Dear brothers and sisters,

In the ‘pilgrim language’ of Walsingham, I have just made my ‘last visit’ of the day to the Holy House, which is at the centre of prayer and devotion in the Anglican Shrine, in which the Orthodox have maintained a chapel and spiritual presence since 1941 (having being involved in Walsingham pilgrim life since 1931), with the chapel being consecrated on Troitsa 1945.

I have previously written of the origin of the Holy House, and will simply quote from a past posting:

“The Mother of God appeared to Richeldis (Rychold), Lady of the Manor of Walsingham in the 11^th century, commanding her to build a replica of the original Holy House of Nazareth, later dismantled and rebuilt in Loreto, in Italy, after the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land.

The great shrine and priory, which developed around the chapel of the Holy House was endowed through royal patronage and was renowned throughout Europe, but despite its sanctity and fame it fell victim to the ravages of the reformation and the destruction of the holy places by King Henry VIII and his henchmen.

The 20th century saw the restoration of Anglican religious life around a newly built Holy House and shrine complex.”

The current Holy House, to which the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was translated in 1931, is a very plain structure, echoing the humble simplicity of the Holy House of Loreto, and the mediaeval recreation in the priory a few hundred metres from the current site.

It stands within the Anglican Shrine Church, just inside the ‘west’ door, towards which it is liturgically oriented. The chapel of the Annunciation and shrine of St Vincent of Saragossa are located behind it, between the Holy House and the door and, to its ‘liturgical north’, a Saxon well is accessed by north-south steps (not the original Holy Well, but nevertheless a constant source of healing and blessing from the Mother of God).

The second day of the consecration of the extended church, in 1938, saw the celebration of the Hierarchical Liturgy on the high altar by Archbishop Nestor of Kamchatka, and the memorials of the Walsingham ‘greats’ who welcomed him and the Orthodox pilgrims stand near the Holy House and the west door.

Above the well, in the north aisle of the church, the effigy of Fr Alfred Hope Paten (1885-1958), a great friend and benefactor of the Orthodox Church in Britain reposes, tomb-like.

Immediately next to the Holy House, a  similar memorial to the sometime Bishop of Acra, Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953) – another friend and supporter of exiled Russian Orthodox Christians is to be found, with a figure of the Lady Richeldis kneeling on the west wall of the Holy House, just above the feet of his effigy. Thanks to Dr David Woolf, for pointing out that Bishop O’Rorke’s mortal remains rest beneath this stately memorial.

Lamps and candles burn in the Holy House day and night, for the intentions of parishes, families, pilgrims and their many intentions, and intercessory prayers are offered there every day of the year. Small paper shields, like zapisky, proclaim the intentions, and give the names of parishes and associations for which lamps burn, both inside and outside the Holy House.

Pilgrims pass through its doors from morning till night, and are struck by the peace and prayerfulness of this very special place in which the pilgrim feels the merciful care and loving solicitude of the Mother of God, ‘Our Lady of Walsingham,’ in its profound and hushed peace, amidst the flames of candles and lamps, gently flickering, blue and red.

Most Holy Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, pray to God for us!

Dear brothers and sisters, 

Recently, our community has been blessed with some wonderfully festive Liturgies – for the Forerunner, for the Holy Chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and yesterday for the Royal Martyrs. 

On these occasions we have been pleased to celebrate the namedays of the faithful, and we very pleased that Nicholas could be with us yesterday, on his first nameday, having been baptised by Father Luke in honour of the Holy Tsar-Martyr on Lazarus Saturday, (on the same day that we baptised George in the sea), after a long and thorough catechumenate. 

As well as congratulating him, we would like to thank him for reading the Hours, the Apostol and thanksgiving prayers – of which he was not forewarned. Many Blessed Years! 

We were also very happy to welcome Isaiah, one of the catechumens from the Llanelli Parish, and were glad for yesterday’s addition to our catechumens with Thomas’s quiet admittance to the catechumenate in the porch of St John’s, whilst the parish shared trapeza in the church. 

We are now looking forward to James’s baptism in Chippenham in a fortnight, adding to the number of our Wessex faithful, and to Tracey’s baptism in St Nicholas on the Eve of the Dormition, at which time she will take the baptismal name of Mary, in honour of Our Lady, the Mother of God, and her feast. 

Last Saturday saw a wonderful Cheltenham Liturgy, and next Saturday sees the celebration of the feast of Venerable Anthony of the Kiev Caves at the Urdd Centre in Llangrannog, on the Cardigan Coast, currently housing refugees from Ukraine. We hope to commence the Hours at 10:00 and Liturgy at 10:30, but given that this is a new setting we are keeping a slightly open mind. Directions may be found here: 

https://www.urdd.cymru/en/residential-centres/llangrannog/about/directions/ 

Looking forward to next Sunday’s Liturgy, at 11:00, we celebrate more namedays, with the feast of the Holy Equal to the Apostles, Great Princess Olga, and the variables for the feast may be found at ‘Orthodox Austin’, as usual: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vaZU8gMRGU07waG9ryRIa9KYvjnWcF8P/view 

May I ask for confession requests by Wednesday evening please, as this is something of a challenging week, given a concentration of activities? I have already had a chance to confirm some confessions with parishioners. 

