Parish News at the Beginning of Great Lent

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings on this first day of the Great Fast, and thanks to all who contributed to our weekend celebrations in Cheltenham and Cardiff.

Having left maslenitsa behind, and having enjoyed sharing both food and one another’s company, we now enter into the Lenten season with a first week that is dominated by the words of the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete.

Having commemorated the fall and the casting out of Adam and Eve from Paradise in our Sunday services, the Great Canon explores man’s sinful rebellion through the ensuing generations of humanity, not only using the myriad examples as a warning, but also positively focussing on the mystery of repentance and return to God, Who desires the repentance, return and restoration of all of His children.

Through the many Biblical examples we hear, we are called to action in these days of the Great Fast, to wake up and take our spiritual life and our salvation seriously, through obedience, repentance, prayer and fasting.

As we hear in the kontakion,

“My soul, my soul, arise! Why are you sleeping? The end is drawing near, and you will be confounded, awake then and be watchful that Christ our God may spare you, Who is everywhere, and fills all things.”

Now is the time for us to arise from slumber, and even as the natural world around us comes to life and brings forth flowers and blossoms, the season of the Fast needs to be a time of growth and blossoming for us, with the knowledge that blossom becomes fruit.

At 16:00 this afternoon, and on the next three afternoons there will be a quiet celebration of compline, with the reading of the Great Canon at the shrine of St Alban, in the Oratory Church of St. Alban-on-the-Moors, Swinton Street, Splott, Cardiff, CF24 2NT.

I know that some of our Wessex parishioners are coming together to chant the canon, and encourage all who are unable to get to a service to add it to their evening prayers, at home.

The Great Canon will likewise be chanted in the Chapel of Saints David and St Nicholas in Llanelli at the later time of 19:00 each evening. Compline with the Akathist Hymn will be chanted there at the same time on Friday.

This Saturday – 23rd March – will see our March pilgrimage to Margam Abbey, where the Divine Liturgy for the Saturday of St Theodore will be celebrated at 10:30.

At the moment, only a tiny handful of parishioners have indicated their intention to attend, so please let me know if you are coming, especially as we may need to coordinate some student-lifts or pick-ups from Port Talbot railway station. As usual, there will be a bring-and-share lunch after Liturgy, with food obviously being Lenten. May I remind you that it is not our local tradition to eat shellfish, whatever happens in other jurisdictions.

As announced at Liturgy and in previous newsletters, the mystery of Holy Unction will be celebrated in our London Cathedral at 14:00 on Saturday 20th April, when His Grace, Bishop Irenei will concelebrate with the clergy of our diocese to consecrate the Holy Oil of Anointing for the strengthening and healing of those who receive partake.

All Orthodox Christians of seven years and over may be anointed at the service, providing they are in good standing within the Church and have prepared by fasting and confession.

Looking forward to next Sunday, when we will celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy and the restoration of the holy icons, weather permitting, we will preform a cross-procession / krestny khod at the end of the moleben and we would like parishioners to bring icons to celebrate this triumphal first Sunday of the Fast. Trapeza offerings have the weekend relaxation permitting wine and oil, but no shell-fish / sea-food, please.

I will hear confessions, as usual on Thursday, though they will be in St Alban’s Church before our 16:00 service. If you require a later confession, please let me know, and I will arrange early evening confessions in Nazareth House.

I hope and pray that this week is one of simplicity, withdrawal and peace for you: a week of as few words as possible, with electronic devices switched off unless needed for specific reasons, social-media on the back-burner, a minimal diet that does not try to imitate the food of the rest of the year with ‘pretend’ substitutes, and silence that allows you to hear the birds singing as spring gathers pace and the rumbles of a stomach that is fasting!

Everyone should know, but a reminder that our diet is vegan, and we should forego olive oil and wine (alcohol) on weekdays. Saturday as the Sabbath, and Sunday as the Lord’s Day, have the consolation of wine and oil. Finding food with no oils or vegetable fats can be difficult, but avoiding fried food, sauces and dressings, and obviously oily food is pretty straightforward!

Twenty of our parishioners are reading a kathisma of the Psalter each day, ensuring that it is completed in the parish each day, and I would encourage everyone to read the Psalms of David as much as possible during Lent.

May God bless you and the arena of your Lenten struggle. Καλό Στάδιο!

Asking your forgiveness, for Christ’s sake.

Hieromonk Mark

Parish News: 11 March 2024

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings on the feast of Blessed Nikolai of Pskov, the Holy Fool who dared challenge Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and was glorified by the Lord in his poverty and seeming foolishness.

Our weekend was marked by a double-celebration with the Divine Liturgy ‘going out’ of Cardiff and across the Severn, with the first of our mission Liturgies celebrated in Warminster on Saturday, in addition to our Canton-St John’s Liturgy on Sunday.

After having celebrated evening services in Wiltshire on the final Monday of the last two months, and having had singing lessons / practices for our local ladies and gents, celebrating the Liturgy was a source of grace and strength for our faithful living such a distance from our parish base in Cardiff. Thanks to the parishioners and to Ian at the chapel of St Lawrence. 

