Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen! Христос Воскресе! Hristos a înviat! Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
We now enter the third week of Pascha, having not only celebrated the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, but also Radonitsa with a week of prayerful commemoration of the departed.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to our services.
Reiterating the words of our younger Father Mark, we must not forget to pray for the unbaptised departed, but commend them to the prayers of the Holy Great-Martyr Varus (Uar), to whom has been given the grace to intercede for those who have died without holy baptism and outside the fold of the Church.
As we have related before, devotion to the saint became a firm part of our spiritual identity and praxis in the 16th century.
To commemorate the birth of the younger son of Ivan IV, Tsarevich Dmitri, on 19 October 1582, the feast of St Varus, a chapel dedicated to the Great-Martyr was added to the Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist in the Moscow Kremlin, with enshrined relics of the saint.
The faithful turned to St Varus to pray for sick and suffering children, and in the early 17th century, when the chaos of civil war and foreign invasion resulted in many children dying without the grace of Holy Baptism, the holy patriarch, Hieromartyr Germogen, instructed the faithful to prayerfully turn to St Varus to intercede for them.
In addition to the festal canon (and akathist) to the Great-Martyr, there is also a supplicatory canon for the departed, though this clearly presumes the departed as not having been people of Faith, making parts of the canon less appropriate for those who though not Orthodox, were nevertheless Christians.
Life and festal canon: https://russianorthodoxchurchcardiff.com/varus-life-canon
English text: https://orthodox-europe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/canonstvarus.pdf
Slavonic text: https://azbyka.ru/molitvoslov/kanon-mucheniku-uaru.html
Some parishioners may be unaware that we pray to St Paisius the Great for those who died without repentance.
This Thursday, we will offer a moleben to St Varus as well as a litia for the departed at 18:00 in Nazareth House. Confessions will be heard before and after the service.
On Friday we will chant the akathist hymn to the Resurrection of Christ in the Oratory Church, in Swinton Street, at 15:00. I will be available to hear confessions, as usual.
We will also add a litia for the departed to our Sunday Liturgy.
Further to Joanna’s message on WhatsApp, may I remind you that we are looking forward to making a short pilgrimage to visit Father Paul and the Wallasey parish, travelling to the Wirral on Friday 3 July, by car-share, staying locally and celebrating the Divine Liturgy on Saturday 4 July, the feast of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, the Wonderworker. As per Joanna’s request would those interested please let Joanna know by FRIDAY.
To give advance notice, our next Warminster Liturgy will be on Saturday 9th May, and will be celebrated, as usual, in the Chapel of St Lawrence at 10:00.
I will be in Georgia, leading a ROCOR pilgrimage, with Fr Paul from 10th to 22nd July, during which time Fr Mark the younger will ably oversee parish life.
With the exciting developments regarding the new church building, we ask everyone to keep up the fundraising momentum, spreading the word and encouraging others to get involved. Importantly, we must continue to pray for our plans to come to fruition!
We also ask your prayers for the sick and infirm Pavel, Brigid, Euthalia and Natayla; for the newly departed handmaiden of God, Doina; for Piran on his travels; and for our students as they complete assignments, revise and prepare for exams.
Asking your forgiveness for Christ’s sake.
May God bless you.
Hieromonk Mark