Wishing you a sensible and cautious few days, and looking forward to seeing parishioners at the cooler end of the week. 

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark 

Dear brothers and sisters, greetings on this feast of the All-Praised Chief Apostles, Peter and Paul.

As we celebrate this feast, we congratulate Peter and Paul on their nameday, as well as Pavel in the Llanelli parish, Subdeacon Peter in London and our Chancellor, Archpriest Paul.

Dear Father and dear brothers, congratulations and ‘Many Years’!

We will celebrate the Divine Liturgy this morning, with the Hours and Liturgy, starting at 10:00, in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, North Church St, Butetown.

In preparation for Sunday, confessions will be heard on Friday and you are asked – as usual – to email me at otetzmark@hotmail.com or message me via Facebook or send a text. Requests by Wednesday night please. 

As announced on Sunday, we are now ‘on vocation’ from our Friday catechesis group, though there is still plenty to do with individuals on this front.

On Saturday, the Divine Liturgy will be celebrated in Cheltenham, with confessions from 09:15, the Hours at 10:00 and the Divine Liturgy around 10:30 (dependent, as always on confessions). We very much look forward to being with our Gloucestershire parishioners (though some come all of the way from Devon for Liturgy).

Saturday will also see our dear Alexandra singing in a concert in Llandaff Parish Hall at 13:00, and it would be lovely if some parishioners are able to support her. Please check here for details: 

https://www.llandaffcathedralfestival.org/whats-on/operarecital?fbclid=IwAR3AzACswYWAuDW62R6JvruYCxS8KImpj3q5Y7k6eZUrEtG60BGp5zJKcQY&fs=e&s=cl

After a very prayerful and peaceful Liturgy, last Sunday, we look forward to celebrating the Holy Royal Martyrs this coming Sunday. The variables for the service may be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jh4XSfVnd5Qwvi-Oa-uaN2rUA57GP_r9/view

May God bless you. 

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark 

We are not long home after a very prayerful Liturgy in Canton, at the end of which I was very pleased to be able to offer a litia in honour of St Calogero the Anchorite of Agrigento – observing in the homily how, even in adversity and the experience of being a refugee, the holy monk seized the opportunity to bring God’s love, light and grace to those who surrounded him in Sicily, his place of exile, where he died in his cave hermitage on Monte Kronio in 561, in the ninth decade of his long life.

We can say similar things of saints who acted in a like way in the emigration after the 1917-1918 Revolution: St John the Wonderworker in China, Europe and America; St Maria Skobtsova in inter-war Paris; St Seraphim (Sobolev) in Sofia. And, of course, countless other people of every level of society acted in like ways, showing a different way of Faith to the local religion that surrounded them.

God scattered the faithful to the four winds, and wherever they found themselves, temples rose up (sometimes in very humble makeshift settings), the Holy Mysteries were celebrated, encounters and conversations brought ‘outsiders’ to the threshold of the Church, which became their Church.

Out of adversity, exile and loss, came the Light of Christ, as God blessed the world by sending His faithful servants to so many nations, through their experience of revolution, social upheaval and exile.

In a parish like ours, in Cardiff, where we have just as many converts to Holy Orthodoxy as ‘native Orthodox’, we might reflect that without those who – like St Calogero – fled violence and persecution, the Light of Faith may not have touched our lives. For those of us who were taught and formed by émigrés, this is particularly true.

The Saviour teaches us that, “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”

Exiles like St Calogero, and so many saints exiled from their native lands never hid the Light of Christ, but shared it with those who surrounded them, and importantly, they did not allow adversity to crush and defeat them, but persevered so that others were enlightened, comforted, and touched by the love and grace of God.

This is a sober reminder for us.

The irritations and difficulties of our lives may be transformed from sharp sand and grit to pearls, as God transfigures and raises us up through our humility, patient-endurance, long-suffering, struggling, faithfulness and even joyfulness in trials.

And, in all of these things, the Light fo Christ still needs to shine.

The saints have found God even in starvation and cold, prison, exile, illness, torture, death and every adversity. None of these things have separated them from either His Presence or His love, and at the end of his life, in pain and privation in exile, this was so powerfully demonstrated in the dying words of St John Chrysostom, as he breathed his last at Comana Pontica, on 14 September 407 during a forced journey into further exile: “Δόξα τῷ Θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν” (Glory to God for all things).

Based on this, Metropolitan Tryphon Turkestanov wrote the well-loved akathist, which returns to St John’s words for its refrain, as in exile and imprisonment in the gulag, the godly hierarch still shared the Light of Christ, and saw His love in the glories of the world around him.