A litia for the departed was celebrated in each location after our Liturgies, withthe blessing of kutia in Warminster – though it was also enjoyed in Cardiff. It would be good if more parishioners could contribute to cooking memorial-wheat for our services for the departed, and we will post some recipes in Facebook and WhatsApp.

We continue to remember the newly departed Archbishop Anatoly and Nikolai, and prayed for the servant of God Vladimir to mark the anniversary of his repose. Memory Eternal!

Thanks to all who contributed to our Cardiff Liturgy, especially with the expansion of English language chanting, and over the next few weeks I hope that we will also see a variation of readers, as other young men in the parish fulfil this obedience and become accustomed to chanting the readings and thanksgiving prayers.

With the able assistance of our students and young people, the last few Thursdays have seen the chanting of compline, with the akathist after confessions in Nazareth House, and we will pray the night-office of the Church again this week at 19:00, but with a supplicatory canon to the Mother of God and the Canon to St David, the Apostle of Wales, whose feast falls that day. I will hear confessions in the afternoon, and would appreciate requests – as usual – by 18:00 on Wednesday, please.

This Saturday will see the clergy to head to Cheltenham to celebrate the Divine Liturgy for the Saturday of maslenitsa, on which we commemorate all of the venerable fathers and mothers who have shone forth in the monastic life. As usual, we will worship in Prestbury United Reformed Church, Deep St, Cheltenham GL52 3AN.

Confessions will be heard from around 09:30, with the Hours and Liturgy commencing at 10:30. The usual bring-and-share lunch will follow the service, and we know that our matriarchs will be in maximalist mode for blini-week.

The following Saturday, 23rd March, our parish-pilgrimage will be to Margam Abbey, where we look forward to celebrating the Hours and Liturgy at 10:30. Please let me know if you can join us, especially as we may need to arrange lifts from Port Talbot Parkway Station for those without cars.

The mystery of Holy Unction / Soborovanie will be served in our London cathedral on Saturday 20th April at 14:00, and I hope that parishioners who are able to attend may share cars and work together so that as many as possible are able to be part of this diocesan celebration. Only Orthodox Christians above the age of seven years may be blessed to receive this Holy Mystery, and must prepare with confession.

Next Sunday will, of course, be Forgiveness Sunday, and the Liturgy will immediately be followed by the Vespers of Forgiveness, with the rite of mutual forgiveness at the end. This reminds us of the absolute necessity of seeking reconciliation with anyone who we have hurt or offended, even if unintended, asking their forgiveness and forgiving the offence that anyone has caused us. To begin Great Lent otherwise, will see the Great Fast lead us no-where: a spiritual cul-de-sac! We cannot journey towards the Lord’s Pascha with unresolved conflict, or with resentment in our hearts and minds. We must at least have made the first step towards peace and reconciliation, even if we have a considerable way to go on the journey.

After Liturgy and Vespers, we shall then share our last non-Lenten trapeza, though meat has already been given up, yesterday.

The variables for Liturgy may be found here… https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dYl232tSSDKVucg0lIuM7aVn6-yMxsGx/view …and vespers here… https://drive.google.com/file/d/11cC6fYhWuIorAMLk0b5ukOBhxCSPfoAI/view

On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the the first week of the Great Fast, Compline and the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete will be anticipated by an early celebration at 16:00 at the shrine of the Holy Protomartyr Alban in the Oratory Church, in Swinton Street. As always, many thanks to Father Sebastian and the brethren. We are most grateful.

A bilingual text of the Great Canon may be found at orthodoxaustin,https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XyLJRSiDLIdBetWWNsWoKzu3qKzV2kh1/view though parishioners might chant it in the general order for chanting the canons, in small compline as an economia, or in evening prayers.

Please make sure you have the things you need for the Great Fast, and be ready for the Lenten journey to Pascha.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

Today in Warminster

Today brought the blessing of finally being able to celebrate a local Divine Liturgy beyond the Severn with our parishioners living in the South and West of England.

Though we were few in number, the Liturgy, brought together parishioners from Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset.
Not everyone was able to be with us, due to work, illness and other pre-arranged duties, but the few of us who gathered in the Chapel of St Lawrence, in Warminster, were touched by the peace and spiritual warmth of our Liturgy.

We look forward to sharing our next Liturgy with those who were unable to be with us today, and by then, we will have taken some of our many icons from Cardiff to adorn the interior of the chapel, where we have been welcomed with incredible warmth and hospitality. We also look forward to welcoming brothers and sisters who live in Cardiff and its environs.
Being pastorally open to those who will hopefully discover us over the coming months, we will endeavour to reflect the identity of the worshipping community, but our Wessex mission will primarily have services in English, seeking to build upon the legacy of the ancient saints of Wessex, among whom we look to St Aldhelm and St Birinus with special devotion.

