On May 2 of this year 2021 all Orthodox Christians celebrated the greatest holy day, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Pascha.

Celebration at St. George Church began before midnight on Saturday, May 1. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov performed Midnight service at the Lord’s Tomb and transferred the holy Shroud to the altar.

Soon after midnight joyful Paschal celebration began. The Rector assisted by the altar servers led faithful in the procession around the temple. At the end of the procession everyone stood in front of the closed church doors where Fr. Igor began Resurrection Matins and proclaimed the Easter greeting, “Christ is risen”. Faithful responded and sung Paschal troparion. Then the priest opened the doors of the temple and faithful entered into the church.

After the Matins the Rector served the Divine Liturgy. The Gospel lesson on Pascha is traditionally read in several languages. The faithful had an opportunity to listen the verses of the reading in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Church Slavonic, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, Belorussian, Polish and Spanish. Following the Gospel reading Fr. Igor proclaimed Catechetical Sermon of St. John Chrysostom on Pascha. Following the Ambo prayer he also performed a blessing of the special Paschal Bread called Artos.

After the Liturgy dismissal the Rector greeted the parishioners on the occasion of the greatest Christian holy day assuring them that in any difficult and troublesome times like today’s God has always the last word and His goodness and love will always prevail.

Following main services the Rector blessed Easter food.

Rector and parishioners continued their celebration of Pascha at the table where they had an opportunity to enjoy delicious meals after the long time of fasting.

On April 30, on the Holy and Great Friday we had two special services in our parish temple. This day is the most sorrowful day in Christian calendar. On Holy Friday we commemorate crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, His death on the Cross, as well as His burial. St. George Church’s Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served Vespers with the procession of the Shroud at 4:00 PM.

After the Scripture readings concluded with the Gospel lesson about the Holy Passions of Christ the Rector preached the following homily:

“This day called Good Friday, or, as it is written in our calendars and books, Holy and Great Friday, – this day is the day of universal sorrow. Today we remember how our Lord Jesus Christ was condemned to death, how He was crucified and how He died on the Cross”.
“The Gospel reading told us that story in details. Some of us may say that if we were there, near Christ in Jerusalem, we would never join those who condemned and crucified Him. But let us think about that and let us be honest: it’s not just those people, namely the Jews, crucified Christ. He was crucified by human sin, by the evil in the hearts of men. As we were saying two days ago, on Great Wednesday, that every person is capable of being like Judas who betrayed Christ, we may say today that everyone is capable of crucifying Christ”.
““God so loved the world…” - says the Gospel (Jn. 3, 16). Yes, God loved the world He created and God loved the human kind. And He willingly accepted death on the Cross for the human kind. All of us are involved in God’s love: God loves all of us and each one of us. But jus as we are personally involved in God’s love, so we are personally involved in His crucifixion. If anyone says, “I am not like those who crucified Him”, we are forgetting that “they” did not crucify Him, sin did, human evil did. “They” were our representatives, our ambassadors, that day at the court of Satan. Our sin empowered them with the right to crucify. We are personally involved in God’s crucifixion, as well as in His love”.
“Today we are not merely acting out the last events in the life of Jesus during our Good Friday services in the Church. The actual events are made present again mystically by the Holy Spirit, so that we may participate in them. Today we are present at Golgotha, at the very place where the body of Jesus was nailed to the Cross. We are present when the body was removed from the Cross. Tonight we will be present before the Tomb of Christ as we sing the praises of His death. We are literally immersed into the love and passion of Christ by all today’s events. We should experience each nail, each lash, each cry, each thorn. God works on us every year through the events of Holy Week, to awaken us, to effect a change on us, to evoke a response from us, to lead us to repentance, to help us make the sacrifice of Jesus the center of our life. How many Good Fridays have to go by before we come to experience personally God’s love for us? How many times Christ have to die before we come to our senses and realize that life is to be lived in Christ and for Christ?”
“Years ago instead of delivering a sermon on Good Friday, a preacher went to the altar. Silently he took a candle and held it up to crucifix, to the thorn-covered head, to the feet locked with nail, to the wounded side and the rent hands. Then he turned to the people and said, “This is what God has done for you!” And we may add, “This is what we, the people, have done for God!””
““God so loved the world…”. Can you be indifferent to that? Can you shrug your shoulders at that? Can you say you are not personally involved? You can. But then you should remember the words of the Scripture: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Hebr. 2, 3).”

