Dear brothers and sisters, Христос воскресе!
The last week or so has been a rollercoaster for us, having only received the keys for St Philip’s a little over a week ago, and not having our first service until Palm Sunday, with the unnerving bareness and utility of the building as a literally stark challenge for us.
Having started the journey to St Philip’s on 21 January, it has been a long haul, and we are now only just beginning as we see how we can use the building, and can make it spiritually conducive to Orthodox worship. It will be a challenge, but the evolution of our worshipping space in a single week shows us that there is much we can do. As we have said, all ideas are welcome, and some parishioners have already come up with ways to create an Orthodox environment.
Holy Week and Pascha proved to be a concrete sign of what the community can achieve when we all work together, and the blessing of such beautiful services are a testimony to our parishioners’ dedication to serving the Lord and labouring for his local flock.
From Holy Wednesday’s Unction service to the Agape services of Pascha, it was a great joy to gather, with a stream of new people from various traditional Orthodox homelands. It was wonderful to welcome them and chat, and a comfort to know that even in the first week of relocation people were able to find us.
The clergy are extremely grateful for the labours of those who chanted, read, served, provided and arranged flowers, took photographs, cleaned and tidied, moved furniture and showed such kindness and care to clergy, brothers and sisters of the parish and visitors. And… personally, I am extremely grateful to Father Mark the Younger and Father Hierodeacon Avraamy, whose contributions to Holy Week and Pascha, and indeed every celebration, make such a difference and make my own ministrations so much easier. Thank you, Fathers.
One of the greatest joys of this year’s celebration was the flowers, whether the miniature floral halo for the Lord’s icon on the plashchanitsa, the cental stands, the vases of scented blooms or the adornments for the icons. The great island of flowers around the plashchanitsa and the Resurrection icon, was a wonderful offering to the Lord, and it was wonderful to smell the scent of the flowers as well as that of beeswax and incense in our beautiful services.
On the morning of Pascha, we repeated last year’s practice of chanting the Paschal Hours, and communing those were unable to come during the night between this first service and vespers, after which our sisters made tea and coffee to enjoy with kulich.
Having had a correspondence and telephone-call day, yesterday, sending greetings and catching up with people, I remain in Cardiff and will celebrate a 15:00 service in the Oratory tomorrow – Wednesday – chanting the Paschal Hours and moleben, and on Thursday, vespers for the feast of the Life-Giving Spring will be celebrated at 15:00, I will hear confessions after our services.
I will head to Nazareth House, for 18:00 on Thursday, whwere will will chant the canon to the Mother of God, the Life-Giving Spring, and ask that if anyone would like confession before the service to contact me by tomorrow evening, otherwise I will arrive in time to unlock the church at 18:00.
The Lesser-Blessing of Waters for the feast of the Life-Giving Spring will be performed in the Oratory Church at noon on Friday, and will also be performed for our Wessex parishioners in Jessica Anne’s home on Monday.
This coming Saturday 26 April, we will have the joy of celebrating the Saturday of Thomas in Cheltenham, with the breaking and distribution of the loaves of Thomas Bread (artos), blessed on the night of Pascha, with artos being brought back to Cardiff for distribution on Sunday.
If we had our own temple, the artos would stand on a table before the open Holy Doors of the ikonostas, and would be censed in every service and carried in a daily procession – “participating” in every service of Bright Week, as a sign of the Lord’s presence in the midst of the disciples.
At the end of Bright Week, these blessed loaves are broken and divided, to be kept as a Paschal blessing, akin to Great Holy Water at Theophany.
Having been cut up into small pieces and dried, artos may be prayerfully consumed on Sundays and feasts when we are unable to be in church to commune.
Our Cheltenham Hours and Liturgy will commence at 10:00, and we look forward to a shared Paschal meal after our service.
The address is Prestbury United Reformed Church, Deep Street, Cheltenham Gloucestershire, GL52 3AW.
It would be a great joy to welcome Cardiff parishioners to our little mission within sight of the Cotswold Hills.
Next Sunday, Antipascha, or “Thomas Sunday” will see the Octave of the Resurrection, and as the name suggests, we will commemorate the appearance of the Lord to the disciples and His encounter with Thomas, whose hands encounter the reality of the physicality of the Risen Saviour. The variables may be found at orthodoxaustin:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DQwxP9AkuX0RBIpQYxS3kyx2VULiiEg7/view
I will travel to Wessex on Sunday afternoon, where a memorial service for Radonitsa will be chanted on Monday evening. Having made a Somerset pastoral visit on Tuesday, I will return to Cardiff on Wednesday and we will offer a Radonitsa panikhida in Nazareth House on Thursday evening (1 May), so please submit commemoration lists for commemoration throughout the week, as well as at the Serbian Orthodox on Saturday, when I will go to Lazarica for the Liturgy on Saturday 3 May, to greet our Birmingham friends with the Resurrection and to celebrate a Paschal Liturgy with Father Nenad. It would be lovely if some of our Cardiff parishioners were able to make a pilgrimage to Bournville that day.
In the meantime, as suggested on WhatsApp, I encourage everyone to try to chant the Paschal canon every day in this glorious season.
May God bless you!
Christ is Risen!
Hieromonk Mark