Celebrating our first Liturgy in Warminster on a memorial Saturday was an occasion for reflection upon the part that past generations have played in loving and preserving the places in which we pray as pilgrims, serve the Liturgy and encounter Christ in the Holy Mysteries.

This includes our new home, the Chapel of St Lawrence, which was bought by the people of Warminster in 1575 as an extra diocesan place of worship, outside the jurisdiction of the bishop of Salisbury. This lovely, peaceful sanctuary is made available to the wider Christian community by the feoffees, who hold the chapel in trust on behalf of the people of the town.

We are extremely grateful to the chair of the feoffees, who has gone above and beyond duty in the proactive welcome offered to our little community, and the practical support and assistance that we have received over the last few weeks. We were so glad that he and the retired rector of Shepton Mallet, the Revd Liz Smith were able to be with us, and share a cup of tea before the litia for the departed with the blessing of kolyva, and a leisurely lunch.
Many thanks to our local parishioners for hospitality, singing, reading, cooking, baking and kolyva making!  We will gather for our end of month evening service aboard Porphyrios’s narrow-boat on Monday 25 March, and look forward to our next Liturgy on Saturday 13 April, which will again be a memorial Saturday.

Parish News – 4 March 2023


Dear brothers and sisters,

Having celebrated the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, the Great Fast grows ever closer, with this week being the last week in which Orthodox Christians consume meat until Pascha, to be followed by cheese-fair (bliny) week during which we consume eggs, fish and dairy foods. We should remember that the customary fast still adheres to this Wednesday and Friday, but with the allowance of fish, wine and oil.

Meat-Fair, next Sunday, will be the last day for the consumption of meat. Please use the next few weeks to use up the foods that need consuming. The first few days of the Great Fast are NOT the time to do this, and we often have serial offenders who do this every year, with no excuse.

We should use also the next two weeks to prepare for the fast, particularly in terms of spiritual resources, ensuring we have the prayer materials needed for our Lenten observance and selecting reading materials as our spiritual food during Lent.

As announced on WhatsApp, we hope to repeat last year’s daily reading of the Psalter, with parishioners and friends of the parish reading a designated kathisma ofthe Psalter, so that it is read in its entirety each day. We would ideally like twenty readers so that each could read one kathisma of the Psalter, in rotation. Anyone wishing to participate should email oltarnik Alexander at psaltergroup@fastmail.com

Members of our communities have been recommending, and indeed buying, various books for l

Lenten reading, with some suggestions below…

  • The Paradise of the Fathers, volumes I and II
  • The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Apophthegmata Patrum: The Alphabetic Collection: 59 (Cistercian Studies Series, 59)
  • On Ascetical Life: St. Isaac of Ninevah
  • A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God, by St Ephraim the Syrian, sadly not readily available in the small hardback tome, though available in a paperback traditional English edition: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spiritual-Psalter-Reflections-God/dp/B0C2S22VK1
  • On the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by St. Philaret of Chernigov
  • Orthodox Lent, Holy Week and Easter: Liturgical Texts with Commentary, by Hugh Wybrew
  • Season of Repentance: Lenten Homilies of Saint John of Kronstadt

Today and tomorrow have been set aside for house blessings, and I hope to fulfil more requests before the beginning of the Fast. We all have busy lives, but a house blessing takes little time, and brings God’s grace inti the Christian home, setting it apart and hallowing it through prayer and the sprinkling of holy water blessed at Theophany.

I was very happy to have a group of our young people come to Nazareth House to chant compline/ and the akathist to Mother of God last Thursday evening, following confessions in the afternoon and early evening, and we will – God willing – do the same again, this week, with compline at 19:00. Everyone, not just the parish youth,  is welcome and encouraged to support our weekday service.

May I ask for confession requests by 18:00 on Wednesday, reminding you that anyone working in the day is welcome to request a confession after work, and that we will accommodate school runs and family demands? Please ask!

Next weekend will see our first Wessex Liturgy in the Chapel of St Lawrence in Warminster, and our local parishioners have been busy making preparations for this inaugural public service. We have already celebrated services on Porphyrios’s narrow-boat, and look forward to the Liturgy in the historic chapel, generously made available to us by the feoffees who hold it in trust for the people of Warminster. We will set up the chapel at 9:00, with confessions commencing around 10:00 after the proskomedia. The Hours and Liturgy will be celebrated at 10:30, and we will celebrate a memorial for the departed after the Liturgy, followed by a bring-and-share lunch.

We greatly look forward to welcoming anyone who wishes to join us, being there for all Orthodox Christians, and will endeavour to make them feel at home.

The primary language of this new local mission will be English, though we shall endeavour to be inclusive, reflecting those who come to pray and worship with us.

The following Saturday will see our monthly Cheltenham Liturgy, which will now be on the thirds Saturday of the month. We continue to worship in Prestbury United Reformed Church. As in Warminster set up will be at 9:00, confessions around 10:00 after the and Hours and Liturgy at 10:30, followed by our customary bring-and-share lunch.

