On January 6, on the Sunday before the Nativity, as well as on Christmas Eve, we had a nice celebration at St. George Church. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy. He preached a homily in Russian after the reading from the Holy Gospel.

Fr. Igor explained that the First Chapter of the Gospel of Matthew read on this day and containing the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ has two important meanings for us. First, we should understand that human ties of relations between ancestors and heirs are established by God. All of us have parents and ancestors. And our common ancestor is Adam, the first man created by God.
Secondly, and this is the most important to understand on this Sunday, is that genealogy of Christ recorded in the Gospel shows that Jesus was the true Man, not some Spirit or some Angel who came to the world. It shows that He was the true God and true Man, God incarnate and born. As a true Man He had His human ancestors.
In Christ the divine and human nature united, so we can unite with God. And as the Gospel precisely says where Christ was born and where He could be found by the shepherds and the wise men, our faith precisely tells where Jesus can be found now: in the Holy Orthodox Church.

The choir prayerfully performed the hymns of the Prefeast of the Nativity before Holy Communion.

After the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector preached a short sermon in English conveying the ideas of his Russian homily.