Today is the second anniversary of the ordination of Father Deacon Mark to the sacred diaconate, and we send him our congratulations and best wishes.
I think that he will not mind me saying that his ordination was sooner than any of us had expected, but this event showed foresight and wisdom on the part of our bishop, given parish developments and trials we have faced as a community.
The demands of operating under lockdown and the subsequent growth of parish life made having a deacon an absolute necessity, rather than a liturgical luxury, and Deacon Mark has acted as a very able and professional parish-administrator, making things happen – such as my approaching full-time appointment.
His relationship with our parishioners, community partners and visitors is one of great warmth and trust, and – as a priest – I know that I am very fortunate to have such a fellow minister and concelebrant.
We thank Deacon Mark for his ceaseless and selfless labours on our behalf, and pray that his ministry may be blessed and filled with God’s Grace.
Father Deacon Mark, may God grant you many, blessed years!
The coming weekend will again see confessions heard in Deacon Mark’s office on Saturday, and the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on Sunday, which is the first day of the Nativity Fast, the feast of Saints Guriy, Samon and Aviv – the preservers of the Christian family – and the feast of the great monastic father, St. Paisiy (Velichkovsky) of Moldavia and Mt. Athos.
As always, I ask those wishing to confess on Saturday and Sunday to email me at otetzmark@hotmail.com as soon as possible.
The variable parts of Sunday’s Liturgy may be found at ‘Orthodox Austin’ –
If bringing food for the bring-and-share lunch after the Liturgy, please remember that the food must be Lenten – meat, egg and dairy free, though fish will be permitted.
I am delighted to announce that through the generosity of Father Dean, of St Mary Butetown, we will be able to use the small parish-hall attached to the church for our Friday Advent Reflection, with the first gathering on 3 December at 19:00. We will be reflecting upon the presence of the Saviour in the Old Testament and the ‘Christophanies’ that lead the way to His Incarnation.
As we are only permitted twenty attendees, due to the size of the room, we ask that you let us know if you wish to attend.
The coming weekend confessions will be heard in Deacon Mark’s office in Morganstown on Saturday, and the celebration of the Divine Liturgy for the feast of the Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Michael will be celebrated in St John’s on Sunday. On this day, we also celebrate the Synaxis of the Holy Unmercenary Healers.
As always, I ask those wishing to confess on Saturday and Sunday to email me at otetzmark@hotmail.com as soon as possible.
The variable parts of Sunday’s Liturgy may be found at ‘Orthodox Austin’ –
Cheltenham:Saturday 13th November – Confessions 09:15, Hours and Divine Liturgy 10:00
Address: Prestbury United Reformed Church, 5 Deep St, Prestbury, Cheltenham GL52 3AW.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Our Gloucestershire community will celebrate the Divine Liturgy tomorrow, honouring the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves, Saints Spyridon and Nikodim the Prosphora Bakers, also remembering our departed Hierarch, Archbishop Nikodem of Richmond and Great Britain on his nameday.
We will chant the litia for the departed after our Liturgy, which will be celebrated just a few weeks after the 45th anniversary of his repose on 4th / 17th October 1976, at the age of 93. Eternal Memory!
We look forward to celebrating the Holy Mysteries together, and spending time socialising after the service, when there will be a bring-and-share lunch and confession time for Cardiff and Wiltshire visitors.
May God bless you. Venerable Fathers Spyridon and Nikodim, pray to God for us!
The coming weekend will see the resumption of normal parish life with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in Cheltenham on Saturday, and Cardiff on Sunday.
Our Gloucestershire mission will meet for the Divine Liturgy in Prestbury United Reformed Church, with confessions from 09:15 and the Hours and Liturgy as close to 10:00 as possible, though the number of confessing communicants meant an unavoidably late start last month. There will be a bring-and-share lunch after Liturgy, and our Cardiff faithful who will be communing on Sunday are welcome to make their confessions before their homeward journeys.
Our ROCOR parish continues as the canonical Russian Orthodox presence in Cheltenham, and our parishioners remain committed to the diocese and the Russian Church Outside of Russia. We pray that God may sustain them and give them strength.
On our return to Cardiff, confessions will be heard at Deacon Mark’s office in Morganstown, and we will appreciate notification from those requiring confession as soon as possible. Confessions will also be heard in St John’s from around 10:15 on Sunday morning, and I again ask for an indication of those wishing to do so. Email: otetzmark@hotmail.com
Thank you, all who have already made arrangements.
I look forward to our celebration of the Hours and Liturgy, and remind you that we are very much seeking to re-establish our bring-and-share lunch, as it is so good to see parishioners catching up with one another after Liturgy. So, please think about bringing offerings for the table.
The variable parts of Sunday’s Liturgy may be found at ‘Orthodox Austin’ –
As Advent and December, and the end of my secular-employment approach, we look forward to increased parish prayer and services, formalised catechism, and pilgrimage. I hope that we may begin to discuss these important aspects of the development of parish-life on Sunday – especially the celebration of a weekly Advent Moleben around the parish.
Many thanks to all who continue to have been in touch over the last week and to those who have sent ‘care parcels’. The kindness, care and generosity of our parishioners is both exemplary and inspiring.
It has been wonderful to receive calls and messages from our faithful, during the course, of Sunday afternoon, confirming how well the parish coped without a priest, due to my isolation, which sadly precluded the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
This was the first time that the congregation had assembled for public worship without a priest, and a valuable (if unplanned) lesson in prayer and worship
However, the parish proved itself capable of coping in such circumstances, with the chanting of the Hours, the sung Typika and moleben to the Mother of God in honour of her Kazan Icon, demonstrating that when the unexpected happens, worship can continue with beauty and solemnity.
As I have already said in communication with parishioners, reader-services or services according to the lay-order (Богослужение мирянским чином), are very much part of the liturgical history of the Orthodox Church, latterly in the vastness of Russia, where some outlying settlements and hermitages, only had priestly services very rarely.
Between the visits of priests, the services were led by non-ordained monastics and lay elders. As in the desert of Africa, where the early monasteries and hermitages usually lacked clergy, lay liturgical practice was firmly established and was well known in each religious community.
I previously wrote on Facebook
“With the acquisition of some familiarity and knowledge of the order of the services and the sources for their parts, liturgical prayer without a priest is possible. This, perhaps, is the cue for us to start studying the liturgical cycle and to learn how to pray liturgically in the absence of clergy.
Many of us, have at some time in our lives, discovered this Tradition, largely through our physical distance from Orthodox parishes and services…”
I hope that we will be able to share the knowledge of reader-services in our Cardiff and Cheltenham communities, giving parishioners the confidence to come together for common worship without clergy.
I would like to thank our Deacon for taking the reins on this occasion.
We are, as always, indebted to our kliros and readers for their devoted service, and owe great thanks to matushka Alla for the flowers that adorned the icons bringing so much joyful colour to the celebration.
I look forward to returning from my enforced retreat, adding that I am in good spirits, despite fatigue, tinitus and headaches. I look forward to serving our Cheltenham and Cardiff faithful next weekend.
After a successful response to the parish drive to finance a full-time parish-priest I am happy to inform you that I will be taking up this position on 1st December, ministering to the parishes in Cardiff and Cheltenham, hoping that we will also soon establish an outreach serving our Wessex parishioners.
As many of you are aware, combining full-time work in learning-disabilities and virtually full-time parish ministry was always a challenge, and has become increasingly difficult over the past few years, in which I have become very aware of my own limitations.
However, it has still been a joy to be able to combine both major causes in my life, knowing that Faith has been shaped my ‘external’ professional life, as well as parish ministry.
In the years since Metropolitan Hilarion asked me to take over the position of rector of the Cardiff parish and priest-in-charge of Cheltenham, much has changed, and the needs of the parishes have increased significantly.
Since our move from Butetown to Nazareth House in 2017, the parish has grown, spiritually above all, and we have seen a wonderful flowering of parish-life, despite lockdown and the continuing obstacles of the last year and a half. We are indebted to the Fathers of the Oratory and the Sisters of Nazareth for so much in this period, and we look forward to our return to Nazareth House with great anticipation.
In the meantime, we have to consider sustaining our presence in St John’s, Canton.
Since our last services in St John’s, our use of the church has been formalised with the completion of a hire agreement. As a result, we are now paying for the building on an hourly basis, which significantly increases our weekly outgoings, and the necessary payment for every hour we use the building.
Given the significant cost of each Sunday’s use of the building, Saturday services will no longer be financially sustainable for us given the small Saturday congregation.
I will discuss the situation with Deacon Mark on his return from Greece, and I am hopeful that we will find a way to move forward with Saturday worship and confessions.
As I look forward to commencing the position of full-time parish-priest on 1st December, I very much hope that parishioners will be willing to revive home akathists and various services, so that we will have worship on weekdays as well as the weekends.
However, this week there will be no Saturday service, but we will revert to using Deacon Mark’s office for confessions in the late afternoon and early evening. With this in mind, may I ask those wishing to confess on Saturday to email me –otetzmark@hotmail.com– by Friday evening (and this will be strictly enforced), with those needing lifts out of town to Morganstown to let us know, so that we can endeavour to make their confession possible.
The Hours and Liturgy will be celebrated, as usual, in St John’s at 11:00, on Sunday morning, with confessions commencing at 10:15.
I would also appreciate knowing who will require confession on Sunday.
The variable portions of the Sunday Liturgy – St Luke’s Day – may be found here:
May I remind you all that this Sunday will see our South Wales parishes worshipping together in Swansea.
After faithfully celebrating the Liturgy in our chapel in Llanelli, Archpriest Luke will celebrate our first public ROCOR Liturgy in Swansea in the Vivian Hall, 82 Mumbles Rd, Black Pill, Swansea SA3 5AS.
The Hours will begin at 10:00, followed by the Divine Liturgy. Confessions will be heard before and during the Hours, and may we remind worshippers that all who wish to commune (with the blessing of the clergy) should prepare themselves with prayer, fasting and confession. This is the historical Tradition of the whole Church, whatever may now happen elsewhere.
We will have refreshments afterwards, so contributions will be most welcome.
Please allow sufficient time to find a parking space, as there is no immediate parking, but there is provision for free parking in Clyne Gardens and paid-parking at the lido.
I am so happy that members of our Cardiff parish have already pledged their support and look forward to a joyful gathering of the Orthodox faithful from across South Wales and the West of England in Swansea.
The variable parts of the Liturgy may be found at:
Every Liturgy is an occasion for rejoicing, and each week we leave Cardiff buoyed by the joy of our celebration, no matter how physically tired we feel. However, today was an especially joyful Sunday, beginning with Elliot being made a catechumen and formally beginning the journey to the waters of baptism, after being an active member of our community for the greater part of the year. It was wonderful to see the joy on the faces of our parishioners – particularly on the kliros – when Elliot recited the creed, and during the final prayer:
O Master, Lord our God, call Thy servant Elliot to Thy holy Enlightenment and count him worthy of the great grace of Thy holy Baptism. Put off his old self and renew him for eternal life and fill him with the power of Thy Holy Spirit for union with Thy Christ, that he may no longer be a child of the body, but a child of Thy kingdom. Through the good pleasure and grace of Thine Only-begotten Son, with whom Thou art blessed, together with Thine all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.
A wonderfully affirmative Amenresounded from the kliros.
I was greatly heartened to know that in baptism, he will take the name of his local sainted-hierarch, St Aldhelm of Sherborne: an apt name for a Dorset musician.
May St Aldhelm pray for him, protect and bless him!
The triumphal joy was sustained by the choir, lifted by the return of Aleksandra, after her period of rest following a fall, with the added blessing of Byzantine chants, in addition to the usual Russian melodies.
It was good to have an army of oltarniky today, and a blessing to have them helping with our commemoration after a busy time of confessing the faithful. When they bowed to the high-place and turned to the west behind the Holy Table for the creed, it was a wonderful sight. As always, they coped with the unexpected, as a blessing of our new travelling holy-vessels and icons crept into the dismissal of the Liturgy.
We were very happy to congratulate Peter on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, and to sing Mnogaya Leta with conviction and hwyl (Welsh gusto!). Again, dear Peter, we pray that God will grant you many, blessed years!
Our social time after Liturgy, allowed us to welcome visitors and catch up over a glass of wine, super-strong coffee for the rector and some lunch. This is one of the aspects of parish-life that we missed so much under stringent covid-regulations, and to return to this fellowship is a blessing and relief.
It was wonderful to have parishioners come to Liturgy to receive a blessing before travelling abroad, and we also hold our student Marina in our prayers, as she completes her M.A. dissertation at home in Moscow. It was strange not to have her with us, but the consolation was to see the friendship between our young parishioners.
Anglican use of St John’s, coupled with my work commitments see us relocate to Swansea, next week, to support Father Luke with the first public Russian Orthodox Liturgy in Swansea, in the Vivian Hall, 82 Mumbles Rd, Black Pill, Swansea SA3 5AS. We hope the weather will be fine, so that we might enjoy relaxing in the lido gardens after Liturgy. All are encouraged to bring food and refreshments for a bring-and-share lunch.
The Hours will be celebrated at 10:00, followed by the Divine Liturgy at 10:30. Confessions will be heard before and during the Hours. Parishioners from Wiltshire and Cardiff have already pledged their support, and our ‘mobile singers’ will be prepped in the next day or two.
Father-Deacon Mark, Alla and Yuriy will not be with us, but will be enjoying a well-deserved break in Corfu, charged with bringing the prayers of our parishes to the shrine of St Spyridon the Wonderworker, and when they return, we will hopefully chant a moleben to St Spyridon, who is greatly loved in the Cardiff parish.
Thank you to all who contributed to today’s Liturgy and lunch, making the parish a prayerful, warm and welcoming place for those who came through the church doors for the first time. Thanks are also due to parishioners who supported Liturgy in Cheltenham Liturgy, yesterday, building the spiritual bonds between our communities.
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments…”
During our recent parish meeting we discussed the problems faced by Father Mark in combining care for the parish with his secular employment as a support-worker for Mencap.
Over time, duties and expectations have expanded and we have recently experienced clashes which have had a direct effect on his ability to serve us on both the Saturday and Sunday services, in addition to the expectation that he will be on-call and available throughout the week as our parish-priest – despite the fact that he is working more than full-time hours.
Further, this has a very serious effect on Father’s health as he is, in effect, trying to work two full-time jobs, at a time when the parish is growing and when there is a growing need for pastoral work within our very widely-dispersed community.
Therefore, it was decided that, as a parish, we would investigate the possibility of supporting our parish priest with a ‘stipend’ (clergy salary), by raising enough specific donations to contribute towards this.
As I announced from the amvon, at the end of last week’s Liturgy, we have been successful in securing donation-commitments to provide a very basic stipend allowing us to formally offer Father Mark the role of solely being our parish-priest, free from secular employment. Therefore, we are currently preparing the formal paperwork to ensure that he is able to resign from secular work to concentrate on full-time work as rector of our parish.
Thank you to everyone who has come forward to make this possible.
For those who have made commitments to donate and for those who have not committed, but also wish to donate towards the stipend-fund – even if only occasionally – please see the information below to ensure that:
1) you are able to donate securely and easily.
2) we are where possible able to reclaim ‘gift aid’ from the government to top-up the donations.
3) we can identify the donation as a specific contribution towards the stipend.
Commitments to donate towards the stipend
If you would like to donate specifically towards the stipend please could you inform Deacon Mark, so that your intention is registered on our admin system.
We simply need the following information:
1) your name.
2) the amount you wish to donate specifically toward the stipend.
3) the frequency of your donation.
4) if you would prefer to donate by bank transfer or cash.
5) whether we are able to register you for Gift Aid.
We all know that life can be unpredictable at any time and especially in the current circumstances, so please If should any circumstance arise affecting your ability to continue donations, or need to alter your donation, please make Deacon Mark aware, so that aware so that our systems may be adjusted.
Importantly, we do not want anybody to put themselves in undue pressure or financial stress.
Donations by Bank Transfer
Donations may be made directly into the parish bank account at any time during the month to suit your circumstances. The parish bank details are:
Account Name: Cardiff Russian Orthodox Church
Sort Code: 01 – 01 – 55
Account No: 17716985
Donations by Cash
Cash donations may be made at any of the month’s services, but in order for us to ensure financial clarity and prevent confusion, please direct your donation to its intended purpose with the following procedure:
1) place your donation into an envelope.
2) write your name and ‘Stipend Donation’ on the envelope.
3) place your envelope in any of the collection plates.
By your doing this, we will be able to ensure that the cash is counted with a witness and then passed to Deacon Mark for banking and recording in the donation register.
Gift Aid
In order to maximise your donations, the government will allow us to claim ‘Gift Aid’ on all eligible donations. This means that the government will give the parish an additional 25% on top of your donation at no cost to you – and, yes, this really is free money!
There are specific conditions to make this possible. These are:
1) that the donor is a UK resident.
2) the donor is a UK Taxpayer (e.g. you pay p.a.y.e on your salary, tax on a pension, or capital gains on an investment);
3) the donor is donating on their own behalf and not on behalf someone else.
4) the donor has completed and signed a ‘Gift Aid’ form, allowing the parish to claim the money from the government.
If you have not filled in a gift aid form, please use the following link that will allow you to download a form for you to complete:
Alternatively, if you are unable to print the form above, please let Deacon Mark know and he will ensure you receive one at the next service.
Questions
If anyone has any questions please contact Deacon Mark by email rmfisher@ntlworld.com or mobile 07790 031375 and he will do his best to answer and resolve them for you.