Our next parish-pilgrimage will be on Saturday 23rd March, when we look forward to celebrating the Divine Liturgy at Margam Abbey, whose Norman foundation succeeds an earlier Celtic Christian presence attested to by the Celtic crosses and memorial stones preserved a short distance from the abbey church in the museum that houses them. The Hours and Liturgy will be celebrated at 10:30 (despite previous discussions of 10:00) in order to allow time for anyone travelling by train to be collected from the station, if needed.

As announced last week, the mystery of Holy Unction / Soborovanie will be served in the cathedral on Saturday 20thApril at 14:00, and we hope that it will be possible for as many parishioners as possible to attend and partake of this Holy Mystery. We will not serve Unction in our parishes, as we preserve the old Tradition that during the Great Fast, there are conciliar services, in which the bishop and priests of the diocese serve together.

As we settle into St John’s and begin to feel at home, I think it necessary for us to remind ourselves that Sunday is set apart for the Lord, and we need to impress this and the ‘otherness’ of church and the Liturgy upon our children and young people.

The Liturgy is admittedly long for our youngest parishioners. We recognise that, and that they cannot be held to attention for its entire duration. However, we only become accustomed to the Liturgy, and grow into it by being part of it, as participants in the Holy Mysteries.  

We have been very happy to hear the children singing on the kliros during the litanies, and whilst recognising that we cannot expect our youngest parishioners to be at the front during the whole Liturgy, we need to ensure that they come forward to hear the readings, and I have previously asked parents to ensure that their children are with them from the Cherubic Hymn onwards, to be part of worship as the Holy Gifts are offered and consecrated.

However, since our return to St John’s and the enticement of the children’s corner, this has been rather forgotten. So, mums and dad’s, please have your children with you during the most sacred parts of the Liturgy, to pray and worship with you as a family, and to be part of our parish community.

Over the last few days, we have been asked to pray for Masha’s friend, Susan, and for Porphyrios’s daughter’s teacher Miss Kirk, who is in intensive care after being attacked. We also pray for the health of Father Anthony of the Mettingham parish, our parishioners Norman-John and Ludmila, and for Brigid in West Wales; for  Despina as she faces the issues of relocation in Cyprus; for the repose of the newly departed servants of God, Archbishop Anatoly and Nikolai, and for Barnabas whose forty day memorial has just passed. As requested on WhatsApp, we ask your prayers for Lazarus and Liz as they seek to relocate closer to us – encouraging the canon and prayers to St Minas.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

Our ROCOR Wessex Mission

Dear brothers and sisters,

As most of you are aware, we have a growing number of Cardiff parishioners who live at a considerable distance from our parish-base in Canton, but who, nevertheless, travel across the River Severn week-by-week to be part of the life of our community.

Just after the mass closedown of most of the Orthodox parishes of Britain after the covid lockdown, when virtually every jurisdiction apart from ROCOR and the Serbian Patriarchate totally ‘shut up shop’ and left the faithful without the Holy Mysteries, our ‘commuting’ brothers and sisters from Wessex began to arrive, with the numbers continuing over the months and indeed the following years.

We now regularly have the support of brothers and sisters from Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset – with Poole being the furthest point on our map of parish homes – and their place in parish life is active: singing in the choir, serving in the altar, accommodating and picking up non-drivers (and the rector), taking turns on the flower rota, and in so many other ways.

We also have friends who are unable to get to us so regularly, but whom we see when they are able to make the journey to Cardiff, knowing that Church means giving up virtually a whole day of the week. The Church will now be going to them!

Just after lockdown, His Grace, Bishop Irenei, was receptive to the idea of providing a traditionalist Orthodox presence in Wessex, and more recently gave his blessing to a peripatetic mission, which we wish to dedicate to Saints Birinus and Aldhelm.

On the last Monday evenings of January and February we have gathered aboard Porphyrios’s narrow-boat for a service and supper, blessing it shortly after Theophany, and celebrating Small Compline earlier this week.

This Monday, after a lovely day enjoying the Wiltshire countryside and visiting rural churches with parishioners, a beautiful moonlit evening under a clear starry sky saw us make our way dodging puddles along the tow-path of the Kennet and Avon canal to where Porphyrios’s boat was moored, windows aglow with lamplight and woodsmoke rising form the chimney.

Its long, lamplit interior, with its wood-burning stove already heating a great pan of soup was our destination, and even after only two gatherings has become a cherished part of mission life.

For the moment, whilst numbers for the Monday gatherings are not too great this will be the venue of our service and supper, but perhaps we shall outgrow it soon. Already, if everyone local turned up it might be an impossible squeeze. Time will tell!

Our first local Liturgy will be celebrated in the Chapel of St Lawrence, in the centre of Warminster, on Saturday 9thMarch, and will be on the second Saturday of each month.

We are extremely grateful to the feoffees of the chapel, who hold it in trust for the people of Warminster, and who are supportive in offering this historic non-parochial chapel for our use.

