On November 12, on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy in our temple.

Following the Gospel lesson the Rector preached a homily in Russian. He pointed out that man possessed by the evil spirits in the Gospel story assigned for this Sunday (Lk. 8, 26-39) is an image of our passionate and sinful soul. We are often possessed by many passions. Those passions are our demons whose name is “legion”. Different vices like anger, lie, laziness, drunkenness may overcome our will. Being dominated by those passions we do strange and terrible things and later may be surprised that we do them. But the power of Christ can liberate us from those passions, just as this power healed the demoniac in today’s Gospel lesson. Our sinful soul can be freed in repentance, in reception of the Sacraments and by living spiritual life. We need to stay with Christ, to be in His Church which is a hospital for our spiritual infirmities. We also should do as the healed demoniac did. He wanted to stay with Christ, but the Lord told him: “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you” (Lk. 8, 39). We read that he went his way and preached. Thus he became the disciple of Christ and a preacher of the Gospel. Since we declare that we are the followers of Christ, we need to preach our spiritual successes, to preach what great things God has done to us. We may do it directly, by telling others about our spiritual life or we may do so by being an example of righteous living.

After the Liturgy dismissal the Rector preached a short sermon in English to stress the main points of his homily.

Following the liturgical service the Rector and parishioners enjoyed delicious meals and a nice company at the coffee hour. Our Warden and Choir Director, Olga Roussanow was congratulated on the occasion of her past birthday. She was presented by a picture portrait of her own, artistically made by the Malyshew family. Maria Malyshew was also congratulated on her past birthday. Traditional Polychronion (“Mnogaia leta!”) was proclaimed and the toasts raised to these parishioners.