At the end of this service holy Shroud had been solemnly carried out from the altar to the middle of the church and placed there for veneration.

At 7:00 PM the Rector celebrated Matins on the Lord’s Tomb. Most of this service was performed before the Shroud placed in the middle of the church. After the Great Doxologion the Rector, altar servers and parishioners performed the procession around the church. The priest carried the holy Shroud resembling burial of the Lord.

On April 28, on Holy and Great Wednesday, when the Church commemorates the betrayal of Judas, our Parish held a service of the last Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in this year. It was headed by our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov.

Following the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector preached a homily about the significance of this day of the Holy Week. He reflected upon the motives which led Judas to betray Christ. These motives, unfortunately, are common to all humans. Among the 12 Apostles one became a traitor. All of us may betray the Lord but we are called to be like eleven other Apostles, not like Judas. We should also remember that Judas was not successful in his pursuit to have a good life. He became disappointed and even hanged himself out of despair. Such is the outcome of betraying God.
Another important thing to learn from the Great Wednesday is that time is precious. On this day and during this Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts we recite the Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian and make prostrations for the last time before Pascha. We are done with that prayer and the prostrations. The time of Lent had ended and will return only next year if we live until that time. Thus we should use the time appropriately and use it to save our souls.

On April 25, 2021 the Orthodox Church celebrated feast of the Entry of our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, also known as Palm Sunday. The Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov headed festal liturgical service in our parish.

After the reading of the Hours the Rector blessed the pussy-willows and distributed them to the parishioners who were holding them during the service resembling the people of Jerusalem who greeted Jesus Christ with the olive and palm branches during His triumphal entry to the city.

After the readings from the Scripture at the Divine Liturgy the Rector preached the following homily:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! There are different holy days in our Church calendar. Today we celebrate Palm Sunday, Entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem. It is a tragic feast. It appears to be joyful and bright, it feels like a joyful occasion. And it was supposed to be. Today our Lord Jesus Christ entered the holy city of Jerusalem. The Messiah came to His capital city. The people greeted Him there, met Him with honor, paid Him homage. Jesus was greeted as a true king of Israel. One of the signs of such welcome was holding the palm and olive branches, the sign we are using to greet the Lord when we bless and pick up the pussy-willows. Despite that, this is a sad feast”.
“The tragedy of Palm Sunday lies in the fact that all this exciting welcome and all this triumphal entry into the city is based on a terrible misunderstanding. The Jews misunderstood Jesus. They expected Him to be a powerful political leader, an earthly ruler, a great liberator who would restore the kingdom of Israel, chase away the Romans and establish a perfect society on earth. Even His miracles were understood not as a manifestation of His divine power and nature, but as a proof of His earthly greatness. Our Lord resurrected Lazarus who had been dead for four days. Today’s Gospel reading mentions that this was the reason why people came to meet Him, “because they heard that He had done this sign” (Jn. 12, 18)”.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ was the true Messiah and Savior of the world. This is exactly why He was not an earthly leader. He was the Son of God who became the Son of Man in order to make us the sons of God. Somehow the Jewish leaders did not grasp it. Jesus disappointed them as an earthly king, so they crucified Him. Their excitement and joy of welcoming Him had changed to hatred and desire to put Him to death. The crowd who cried out, “Hosanna!” cried “Crucify Him!” This is why this feast is so tragic. It shows us how shallow, how superficial our human understanding can be. We may easily prefer unimportant things over God Himself. The Jews rejected Jesus, rejected God when He could not satisfy their earthly plans. More than that, they even killed Him”.
“In response to that Jesus said: “Behold, your house is left to you desolate” (Mt. 23, 38). That what happens when God is rejected. Our life becomes desolate; it becomes empty. For there is only one thing which may turn the wilderness of our life into a flowering garden, which would make our life complete, which would make the human society efficient – this one thing is the presence of the Living God who gives an eternal sense to all which is temporary. This is the same Living God who gives His life-giving force to the nature, so every spring we observe with awe and excitement how the branches of the trees become blooming and alive again, how the first flowers emerge after the cold winter. The pussy-willows we are holding today are also the sign of the Living God present in the nature”.
“Your house is left desolate”… The people were looking for earthly freedom, earthly victory, earthly power. They never found it, or if they did, it never lasted long. Only dust and ashes or the tombs were left after those who were looking for these things. Our Lord Jesus, on the contrary, did not use the power to rule, but His kingdom will have no end. He rose from the grave and lives forever. He offers us life everlasting if we allow Him to fill our lives”.
“Dear brothers and sisters! This is why today’s feast is so tragic. A great number of people is going to reject their true God. A small number is going to follow Him and receive what He had promised them: life, and life to the fullest. A great misunderstanding happened. For one kind of people their house becomes empty, yet others enter into the house of God and themselves become the temple of the Holy Spirit, the house of life”.