With its disabled friendly, level interior, little kitchen (stocked with china especially for our use) this High Street setting is a great blessing. Thanks to Hierodeacon Avraamy’s skills, we have posters in English, Ukrainian and Russian for local advertising, and one of the trustees is being very active in making our presence known.

Parishioners and I visited on Sunday evening after our drive from Cardiff, receiving a warm welcome, hearing a little of the chapel’s history, climbing the tower, ringing the 17th century curfew bell and inspecting the 18th century clock.

We eagerly look forward to celebrating the Divine Liturgy and it would be lovely to welcome parishioners from Cardiff to support the Wessex parishioners whenever they can, and for them to contribute to Wessex mission life in small ways.

In the summer months, we look forward to local pilgrimages, as there are so many sacred places in which to honour the saints of the Orthodox West, with Glastonbury as the jewel in the crown.

Sincere thanks to all in Wessex (including hospitable, patient and generous spouses), where great dedication and enthusiasm are building a wonderful, warm and loving local community.

May the Holy Hierarchs, Birinus and Aldhelm, and the Holy and Right-Believing King Alfred, pray to God for us, and our Wessex mission!

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

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Parish News – week of the pharisee and the tax-collector

Wiltshire

Monday 14/27 February

Dear brothers and sisters,

What a busy few days across our parish, with today starting with a visit to several of the historic parish churches of the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire with Wessex parishioners, starting at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Boyton, with its wonderful collection of remnants of medieval, renaissance and Georgian stained glass, carved stone monuments and liturgical features, and embroideries – including a monumental icon of the Hospitality of Abraham.

It was also lovely to revisit the little church of St Cosmas and Damian, in Sherrington, where some of our Wiltshire ladies prayed in the ample porch each Sunday during the misery of lockdown – prior to their migrating to Cardiff from their erstwhile parish, where the Holy Mysteries were completely abandoned. This quintessentially English village church is a remnant of the rural Anglicanism of past centuries, with its texts painted in cartouches on the walls, and its candlelit pulpit and lectern: the only real adornment being an embroidered Madonna and Child by the same embroiderer whose work we had seen in Boyton Church – Margaret Cuddiford.

The evening saw our ‘last-Monday-gathering’ on Porphyrios’s narrow-boat on the Kennet and Avon canal, where we chanted compline with the canons to the Mother of God and the Guardian Angel before supper and discussions about our forthcoming first Wessex Liturgy at 10:30 on Saturday 9th March. This followed a very positive meeting with one of the feoffees (trustees) of the chapel of St Lawrence in Warminster, with a tour of the church, including climbing the tower to see the 17th century curfew-bell and the 18th century clock.

Many thanks to our parishioners from Wiltshire for their characteristically warm hospitality and generosity. We are extremely grateful to Porphyrios for welcoming us aboard his home, where we look forward to praying before the icon-corner in the lamp and candlelight light, warmed by the wood-burning stove, and tonight, with wonderful homemade soup (not soap, as per the typo in the emailed  newsletter!)

We also enter this week after a weekend blessed not only by the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, but also by Saturday’s pilgrimage, whose locality in no way undermined the significance of the occasion as we gathered in the Oratory Church to honour the holy protomartyr of Britain, St Alban, with a moleben offered before his shrine.

Our young brothers took turns chanting the canon and parts of the service of supplication, and we look forward to those soon to be baptised taking their turns in the prayers of our pilgrimages in the coming months. We are most grateful to the Oratorians for their usual warm hospitality, including the use of the hall, where we shared lunch and chatted, with Aldhelm tinkling the ivories in the background. I was the very happy to be able to perform a house-blessing after the pilgrimage.

We now look forward to our next pilgrimage on the first Saturday of the Great Fast, 23 March, the Saturday of St Theodore. The Divine Liturgy will be celebrated in Margam Abbey, with devotions to the Mother of God and the commemoration of St Theodore, with the blessing of kolyva. Details will follow.

I will not be arranging an April Pilgrimage, as I hope it’s place may be taken by our April Liturgy in Warminster on Saturday 13th and the Holy Unction (soborovanie) service in our London cathedral the following Saturday, 20thApril, at 14:00, for which I hope as many people as possible will make the journey and join in this important celebration.

This Sunday’s Liturgy, in St John’s, was blessed by a well supported kliros, and some of our boys were very enthusiastic in chanting the Litany responses with a generous fortissimo! Again, we had a congregation of around fifty, an encouraging number of students and young people, and a large number of confessions and communicants. I spent the hour before proskomedia hearing confessions, as well as hearing our children’s confessions during the preparation of the Holy Gifts. I had intended to not hear confessions at this point, but given the number of children to be confessed, it was necessary.

I would appreciate confession requests for this Thursday’s Nazareth House confessions by 18:00 on Wednesday, please, and also notice from those requiring Sunday confessions would be appreciated. It may be necessary to hear the Sunday confessions of regular communicants every other week, given the sheer volume of confessions, which are a challenge to fit in.