As St Paul wrote in the eight chapter of his letter to the Church in Rome:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If we can keep recognising, seeing and finding God’s love and glory, then we have something pricesless and limitless to share… and it is always with us, whatever life sends us, wherever we are, however we are feeling – in sickness and health, plenty or privation, joy or sorrow. God’s love is always there.

The dark storm clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Thy fire is burning brightly. Outside is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence: Alleluia! 

(Kontakion 5 of the akathist, Glory to God for all things!)

In the intense heat of the afternoon, it was a blessing to be in the cool interior of St Alban’s and enjoy the peace and tranquillity as everyone seemed to be hiding from the heat.

Just a few days after his feast, prayers were once again offered at the shrine of St Alban, for our parish, for our parishioners and friends – particularly asking the Protomartyr to show our parish the way forward in its search for a home which can be a ‘seven-days-a-week’ temple, with services in the same place, rather than in different parts of the city. However, we know that the Lord knows and the Lord allows, as we continually pray, “Thy will be done.”

As candles were lit, prayers were also offered to the Mother of God, before her Walsingham icon, especially for the sick among our parishioners and friends, and for those far from home, seeking refuge from war-torn Ukraine.

Parishioners will remember the icon of Our Lady of Walsingham from the Little Oratory of Newman Hall, where we often prayed the akathist in honour of the Walsingham icon as part of the many Orthodox services celebrated there. When the Oratorian Fathers were relieved of the chaplaincy and the care of Newman Hall, the icon was translated to the Oratory Church where it continues to be venerated, and where we continue to pray before it.

O Sovereign Lady, Mother of God most high, who didst inspire the Lady Richeldis to stablish the holy house at Walsingham for the veneration of thy holy Annunciation, entreat thy Son, even our God, to send down grace upon us for the healing of soul and body, that, as we approach and kiss thy holy ikon and drink the wholesome water drawn up from thy spring, we may ever praise and glorify the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and to the ages of ages.  Amen.

О, пречу́днии святи́и седмичи́сленнии о́троцы, Ефе́са гра́да похвало́ и всея́ вселе́нныя упова́ние! Воззри́те с высоты́ Небе́сныя сла́вы на ны, любо́вию па́мять ва́шу чту́щия, наипа́че же на младе́нцы христиа́нския, ва́шему заступле́нию от роди́телей свои́х препоруче́нныя. Низведи́те на ня благослове́ние Христа́ Бо́га, ре́кшаго: оста́вите дете́й приходи́ти ко Мне. Боля́щия у́бо от них исцели́те, скорбя́щия уте́шите, сердца́ их в чистоте́ соблюди́те, кро́тостию испо́лните я́ и в земли́ серде́ц их зерно́ испове́дания Бо́жия насади́те и укрепи́те, во е́же от си́лы в си́лу им возраста́ти. И всех нас, святе́й ико́не ва́шей предстоя́щих, мо́щи же ва́ша с ве́рою лобыза́ющих и те́пле вам моля́щихся, сподо́бите Ца́рствие Небе́сное улучи́ти и немо́лчными гла́сы ра́дования та́мо прославля́ти великоле́пое И́мя Пресвяты́я Тро́ицы, Отца́ и Сы́на и Свята́го Ду́ха, во ве́ки веко́в. Ами́нь.

As we mark the fortieth day since the repose of His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion, our First-Hierarch, we pray for the repose of his soul, for the mercy of God, for the remission of his sins, and that he may be granted eternal rest in the heavenly mansions – in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

May his memory be eternal! Вѣчная память!

Dear brothers and sisters,

I would like to express profound thanks to all who made Troitsa such a joyful and festive celebration in St John’s, in labours for Liturgy, Vespers and trapeza… and the less than popular putting away and cleaning.

We greatly appreciated the profusion of flowers and greenery, including the lovely posies that our Warminster ladies arranged so that all of the thirty-three adults could hold flowers during the services, including wonderful bunches of flowers for the clergy – with Sweet Williams at my request, as we always had them in our Troitsa flowers in the Birmingham podvorie of St Seraphim. 

To have extras from Cheltenham was an unexpected surprise, and to have so many receiving Holy Communion was a great blessing.

Despite the considerable combined length of the Hours, Liturgy and Vespers, everyone remained buoyant and joyful, with our feast culminating in a wonderfully festive lunch, at which we all ate very well, concluding with much appreciated Torte Napoleon and Medovnik to celebrate Svetlana’s birthday.

Having chanted ‘Mnogaya leta’ for Melangell, a few days after her nameday, we also pray that our senior sister, Svetlana, may be blessed with Many Years!

As we celebrate the Day of the Holy Spirit, I wish you all a blessed and joyous continuation of the feast, enjoining you to heed the words of the righteous St Alexei Mechev,

“Call on the Holy Spirit – always keep your hearts pure so as not to drive away the Holy Spirit from them but to attract Him.”

Turn to the hymns of the feast, and fill this week with joyful prayer to the Heavenly King, the Comforter – to fill your life, your family and your home, as temples of the Holy Spirit.

С праздником! Happy Feast!

With love in Christ – Fr Mark