Prayer Group
7 PM- Spirituality Class

Tuesday, November 3
8:30 AM – First Hour
9 AM –Perogie Session

Wednesday, November 4
7 PM – Adult Catechism Class

Thursday, November 5
8:30 AM – Akathist

Friday, November 6
9:30 AM – Old Testament Class
1 PM to 5 PM – Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen

Friday, November 6 through Sunday, November 8
Lenox, MA –  St. Nectarios Retreat

Sunday, November 8
10 AM –
Pro-Liturgy with Protodeacon Anthony Kruge in Danbury

Readers Schedule
11/8 – Susan Paltauf
11/15 – Stasia Mihaly
11/22 – Nicholas Fong
11/29 – Robert Faubel

Coffee Hour
11/8 – Dugal/Lenox Retreat
11/15 – Sophia Baroody
11/22 – OPEN
11/29 – Fong
12/6 – St. Nicholas Brunch

Upcoming Events
Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen
– Friday, November 6
Lenox , MA – St. Nectarios Retreat – Friday, November 6 through Sunday, November 8
November 14– Roll Baking Day
Cemetery Clean Up – Saturday, November 14
Thanksgiving Bake Sale – Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22
Music on the Mount – Saturday, November 28
St. Nicholas Day Brunch – Sunday, December 6