At the end of Thursday’s confessions, Compline will be chanted at 19:00, with the hope that this will be repeated each week.

Please start thinking about the Great Fast, particularly in terms of reading materials, and ensure that you have spiritual food for the Lenten season.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

Zacchaeus Sunday – Parish News

Greetings to you all as we continue to celebrate the after-feast of the Meeting of the Lord. S prazdnikom!

As the feast fell on a Thursday, when St John’s is unavailable, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in Llanelli, and I was pleased to be able to assist Father Luke by singing on the kliros. Unfortunately, the afternoon journey to Cardiff was severely disrupted by problems with the railway line beyond Llanelli, so a number of confessions had to be cancelled, though I still managed to see a few people in the early evening before joining our young people to congratulate Kalina on her birthday. Many years!

Despite half-term, road closures, car-troubles and parishioners’ commitments, we were heartened by attendance at today’s Liturgy, and despite the dent in numbers we were still comfortably in excess of forty souls once the children were factored in.

It was good to welcome brothers from Swansea, and it was lovely to be joined by our former parishioner, Monika, visiting from Leicester with her children. In my homily on the saving curiosity of Zacchaeus, I referenced her film “Finding Faith”, and anyone who would like the link and sign-in details should contact me or Father Deacon Mark.

Many thanks to the kliros, operating on holiday numbers, and to Sasha for lone-serving, and thanks to those who brought flowers and refreshments for our celebration.

We greeted Yuriy at the end of our service, congratulating him on his sixth birthday and chanting many years before singing happy birthday after grace at trapeza, during which it was lovely to see so much conversation, warmth and fellowship.

I must admit to being rather slow today after a lovely but busy week and lots of travelling, last Sunday having seen me head over the Severn, taking the opportunity to not only have a prayerful quiet-day in Glastonbury, but also to perform several house-blessings and be in Chippenham for a singing practice with our Wessex gentleman before returning to Llanelli for the feast. Masha has also spent time working on vocal technique and chants with our local ladies, and we are very grateful for this preparation for the liturgical life of our Wessex mission.

We are extremely encouraged by the support being given by the feoffees  of the Chapel of St Laurence in Warminster, who, as trustees, govern the extra-parochial chapel, which is classed as a non-royal peculiar, having being acquired by the townspeople of Warminster at the reformation.

We greatly look forward to our Liturgies on the second Saturday of each month, commencing on 9th March with the Hours and Liturgy at 10:30, confessions being heard from 10:00. The generosity of spirit that we have already received is heartening, with help offered in notifying the local Orthodox that we will be serving in the town.

We already hold a Wessex prayer meeting on the last Monday of the month, currently meeting ‘afloat’ on Porphyrios’s narrowboat – now christened the “porphyrion”. Last month’s initial gathering saw the blessing of the boat and a mission-supper, following several house-blessings, a pilgrimage to Whitchurch Canonicorum and the blessing of the River Wylye. We shall be certainly trying to maximise what we fit into clergy visits.

Our Cheltenham Liturgies will be moving to the third Saturday of the month, and our pilgrimages will be on the fourth Saturday.

Returning to the principality – this week’s confessions in Nazareth House will follow the Thursday pattern, for which emails would be appreciated by 18:00 on Wednesday. I shall also be able to hear some shorter confessions before and after our moleben in St Alban’s., and have already mentioned this to a few people.

We look forward to our protomartyrs pilgrimage on Saturday, and pilgrims should assemble at the Oratory Church of St Alban-on-the-Moors for our 10:30 moleben to St Alban and the reading of his life, before the veneration of a portion of his sacred relics and icon. We are very grateful to Father Sebastian and his confrères for their characteristically warm hospitality, which includes use of the church-hall for a bring and share lunch, for which all food-offerings will be very gratefully accepted.

Weather permitting, we shall head to Caerleon after lunch, visiting the Roman remains of the ‘city of legions’, where the protomartyrs of Wales, Julius and Aaron were garrisoned as soldiers of the Imperial army, before their arrest and martyrdom.

Thanks to those who have already offered lifts to our non-drivers. This is much appreciated.

Echoing Deacon Mark’s announcement, would parishioner please refrain from parking vehicles on the grass on the right hand far end of the drive, next to the church vestries, this has been planted with bulbs and seeded with wild flowers and is not a parking area.

Our prayers are with our very dear sister, Despina, as she makes her way across Europe to Greece, before the last leg to life in Cyprus, and we wish her a safe journey, happy that Catalin is accompanying her on a long and challenging drive for the land bound portion across the continent. She occupies a very special place in our hearts and is greatly loved in our ROCOR and Romanian Orthodox communities in which she has been a faithful presence and a help to many. Kalo taxidhi! May God bless your journey and protect your every mile!

