On August 7, on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, the Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy in our parish temple. After the Gospel lesson he preached the following homily:

“Today, on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, and our reading from the Holy Gospel tells us about miraculous feeding of five thousand men by five loaves of bread and two fishes (Mt. 14, 14-22)”.
“This special miracle tells us that the power of God is endless and God Himself is infinite. In that miraculous multiplication of bread He just showed some of His eternity. It is more important in this miracle for us to see a symbol of another miracle happening with us every time when we become present at the Divine Liturgy, a miracle of the Eucharist. For every time at the Liturgy bread and wine become the true Body and Blood of Christ. And the Eucharist is accessible not only to five thousand men but to all faithful Orthodox Christians. The same Christ is being offered on the sacred altar in every temple and is being distributed in Holy Communion at every Liturgy. When the priest is breaking the holy Lamb and prepares it for the Communion, he says the following words, “Broken and distributed is the Lamb of God; broken but never divided; ever eaten, yet never consumed…” Thus Christ in the Holy Communion is being broken into many pieces yet is never divided; he is being eaten by the partakers yet is never consumed. And if the five loaves of bread were consumed even after they were multiplied, leaving only the fragments and crumbs, the holy Bread of the Eucharist never ends on the earth”.
“Dear brothers and sisters, we need to be faithful to that treasure. Coming to the temple for the Divine Liturgy we become worthy of the greater miracle than the one happened in the desert with those five thousand men. They were given plain bread while we are given Christ Himself. The five loaves of bread, though they were multiplied, were finally finished but the Eucharist will never be finished until the end of this world. Those people were filled with the material bread while we are fed with the Bread from heaven. Their visible advantage is in the fact that Jesus Himself was present with them. But with us the same Jesus is also present though being invisible”.
“Therefore, let us become aware of the importance of the holy Liturgy and the importance of being faithful to the Lord and follow Him. The Gospel tells us that the multitude of people followed Him to the desert. They were listening to His words and remained with Him until night (Mt. 14, 15). We can imagine how these people left their usual business and forgot about their cares following the Lord into wilderness. And among us, contemporary Orthodox Christians, there are many those who on Sunday prefer not to come to the church and not to participate in the Divine Liturgy. They find excuses and reasons why they could not come to the temple and to become united with Christ, to be faithful to Him, especially on this holy day of the Lord”.
“This is why, dear brothers and sisters, we need to be aware what kind of treasure we possess. Someone said that if the people truly knew what kind of thing is happening in the church during Divine Liturgy, they would not hesitate to attend but even if they were infirm, they would crawl to the church to be at the Liturgy! But people do not do that. People do not appreciate the miracles happening all the time. Do not appreciate due to the lack of faith. But the people who really believe, do not need miracles. But on the other hand, such people see miracles all the time. They appreciate them, discern them in our life”.
“Today we commemorate the Dormition of the Righteous Anna, mother of the Most Holy Mother of God. Our pious tradition holds that St. Anna was barren, she could not have children. Along with her husband Joachim she had to suffer from moral reproach, because being childless was considered a curse and a shame among the Jews. Both Joachim and Anna were righteous people who lived according to God’s Commandments. They invited God into their lives. And God visited Joachim and Anna and blessed them with the holy Child. Anna conceived in her old age and bore Mary, the Mother of God. This tells us that if a person believes, miracles do happen. Just as the breads were multiplied in the desert, Joachim and Anna were given a blessing to be fruitful and multiply. This also, dear brothers and sisters, tells us that God may act in our lives and work His miracles”.
“Righteous Anna shows the miraculous things after her Dormition that took place before the birth of Christ. The relics of the holy grandmother of Jesus are in different sacred places. I saw her left foot on Mt. Athos, in the Skete of St. Anna. That foot is maintaining temperature of the human body although St. Anna is fallen asleep for more than 2 thousand years! I venerated that relic and I felt the warmth of that foot. There is another foot in a different monastery on the Holy Mountain. And some relics of St. Anna are in Rome. Some are in Canada, at the famous shrine of St. Anna in Quebec where Roman Catholics venerate that holy person. They hold a forearm of St. Anna. I was there many years ago. Recently the Pope visited that place and served his Mass there. A lot of people were healed at that place, so there is a collection of crutches in that shrine, the crutches the sick left after being healed”.
“Thus, dear brothers and sisters, miracles do happen around us. Wonderful things do exist in God’s world. However, if someone has no faith or has little faith, such person would not notice those miracles or won’t be convinced by them. Let us then cherish our faith and attempt to feel God’s presence. Nowadays Jesus does not walk through our cities and villages, but He is spiritually present everywhere. But He is even more present in the holy temple, in our sacred rites and Sacraments, especially in the Most Holy Eucharist. Let us then appreciate that gift and discern the miracles of God in our lives to be worthy of salvation, of life everlasting!”

During the Litany of Fervent Supplication the Rector had a petition for the suffering country of Ukraine and its people. He also added a commemoration of the “suffering Ukrainian land” at the Great Entrance.

The choir prayerfully performed the hymn to the Most Holy Theotokos (The Magnificat) during preparation for Holy Communion.

After the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector had a speech in Russian. He made the announcements regarding the upcoming Church celebrations in August and stressed the main ideas of his English homily.