On December 8, on the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, our parishioners gathered at St. George Church for a beautiful celebration. On that day we also observed feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God into Temple which had been transferred on Sunday from December 4. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy. Following the readings from the Gospel he preached a homily in Russian.

In his homily the Rector connected the thoughts over the first Gospel lesson about the healing of the woman who was bent over to the celebration of the feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into Temple. In both instances, a person entered a holy place, a house of prayer. The infirm woman came to the synagogue where Jesus was teaching and received healing. The Most Holy Mother being a young child entered the Temple to be raised and educated there. This stresses for us the importance of the temple, of the place of worship. We need to appreciate our temples where we unite with God spiritually and, if we receive Holy Communion, we unite with Him even physically partaking of His Body and Blood. We also need to bring our children to the church and imitate holy God-parents Joachim and Anna who entrusted their only and precious child, Virgin Mary, to God in His holy place.

The choir was prayerfully performing for the first time of this year the pre-Nativity hymns, as well as the hymns of the feast of the Entrance.

After the Liturgy dismissal the Rector and the altar servers performed a rite of glorification in front of the icon of the feast.