Whilst we were celebrating in Cardiff, our diocese was blessed by the ordination of Deacon Alban Illingworth to the sacred priesthood in our London Cathedral, and he will serve in our Durham mission. We are greatly blessed that despite mischievous schismatic ‘defrocked’ whispering about the state of our God-preserved diocese, we go from strength to strength, with the establishment of new missions, the ordination of new clergy, and growth within our parishes. We congratulate Father Alban, as well as newly-ordained Deacon Antonio in Geneva, and the priest Georgi who has transferred from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to serve in Zurich. Many, blessed years to you all, dear fathers. Axios! Axios! Axios!

Please remember the clergy in your prayers.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

Weekly News – Monday 12 February

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings to you all after another busy weekend, with Liturgies in Cheltenham and Cardiff, the joy of sharing the celebration of Faith with so many people, and the unexpected arrival of geographically distant parishioners and friends not seen for a while. It’s also wonderful that recent visitors are now clearly new parishioners, looking very much at home in the parish. Praise God!

Before the busy week ahead, I’m happy to be soaking up the sun on a bus wending its way over the Mendips for a quiet, prayerful day in Glastonbury – having just glimpsed the Tor rising above the Somerset Levels – before a house blessing and time with our Wessex parishioners, the feast of the Meeting of the Lord in Llanelli, then confessions and pastoral time in Cardiff before another weekend.

Our third week back in St John’s was blessed with another well-attended Liturgy (which constantly sustains forty adults or more, plus the children every week), with parishioners from across Wessex joining us for our celebration, which ended with the admission of young Maximilian to the catechumenate after around six months of dedicated participation. We are very grateful to his dad for driving him the considerable distance from Monmouth week by week.

Thanks to our choir, who sang a linguistically well balanced Liturgy, with English alongside the Slavonic, reflecting the developing dynamic of the parish, and thanks to all who contributed to trapeza by bringing food and so warmly and generously looking after everyone.

Parishioners are clearly enjoying being in St John’s, though we are still getting used to things, with a rather minimal set up. However, without the rather stark interior of Nazareth House, even the minimal Orthodox setting feels much warmer. We are very pleased that the large shrines for our iconostasis now flank the high altar when not in situ for Liturgy, and look forward to the frontals that Georgina will be making for them (as well as new analoy covers) after her current Walsingham visit.

The return of weekly trapeza has made a great difference to parish life, and it was heartening to hear my nephew say what a welcome change it was to be surrounded by so many kind and generous people. This is a prime way in which we can touch those who come through our doors with God’s love working in us and through us.

As clarified on messenger, our LOCAL pilgrimage will involve venerating St Alban’s relics in SPLOTT, not Hertfordshire. I have emailed Fr Sebastian to check the availability of the hall for a bring-and-share lunch, as this could make things more straightforward. ‎

We shall celebrate the moleben to St Alban in the Oratory Church in Swinton St, at 10:30, venerating a portion of the protomartyr’s sacred relics, and then have lunch if the hall is free. We shall then head to Caerleon, weather permitting, to visit the amphitheatre and remains of the garrison where Saints Julius and Aaron would have lived. Notification of your intention to attend would be appreciated, so that we can endeavour to match places in cars with non-drivers for the journey to Caerleon. Lifts will be greatly appreciated for those of you with spare places in your vehicle.

The lack of availability of St John’s on Thursdays means our Liturgy for the Meeting of the Lord will be in the little chapel of St David and St Nicholas, at 11 New Rd, Dafen, Llanelli SA14 8LS.

The Hours and Liturgy will commence at 10:00. I will travel to Cardiff after the Liturgy so that confessions may be heard in Nazareth House in the late afternoon and early evening. Please contact me by 18:00 on Wednesday, though I have already received some verbal requests at Liturgy. Notification of those intending to confess on Sunday is also greatly appreciated, so that we know how many people are expected within our limited time-frame.

Thanks to all who have started contributing to St John’s food bank, and also to all who contributed to the extra collection for leprosy Sunday, a few weeks ago, raising over two hundred pounds, before any offerings from further west.

I look forward to the celebration of the after-feast of the Meeting of the Lord and feast of St Agatha, on Sunday, for which the variables may be found at “orthodoxaustin”:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NkfW1Mouqk4Z6UidAr1yfia6Ij2BC3WZ/view

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

 

 

Parish News – 14 January

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings for the forefeast of the Baptism of the Lord, and the feast of the repose of our dearly loved St Seraphim of Sarov! It is always so heartening when we celebrate a saint who is so universally loved, especially in such fractious and divisive times. May he pray for us, and for true Orthodox unity in the face of schism and such betrayal of Faith.

This weekend’s services saw the leave-taking of the feast of the Nativity, with the Divine Liturgy being celebrated in Cheltenham, and the feast of the Circumcision and St Basil in Cardiff. It was a very joyful weekend, though much quieter than last weekend, with our Nativity services.

We were very glad to arrive in Cheltenham in bright winter sun, and under the now expected blue skies, sharing a joyful Liturgy for the Leave-Taking of the Nativity, with Masha visiting and helping to sing the festal chants.

