On June 10th, on the Sunday of All Saints, or on the 1st Sunday after Pentecost, our Rector, priest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy at St. George’s Church.
During his homily after the Gospel lesson Fr. Igor continued his talks on Divine Liturgy. The present topic was about the Lord’s Prayer. The priest initiating that prayer by the congregation exclaims: “And vouchsafe us, o Master, that boldly and without condemnation we may dare to call upon Thee, the Heavenly God as Father and to say”. He asks to be worthy to refer to the Almighty God as to our Father. Fr. Igor said: “We have to say that it was a new thing in the time of Christ, to refer to God as to the “Father”. Nobody has done this before Jesus. Nobody could dare to call God his Father. But Jesus did, and He called God His Father using an Aramaic word “Abba” meaning “Daddy”, an intimate word for one’s father. This is why many Jews were amazed and scandalized that Jesus called God His own Father, making Himself equal to God. But Jesus was God and had a right to do so. But what about us? The Lord wanted to teach us also to refer to God as to our Father. Why? Because God created us and loves us and also because through Jesus Christ Who, being the Son of God, became the Son of Man, all of us became members of God’s household, children of God through adoption… The words of the Lord’s Prayer are simple but important. They express the praise of God and petitions for our main spiritual and earthly needs.” Fr. Igor further shortly interpreted the main prayer of the Christian people.
After the Liturgy Fr. Igor and parishioners had our common meal outside of the church.