Following the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector and the altar servers performed the rite of glorification before the festal icon. Then Fr. Igor greeted everybody on the occasion of the feast and preached a short sermon in Russian regarding the end of Lent and how did we spend that special time. He also reminded the parishioners about our service schedule for the Holy Week, Pascha and our Patronal feast of St. George.

On April 18, on the Fifth Sunday of Lent our parishioners gathered for the liturgical celebration in our temple. Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy. After the Gospel lesson he preached the following homily:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! We have come to the Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast. It is dedicated to commemoration of the Venerable mother Mary of Egypt, a holy woman who is an example of how a person can change his or her life. St. Mary of Egypt started her adult life as a harlot, a lose woman in the great city of Alexandria in Egypt. But some day when she happened to come to visit Jerusalem, she experienced a strange feeling: some unknown force prevented her from entering the holy church. Mary understood that it happened because of her sinfulness, she converted, she turned her life around. The rest of it she spent in the desert, living in the wilderness, repenting her sins. For many years no one knew about her. Only some time before her death she met a priest-monk whose name was Zosimas. He was astonished seeing such a great ascetic. He first was not able to recognize what kind of being she was – a human or some ghost. Then he was amazed by her life and ascetic endeavors. St. Mary asked him to meet her again in one year and to bring her Holy Communion. They met again and Zosimas gave her Communion. Soon after that Mary fell asleep in the Lord and a year after Zosimas discovered her uncorrupted body. Many times we can hear that people don’t change. Venerable Mary of Egypt is a perfect example of how the human life may be changed in Christ, with the assistance of God’s grace. Being a harlot, leading a licentious life, Mary changed and spent the rest of her years in repentance, in a very simple way of life, in constant prayer and fasting. She is also a reminder that there is no sin that cannot be cleansed by sincere repentance”.
“Today’s Gospel reading tells us about our Lord Jesus Christ predicting His holy Passions and death. In this way on this Sunday we should be prepared to spiritually revive the events of the sufferings of our Savior. We also heard that two of His disciples, James and John, asked their Master for a favor. They wanted to be given the honorable places, the important positions in the Kingdom of heaven. Our Lord pointed out to them that their attitude is wrong. He said that in His Kingdom, in order to be great one must be serving others, and whoever desires to be first should be a slave of all (Mk. 10, 43-44). In other words, our Lord proclaims some different social order according to which greatness and leadership consists of serving. Again, we hear some interesting, maybe surprising things. Holy Gospel is full of such surprises. When we read it we learn that a publican becomes justified, a prodigal son becomes forgiven, a harlot gets the remission of sins. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted, and the last will be first”.
““Behold, I make all things new” – said the Lord (Rev. 21, 5). This is why His teaching is called the New Testament. And according to the New Testament God becomes united with humanity, redeems it. He becomes the Son of Man who comes “to serve and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mk. 10, 45). In this new reality of salvation the sick are healed, the blind see, the lepers are being cleansed, the dead rise. And the sinners are being forgiven. St. Mary of Egypt after being also very sinful becomes not only forgiven but blessed with holiness for her sincere repentance and reformed life”.
“Today’s Sunday should teach us to be the right followers of the New Testament, the disciples of Christ who expect to enter into His Kingdom and to take the places which God prepared for us. In order to be worthy of those places, let us serve one another. And if we stumble, make mistakes or commit sins, let us remember that it is not desperate. Any person is able to change his or her life. If we sincerely repent and turn away from those sins, as holy Mary of Egypt did, God will forgive all of them and will bless us, bestow upon us His grace and will invite us to His Kingdom giving us the honorable and desirable places in the eternity”.