We thank her and our usual singers for their labours on the kliros, and we are very grateful to our sisters for a generous meal, enjoyed by all. It was lovely to have Cardiff parishioners join us, as well as brothers from the Oxford parish. I am extremely happy that the next Cheltenham Liturgy, on Saturday 10th February, will be on the feast of Saints Ephrem and Isaac the Syrian, a double-joy and double-blessing!

Our Cardiff Liturgy today was a little different to usual, with three principal singers away, but it was good that our very capable Hierodeacon Avraamy and Marina were joined by some of our sisters, and that our brother, Alexander, was able to move from the sanctuary to the kliros to rouse the Liturgy with Byzantine chant. We look forward to more Byzantine chant in our services, after the joy of the polyeleos at our Nativity vigil and today’s Liturgy chants.

With Christmas behind us, today’s feast and joyful celebration stood between the Nativity and Forefeast of Theophany, and it was lovely that we were able to bless Vasilopita in honour of St Basil the Great at the end of Liturgy, and to see the pleasure that the shared cakes brought to our congregation. With the prayers for the Lord to bless our ‘comings in’ and ‘goings out’, this seemed very apt, as we prepare for our return to St John’s.

Sadly Thursday morning activities in the chapel at Nazareth House make the usual services for the eve of the Theophany impractical, though I will hear confessions in the afternoon, before my journey to London. Please email me by 18:00, on Wednesday.

The coming weekend will see our last Liturgy in Nazareth House, and we will perform the Great Blessing of Water at the end of Liturgy, so please bring bottles to take Theophany water home, and send any requests for houses of flats to be blessed.

Following the service and packing ready for our move to St John’s, I will be heading to Wiltshire for a few days, where our new Wessex mission will hold its first prayer meeting and where I will bless the River Wylye and the homes of some of our parishioners in both Wiltshire and Dorset, hoping also to visit St Wite’s shrine with parish pilgrims.

After returning on Tuesday and Wednesday’s move, I look forward to Theophany home-blessings in Cardiff.

On behalf of the clergy, may I extend thanks for the generosity and kindnesses shown to us over the festive period.

May God bless you all.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark

 

Weekly News – 25 December

Dear brothers and sisters,

I hope that those of you sharing western Christmas with your families have a been blessed with a time of sharing and joy.

Though the festivities may last for a day or two more, it is important for us to focus on the remaining week and half of the Nativity Fast, preparing for the coming feast prayerfully and with spiritual focus.

Given it was western Christmas Eve, we expected our Sunday Liturgy to be low in attendance, but we were surprised by the number of people who made their way to Nazareth House, and we were pleased to welcome new visitors. We were relieved that Mass ended earlier than usual, allowing more time to set up the church. Thanks to all who helped with this, and we are – as always – grateful for those who played their part in the celebration of the Liturgy.

The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers reminded us that we are in the last two weeks of the Fast, and the coming weekend – with the Sunday of the Holy Fathers – will be our last before Nativity, marked by the reading of the genealogy of Christ, when we will hear the generations through which Christ came in the flesh: the generations through which God descended to humanity, and humanity was raised up to heaven.

The variables for next Sunday’s Liturgy may be found at orthodoxaustin, as usual:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o6DSbO4bxCMTGZmWcycUANl7L-tdZkzy/view

Confessions will be on Thursday, so I would appreciate emails/texts/messages by 19:00 tomorrow evening to allow time to get in touch with those who would like to attend. Please remember that there are some parishioners who are unable to come for confession in the week, and really need time on Sunday.

The following weekend, our service on Christmas Eve will be at 19:00, possibly simplified due to us having limited singers, and the Christmas Day Liturgy at our usual Sunday time – starting as close to. 11:00 as possible.

Our sisters have started discussing food for Christmas trapeza, and I would direct you all to the WhatsApp group, where discussions are going on, though our senior-sister Menna can also be contacted regarding food you may wish to bring. Let’s remember that Christmas refreshments are not only the responsibility of our sisters, and that we ask all to try and make an offering in some way.

This Saturday will bring the joy of Stephen’s baptism at 13:00, at the Old Church Hall in St Nicholas.

Anyone wishing to attend should contact me or Menna, so that we know that you are coming, and give directions, if needed We greatly look forward to this and welcoming Stephen to the Holy Mysteries on Sunday morning. Glory to God for all things!

Struggle on during the remaining days of the Fast, and if things have previously not gone according to plan, shake off the dust and pick yourselves up. If you’ve not prayed much, then start NOW. If you’ve neglected the Fast, them start NOW, even at the eleventh hour – remembering the encouraging words in St John Chrysostom’s wonderful homily that we hear at Pascha.

It applies equally to the coming feast, and to the whole of our Christian lives!

“For the Master is generous and accepts the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes at the eleventh hour in the same was as him who has laboured from the first. He accepts the deed, and commends the intention. Enter then, all of you, into the joy of our Lord. First and last, receive alike your reward.”

Let us spiritually make our way to Bethlehem, to contemplate the wonder of Love-Incarnate: Emmanuel – God With Us.

May God bless you all.

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark