Dear brothers and sisters, Holy Week is a time of the year when we particularly experience the limitations and feel the frustrations of being tenants under somebody else’s roof, and being unable to have the full complement of services celebrated publicly.
This is nothing new to us, but our return to St John’s, as a building that is much used for various activities, makes a heavy mark on our celebrations. Those using the building during the week do so as part of long-term bookings, with some of those users having held those slots for several years.
Because the limited availability of the building I will assist Father Luke in Llanelli in the earlier part of the week and the Holy Thursday evening service (the 12 Gospels) will have to be in St Mary Butetown. Unlike the last Holy Week in St John’s, the church will be in use until 18:00 on Saturday, so there is no possibility of celebrating the Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday.
27th April – Lazarus Saturday: TBC
28th April – Palm Sunday morning: Divine Liturgy, 11:00, St John’s, in St John’s, Canton
28th April – Palm Sunday evening: Bridegroom Matins, 19:00 in Llanelli
29th April – Holy Monday: Bridegroom Matins, 19:00 in Llanelli
30th April – Holy Tuesday: Bridegroom Matins, 19:00 in Llanelli
1st May – Holy Wednesday: Small Compline, 19:00 in Llanelli
2nd May – Holy Thursday morning: Divine Liturgy, 10:00 in Llanelli
2nd May – Holy Thursday evening: Service of the Twelve Gospels, 19:00 in St Mary’s Butetown
3rd May – Holy Friday afternoon: Vespers and the bringing out of the winding-sheet, 16:00 in St John’s, Canton
3rd May – Holy Friday evening: Matins of Holy Saturday – Burial service of the Lord, 19:00 in St John’s, Canton
4th May – Holy Saturday: Midnight Office, 23:30, St John’s, Canton –immediately followed by…
5th May – Sunday of Pascha: midnight 00:00 Paschal matins and Divine Liturgy, followed by blessing of Paschal foods and Paschal Breakfast
5th May – Sunday of Pascha: Paschal Vespers, 12:30, St John’s, Canton
Greetings as we begin the third week of the Great Fast.
With people away on vacation and student holidays, yesterday saw a smaller congregation than usual, though it was a warm Liturgy, aptly described by one of our singers as feeling ‘en famille’, and the warmth of our gathering was reflected in the time for which our worshippers lingered and chatted, amply fed on a day of many Lenten pies. Thank you to all who baked and cooked, feeding our faithful on what turned out to be a rather cold church, with all feeling the physical chill: clergy included.
The week began with our end of month service and supper in Wiltshire, and we are grateful to Porphyrios for welcoming us, once again, to his narrow-boat on the Kennet and Avon Canal, and to our sisters who provided Lenten -fare for our gathering and for clergy-hospitality. We are now looking forward to our next Wessex Liturgy in the Chapel of St Laurence, in Warminster, on Saturday 13 April.
Last week saw Nazareth House out of use, so confessions were heard in the Oratory Church, with the akathist to the Divine Passion chanted between them. We are very grateful to the Oratorian Fathers for their continued kindness and hospitality. Their unwished-for departure from the chaplaincy did nothing to lessen the great friendship that was established between our communities, and they continue to take an interest in parish life and news, and support us through their great hospitality.
This week will see our return to Nazareth House for confessions on Thursday, and the akathist will again be chanted, but at 18:00, after confessions. Those requiring confession are asked to email me by 18:00 on Wednesday.
The akathist to the Lord’s Passion has been published on our blog, and can be found in the first volume of the excellent akathist books printed by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, and available from on-line book sellers. These are an excellent resource, and are a worth while resource: Volume 1: ISBN 9780884650591 and Volume 2: ISBN 9780884651413.
Our parishioners continue to read the Psalter in its entirety each day during this fast, and those interested interested in acquiring a Psalter with the traditional troparia and prayers at the end of the kathismas are encouraged to purchase one from White Horse Wares…
… who also stock the translated writings of St Pasisios the Hagiorite, as well as excellent candles suitable for use in your icon-corner. If you have never visited their website, please do!
Sunday was Anastasia’s last, and having completed her musical studies in the Royal College she will spend some time in Greece before returning to university in the States. It has been a great privilege and blessing having her as part of the parish. We thank her for her contribution to parish life and wish her a safe journey and a good celebration of the Lord’s Pascha… Καλό ταξίδι αγαπητή Αναστασία, και καλή Ανάσταση!
Looking forward to Holy Unction / Soborovanie in the cathedral on Saturday 20 April, I am glad to say that we are getting close to having enough attending parishioners to hire a minibus. If you wish to attend, please let Tracy know, but only if you are able to commit, as we do not want to see people dropping out last minute and finding that resources have been wasted.
Next Sunday sees the coincidence of the feast of the Annunciation and the Sunday of the Cross, with the Liturgy celebrating both celebrations, and the Cross venerated at the centre of the church. This is one of the two fish days of the Great Fast, so fish is welcome in trapeza after the service.
Whilst every weekend is a celebration of the Faith, this first weekend felt especially festive after the first week of the Great Fast.
After a week of quiet services, with compline and the Great Canon of Repentance chanted in the Oratory Church from Monday to Thursday, and the first portion of the Akathist Hymn in Llanelli on Friday evening, Saturday brought the blessing of our Pilgrimage-Liturgy in Margam Abbey, and today our enthusiastic celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy in St John’s, Canton. It has been a great blessing to have services every day for the last nine days and the shared joy of this weekend’s Liturgies was the crown.
It was heartening to know that a group of our Wessex parishioners were meeting to chant Great Compline and the Canon of Repentance in the first week of Lent, with the akathist to the Mother of God on Friday, demonstrating that communal prayer is not always reliant on the presence of clergy, especially given the excellent on-line resources we now have for reader services – largely due to the good offices of Father John Whiteford in this Lenten period. See also:http://www.saintjonah.org/services/horologion.htm
Given the immense geographical dispersion of our faithful, reader services can and hopefully will form common bonds of prayer and worship between our Liturgies, whether in Cardiff or further afield.
Tomorrow will see our end of month gathering for an evening service and supper on Porphyrios’s narrow boat: a much anticipated event, with wonderful fellowship. It is incredible that a narrow-boat has become a place of prayer and one of the hubs of our Wessex mission.
As already reported on Facebook, Saturday’s Divine Liturgy for the Saturday of St Theodore was celebrated at Margam Abbey, where the restored nave of the pre-reformation abbey serves as the parish church, just a stone’s throw from the ‘castle’, the former home of the Talbot family through whose benefaction the church was restored in the 19th century.
The stately sanctuary was an imposing place in which to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, especially when we were such a little pilgrimage group which appreciated the majesty of the setting (which feels more like somewhere in the south of France than industrial South Wales), blessing kolyvo at the end of the service, and then enjoying a lovely bring-and-share lunch in the church hall.
We were very happy to have had Father Mark Greenaway-Robins and members of his warm and friendly congregation with us, and enjoyed chatting with them after the Liturgy and during the afternoon. We must thank Anastasia for singing, George for reading and Stefan for serving. Thanks also to our parish brothers and sisters for the lovely lunch.
Today saw our first Lenten Liturgy of St Basil in Cardiff, and we are grateful for our much reduced kliros for chanting our longer Lenten melodies and for the extra musical labours with the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, in which the essence of the celebration was summed up as our Deacons boldly proclaimed, “This is the Apostolic Faith! This is the Faith of the Fathers! This is the Orthodox Faith! This Faith confirmeth the Universe!”
Having prayed for the conversion of those in error, we remembered the departed teachers of the Faith, Hierarchs and Christian Sovereigns, chanting “Eternal Memory”, before beseeching “Many Years” for our living hierarchs, pastors and Christian leaders.
Even though the day had already been long, by popular request, we still added a krestny khod / procession to the end of our celebration, bringing joy to both young and old.
Congratulations to all who partook of the Holy Mysteries and thanks to everyone for such a wonderful celebration, including those who contributed to a hearty lunch, which was very much enjoyed at the end of a long, tiring and austere week.