During the Litany of Fervent Supplication, the Rector had a petition beseeching the Lord to spare the faithful from the outbreak of the disease.

The choir prayerfully performed penitent hymns during the preparation for Holy Communion.

Following the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector made the announcements about the future celebrations of the Holy Week and Pascha and regarding the importance to receive the Holy Mysteries of Penance and Eucharist in these special days of Lent.

After the Divine Liturgy the Rector performed the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick. All persons who desired to receive that Mystery participated in the service and were anointed with the blessed oil.

On April 11, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, St. George Parish held a nice liturgical celebration. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy in our temple. After the Scripture readings he preached the following homily:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Today’s Sunday continues to lead us in our spiritual journey of the Great Fast. Today the Church wishes us to commemorate Holy Father John Climacus, or John of the Ladder, a holy monk who lived in the monastery on Mt. Sinai and became an author of the book called “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”. This book is known as a guide for spiritual life. And today’s reading from the holy Gospel of Mark is telling us what is important for the life to be spiritual. The important thing is to have faith. Faith helps people to acquire many gifts. Today’s Gospel tells that faith helped a father of a young man possessed by a demon. Due to his father’s faith, he was made whole by our Lord Jesus Christ”.
“Lack of faith becomes the reason for many troubles in the world. People who have a very shaky and small faith are easy to be drawn away from the right perception of everything around them. This is why we have so many problems in the society, so much immorality in the conduct of the people. I have recently read that in India a man whose wife died, decided to marry a rat because he believed that his wife’s soul was in that animal. These people there are not Christian and believe in many idols. Therefore, due to their wrong perception of spiritual world they may do such odd things. But this country, America, had been founded by Christians. They were not Orthodox but they did believe in Christ and read their Bible. And what happened to that country? Nowadays the American people are lacking faith and therefore, they are not having a right view of many things. We are now told that we can marry a person of the same sex. We are told that a child can change his or her sex. I suspect that in the near future we will be told that a person can marry an animal. And this is not really surprising because the statistics says that now less than 50% of the American people belong to some church or denomination. More than a half of the population has no strong ties with any religion. It happened in this 21st century although before, in the 20th century, about 70% of the Americans did belong to some denomination. Thus the problems and immorality in the society are caused by the lack of faith which is now so widespread”.
“The world populated with people having insufficient faith resembles a chaos. People suffer in that world because they lack faith. This is why our Lord Jesus is shown losing His temper in today’s Gospel and exclaiming: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?”(Mk. 9, 19). And when faith is lacking, the people and the world becomes driven by the evil forces, because they have no difficulty to overcome them. The example of the young man possessed by such evil force in today’s Gospel has to show us what may happen to the people lacking faith and not living a spiritual life. They may become prisoners of evil and have no possibility to free themselves”.
“On the other hand, if people have faith, all things become possible. God’s power is being then released through peoples’ faith. And our Lord seeks to elicit such faith from us, as He was seeking to find it in the father of the possessed young man. We read that the father was not certain about his faith in Jesus. He pleaded with the Lord: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!”(Mk. 9, 24). What was that? It is a faith, but faith seeking God’s help. The presence of a doubt does not mean the absence of faith. Christ honors whatever faith we have, as long as it is sincere. He then will increase our faith when we sincerely desire Him to do so”.
“The two essential expressions of faith are prayer and fasting. Our Lord stresses today that the evil force may not be driven away without them. Remember, two weeks ago we were talking about four friends who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus? We said that prayer, fasting, repentance and participation in the life of the Church are those friends bringing us to the Lord. Today we have to repeat it again saying that prayer and fasting are our first friends to help us, to make us whole, to bring us to the Lord and to protect us against the evil”.
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us practice prayer, endure in fasting and thus drive away our enemies and get closer to our Lord Jesus Christ whose saving Passions we are now anticipate to celebrate. Let us cherish and hold our faith, so we could not be called “faithless generation”. Let us rather understand that our faith may not be great, but let us sincerely ask the Lord to increase it through His divine grace. Let us exclaim with the father of the young man: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” Then He will help and make our faith strong and making wonders. And thus, let us persist in our spiritual journey toward His Holy Resurrection”.

During the Litany of Fervent Supplication, the Rector had a petition beseeching the Lord to spare the faithful from the outbreak of the disease.

The choir prayerfully sang hymns in honor of Venerable John of the Ladder and the Psalm 33 during preparation for Holy Communion.

Following the Liturgy dismissal the Rector preached a short sermon about the past feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God and made some announcements.

On April 4, on the Third Sunday of Lent we had a nice celebration at St. George Church. On that Sunday the Orthodox Church venerates the Holy Cross.

Before the reading of the Hours the Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov solemnly transferred decorated cross from the altar to the middle of the church and placed it on the stand.

Following the Hours the Rector served the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. After the Gospel lesson he preached the following homily:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! On the Third Sunday of Lent when we are in the middle of our spiritual journey towards the holy Resurrection, the Church gives us an opportunity to venerate the holy Cross. The tree of the Cross stands on our way now in order to give us some rest, some comfort, some encouragement for our pilgrimage to the Holy Pascha”.
“The tree of the Cross reminds us that our Lord Jesus Christ offered a perfect sacrifice for us when He died on that holy tree. It tells us that He redeemed us, substituted for us in the punishment He underwent instead of us. He accomplished our salvation for us. We do not have to do anything about it. Our Lord did everything for us. St. Paul talks about that in today’s Epistle lesson calling Christ the High Priest “who has passed through the heavens (Hebr. 4, 14).  As the high priest who offered sacrifice for the people, Jesus offered a highest sacrifice being the Son of God. But if a high priest could do it entering the holy place in the temple, Jesus could offer it passing through heaven, being the Son of God. That makes such sacrifice the highest possible. This is a great comfort and consolation in all the troubles we may encounter in our lives. This is why St. Paul goes on saying: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need” (Hebr. 14, 6). Thus, the big part is done: we are saved. It is now time for us to do our part which is much smaller”.
“Today’s Gospel lesson tells us about our part. It consists of denying our very self, taking up the cross and following Jesus. We may say that it does not appear to be a “small” thing to do. And it is not. But it is much smaller than what the Lord Himself accomplished for us. He redeemed the whole world. We are called to finish, to confirm it for ourselves only. At this point we may be frightened by the words such as ‘denial’, ‘taking up the cross’ and so on. But let us think about them”.
“‘Denying himself’ does not mean that a man must renounce to be himself. We are not called to refuse to be who we are. But we are expected to reject the things which are transitory, unnecessary and pertaining only to this world. These are the things we will lose anyway when we will pass to the eternal life. Especially we need to reject passions, sins and wrong inclinations. Since those things very often become our nature, the Lord uses the expression “denial of himself”. We must refuse to follow what is wrong in our nature, to renounce it”.
“‘Taking up the cross’ means to do what we are doing anyway. Our earthly life is carrying a cross. Everyone has his own cross to carry. We may carry it in a lousy way or we may carry it with dignity. Jesus wishes us to carry our crosses with dignity. It means to accept the cross, to endure and to be obedient to the will of God. Again, the holy Cross of Jesus should be a great comfort for us while we are carrying our own crosses. We should remember and understand that His Cross was much heavier than ours and much harder to carry. It had a weight of all our sins. We carry only our own”.
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us take a rest under the holy tree of the Cross, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, let us obtain help from our merciful Lord Jesus Christ and let us continue our journey denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Jesus. Let us follow Him into the eternity”.

During the Litany of Fervent Supplication, the Rector had a petition beseeching the Lord to spare the faithful from the outbreak of the disease.

The choir prayerfully performed the hymns dedicated to the Holy Cross during preparation for Holy Communion.

After the dismissal of the Liturgy Fr. Igor made some announcements and greeted Paraskeva Kosmidis on the occasion of her birthday presenting her with a bouquet of flowers and proclaiming a Polychronion on her behalf.

Following that the Rector and the altar servers came out of the sanctuary before the stand in the middle of the church and venerated the Precious Cross.

After our services the Rector and parishioners enjoyed a lenten luncheon generously prepared by Paraskeva Kosmidis who celebrated her birthday.

The Gospel of Mark (2, 1-12):

At that time Jesus entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Евангелие от Марка (2,  1-12):

Во это время пришел Он в Капернаум; и слышно стало, что Он в доме. Тотчас собрались многие, так что уже и у дверей не было места; и Он говорил им слово. И пришли к Нему с расслабленным, которого несли четверо; и, не имея возможности приблизиться к Нему за многолюдством, раскрыли кровлю дома, где Он находился, и, прокопав ее, спустили постель, на которой лежал расслабленный. Иисус, видя веру их, говорит расслабленному: чадо! прощаются тебе грехи твои. Тут сидели некоторые из книжников и помышляли в сердцах своих: что Он так богохульствует? кто может прощать грехи, кроме одного Бога? Иисус, тотчас узнав духом Своим, что они так помышляют в себе, сказал им: для чего так помышляете в сердцах ваших? Что легче? сказать ли расслабленному: прощаются тебе грехи? или сказать: встань, возьми свою постель и ходи? Но чтобы вы знали, что Сын Человеческий имеет власть на земле прощать грехи,– говорит расслабленному: тебе говорю: встань, возьми постель твою и иди в дом твой. Он тотчас встал и, взяв постель, вышел перед всеми, так что все изумлялись и прославляли Бога, говоря: никогда ничего такого мы не видали.

 
Homily of the Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! On the Second Sunday of Lent we read the Gospel story about healing of the paralyzed man and we honor St. Gregory Palamas, a Holy Father who lived in the 14^th century. The Scripture reading of today is telling us a number of things. First of all, it is about a spiritual effort, a labor which must be performed in order to receive God’s favor and to acquire salvation.
Holy Evangelist Mark tells us today that when our Lord Jesus Christ was in Capernaum and He stayed in a house, so many people gathered there to hear His teaching. Then four men came carrying a paralytic. They could not approach Jesus because of the crowd, so they uncovered the roof where He was. Then they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. These men took a great effort to bring their friend to Jesus, they labored to achieve that goal. And, as a result, the Lord saw their faith and healed their friend. This has to teach us that any spiritual achievement and, above all, our final salvation, requires a great work on our part.
If last Sunday we mentioned the heresies, we have to say that a great heresy of our times is to believe that salvation can be acquired without labor. Many people live with such a wrong attitude that if you are so-called “good person”, you may end up in heaven without special spiritual works like penance, prayerful life or attending the church services. Positive thinking and nice attitude by themselves will not save you. They may only help you in your work, but that work must be done. Any person who did not start making spiritual efforts is like a paralytic. We are all more or less spiritually disabled, paralyzed. Only a great spiritual labor will make us healthy and successful. That labor consists of prayerful life, fasting, penance and participation in the Church life. Only these things will heal our spiritual paralysis.
Therefore, let us look at them as our four friends who may bring us to Jesus, as those four friends brought to Him the paralytic in today’s Gospel. Again, those our four friends are prayer, fasting, repentance and participation in the life of the Church. It is impossible to be saved, it is impossible even to get closer to the Lord without having those four friends. May all of you look at yourselves and see whether you are friendly with those things. Very often we realize that such friendship is not always and fully maintained. But let us admit that it must be. No other force will bring us to the Lord’s grace, His favor and to our salvation except the power of the spiritual works.
The Saint whom the Church wishes to honor on the Second Sunday of Lent, Holy Father Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica, is known for his writings and teachings where he instructed that people, being subject to sin and imperfection, have a chance to become holy through the works of spirit: through prayer, fasting and penance. He also teaches that men are able to achieve a highest level of spirituality and become so holy, that he may be worthy to see the uncreated light of God, the same light the Apostles saw on Mt. Tabor when Jesus transfigured before them. Such light is from God, thus it is not created, but comes from Him. This may sound very remote from our daily life, especially if we do not practice much spirituality. But this is how much any person is able to reach if he or she will take an effort, to do the work, to perform a labor.
Dear brothers and sisters! Let today’s Second Sunday of our great spiritual journey towards holy Pascha teach us to take spiritual efforts, to use help of the four friends, prayer, fasting, repentance and Church life, and to strive for achieving holiness and salvation.

On March 21, on the First Sunday of Lent, also known as celebration of the Triumph of the Orthodoxy, St. George parish had a nice liturgical service. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. After the Scripture readings he preached the following homily:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! On the first Sunday of Lent we commemorate the victory of the true faith over the heresy of iconoclasm. It happened in the 9^th century when a wrong teaching prohibiting to venerate the holy images was defeated and condemned at the 7^th Ecumenical Council. For that reason today’s Sunday is known as Sunday of Orthodoxy. The feast itself was introduced to mark the victory over the iconoclasm. But at that point in the history, after those seven Councils, the Church completed its proclamation of the Christian teaching. The Church formulated and defined all main truths of faith in the decisions of those Councils. This is why we call that victory not the triumph of the veneration of the icons, but the triumph of Orthodoxy”.
“It does not mean that no more heresies emerged after this triumph. On the contrary, much more of them appeared following the 9^th century. But today’s feast means that all the heresies are condemned in advance by the teaching of the seven Councils”.
“In today’s world we may see two main heresies. The one is the wrong understanding who Jesus Christ is, and another is the new iconoclasm, refusal to venerate the holy icons”.
“Some modern heretics call Jesus Christ the Great Teacher; they like His teaching, but they do not consider Him the Son of God.  Even if they admit that He is God’s Son, they still refuse to believe in His miracles and His resurrection. For instance, they often interpret the resurrection of the Lord in the spiritual sense only and deny the resurrection of His Body. All these errors of thought were condemned b the teaching of the seven Councils”.
“If Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, born from the Holy Spirit and the ever- Virgin Mary, and if He did not rise from the dead, then no salvation of the human race took place. Then we remain in sin and death has the power over the world. Then our life has no sense”.
“But we believe that the life has a great value because our Lord Jesus Christ – the Son of God who became man – saved us from the sin and death. And today the Church celebrates the victory of that saving teaching”.
“Another modern heresy is denial to venerate the holy images. Such a wrong conviction can be seen in all the Protestant denominations. Some of the preachers of that heresy call the icons idols. This is not new in the history. They just repeat the mistakes of the ancient iconoclasts”.
“Modern iconoclasts have pretty primitive philosophy. They say that Ten Commandments prohibit to worship the man-made images. The ancient Greeks had more sophisticated grounds to deny the icons. They believed that the matter is evil, thus God cannot unite with the evil things. They went further saying that the Son of God could not unite Himself with the human nature, to become man. But the Holy Scripture clearly states that all created by God is good. God did not create evil. The matter is good because God made it. Our flesh is good, our environment is good, the whole universe is good. The Son of God united with what is good”.
“Thus God who became man can have an image. His human nature can be shown on the holy icons. The true Christians venerate our Lord Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother and the Saints who are pictured on the icons, and not the wood and paint. In this way we worship the true God who became man and venerate the image of His Incarnation. Jesus Christ for us is a true God and true Man, not an idol. By proclaiming the veneration of the icons the Church protected the truth of the Incarnation”.
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us listen to the Church saying to us today: “Come, let us venerate the holy images of Christ, His Pure Mother and Saints, and let us reject the evil faith of those who proclaim bad tidings””.

During the Litany of Fervent Supplication, the Rector had a petition beseeching the Lord to spare the faithful from the outbreak of the disease.

The choir prayerfully performed the 33rd Psalm during preparation for Holy Communion.

After the Liturgy dismissal the Rector performed prayer service of the Sunday of Orthodoxy solemnly declaring the Orthodox faith and proclaiming eternal memory to the champions of that faith and the polychronion to the Church hierarchy and Orthodox Christians.

At the conclusion of the service the Rector preached congratulated the parishioners on the completion of the first week of Lent and wished them to continue an endeavor of further observance of the fast. He also made some announcements.