There will be evening services in Llanelli at 19:00 on Wednesday and Friday, and confessions will be in St Alban’s Church, in Splott, on Thursday, as Nazareth House in unavailable during Western Holy Week. The akathist to the Saviour’s Passion will be chanted at 15:00, and confessions will be arranged around this devotion.
Please communicate confession requests by 18:00 on Wednesday, please.
I know that parishioners are currently discussing participating in the Mystery of Holy Unction in our cathedral at 14:00 on Saturday 20 April, and we hope that car pooling will make it possible for as many as possible to partake of this Holy Mystery. If anyone is interested and without transport please communicate with me or Tracy, so that we may explore group transport options.
Dear brothers and sisters, I hope that this week is going well for you, and that its simplicity is reminding you of the joy we can take in the simplest things, with fresh bread, some olives, nuts and fruit seeming like a wonderful feast, overflowing with the love and bounty of God.
I hope that parishioners are remembering that this is a season in which we eat according to need, and not according to appetite. As I keep saying, there’s nothing wrong with a rumbling tummy during Lent, and if it never rumbles you’re doing it wrong!
Many thanks to the few that have been able to attend the chanting of Great Compline and the Great Canon at the shrine of St Alban in the Oratory Church, and thanks to Father Sebastian for his limitless generosity.
I know that the very early time of 16:00 was impossible for all but a few parishioners, but we had to fit our Lenten service into the oroarium of the Oratorian Fathers who have prayers at 17:30 each day, before the church is locked for the night. This is yet another reminder of the limitations placed upon us as guests perpetually under someone else’s roof, and as you know, St John’s is used during the week.
It’s been heartening to hear that our Wessex parishioners have come together to pray the Great Canon in Bishopstrow, just outside Warminster ( where the ash staff that St Aldehelm drove into the ground, budded and grew into the ‘bishop’s tree’).
In private prayer, I would very much recommend parishioners continue to pray the portions of the canon whenever possible during the coming weeks of Lent, as part of the penitential praxis of the season, and to follow up the Biblical references that may evade memory or knowledge.
Those who pray the canon, know that it shows the skill of St Andrew of Crete not only as a hymnographer, but also as a Biblical exegete in the patristic tradition. His words can lead is into Biblical discoveries as we plug the gaps in our Old Testament knowledge.
Tomorrow night will see the chanting of the first portion of the Akahist Hymn, according to the custom established in Llanelli from its many years as a parish of the Greek archdiocese.
Compline and the akathist will be chanted at 19:00, in the chapel of St David and St Nicholas in Llanelli.
The Saturday of St Theodore will be marked by our pilgrimage Liturgy in Margam Abbey, (Port Talbot SA13 2TA), where we will bless kolyvo in honour of the Holy Great-Martyr at the end of the service.
We will have a bring-and-share lunch in the church hall, and look forward to exploring the part of the abbey still used as the parish church, as well as the ruins and the ancient carved stones collected from around the area, and testifying to its significance as an ancient Christian site.
If anyone can offer lifts to our young people, this will be appreciated. We currently have five people, who will otherwise travel by train.
At the end of Sunday’s Liturgy, we will serve the moleben for the conversion of those who have departed into error, which is more widely a celebration of the Triumph of the Orthodoxy and the restoration of the holy icons. This service is celebrated across our diocese, and in the cathedral our bishop will solemnly pronounce the anathemas, thereby declaring Orthodox Truth and liturgically declaring the condemnation of those who reject the Faith of the Orthodox Church and who were anathematised by the God-Bearing Fathers of the Holy Ecumenical Councils and Synods.
During the chanting of the ‘Te Deum’ – the Hymn of St Ambrose of Milan – we will venerate the Holy Icons, and you are asked to bring an icon to hold during this service, so that we form an ikonastasis of the faithful bearing the Holy Icons for the celebration of their own restoration.
Please join us if you are able, to celebrate the end of our first week in Lent.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Dear brothers and sisters,
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.
