On March 25, on the Fifth Sunday of Lent our parishioners gathered for a liturgical celebration in our temple. Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy. Following the Gospel lesson he preached the following homily in English:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! The time of Lent calls us for a special care for the spiritual matters. And if we begin to pay attention to the works of piety and ourselves engage in them, we may have certain temptations. One of such temptations is to see the spiritual shortcomings of others and a desire to correct them.”
“For instance, if members of our family don’t go to the church, we may try to make them go. And we may be disappointed if they don’t listen to us. Then we may be unhappy looking everywhere around us. The world outside of the temple has a very little care about Orthodox faith, about spiritual life, about our fasts and holy days. And we may begin to think that it is the society’s fault, that the government should be different, that meat products should be prohibited to sell and entertainment should be banned during Lent. We may recall that how good it was centuries ago, in the Orthodox Byzantine or Russian Empire. And if we give in to such thoughts, we may go further and imagine how we would act if we had the power: we would correct everything and we would make everyone a pious Christian. And thus we forget about our own soul, about our own shortcomings and about our own correction. This temptation is very common, and I believe, many of us could not avoid it.”
“Today we heard the Gospel lesson in which our Lord Jesus Christ predicts His sufferings in Jerusalem. He tells His Disciples about His future endeavor of humiliation and death that He has to accomplish. In this way our Savior tells us that this is the only way to overcome evil – the way of sacrifice, the way of love, the way of service to others. Our Lord came into the world and did not destroy His enemies, did not eliminate bad people and did not force everyone to be kind. He did not become a ruler of the world, some king or an emperor who would make the laws to command everyone to be religious. He did not do it. He came to suffer, to be humiliated, and, finally, to die on the cross.”
“Why this way is the only one? Because we became so attached to sin and sin became so rooted in our hearts, so if the Lord would decide to destroy the evil, to eliminate the sin, He would totally destroy our souls. They would be annihilated and we would perish. But the Lord chose the only right way – to heal our souls. He chose to suffer with us, to be tempted with us and to die for us. But He dies to rise from the dead and to resurrect us, to raise us up renewed, purified, reborn and freed from sin. As He taught, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (Jn. 3, 17).”
“We often like to eliminate evil, to eradicate the vices and crimes and we may think that in order to do it, we need to destroy, to punish and to execute. And many human societies and human leaders follow that path. This way seems to be easy but is a wrong idea of overcoming evil. The wise men of the world knew it long ago. The ancient Roman writer, Cornelius Tacitus understood how wrong is to gain a victory by destroying your enemy. He wrote that such victors “create a desert and call it peace”. Fighting evil by evil, killing your enemy is showing your weakness, your inability to find a better way. All of us may be good or evil, thus we are no better than our enemies. And if think we are good but kill our enemy, we deprive him of an opportunity to change for better. Instead, we are called to wake up good which is rooted in us and in all the others. That might be the true victory.”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ acted in that way, the only right way. He tells His Disciples about that endeavor of Redemption through sufferings and death, not through the destruction. He also teaches them to serve each other. He reverses common social order and proclaims the new rule: “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all” (Mk. 10, 43-44). This is another surprising principle and different from what we are accustomed to see among the people. But our Lord Himself followed that path and He was successful. He said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mk. 10, 45).”
“Dear brothers and sisters! No power or authority, no order or command can make us follow Christ. Today we honor Venerable Mary of Egypt who was a great sinner but became a great Saint. She lived sinful and immoral life before she repented. But could any law or command force her to repent and to change her lifestyle? She changed due to the grace of God. And today we have different laws against such immoral lifestyle like prostitution; these laws help but they cannot make any harlot to change, to become a Saint. Our Savior came not to force us but to serve us, to sacrifice His life for us, so we may become His followers and do the same for our brethren. And although we may be sad seeing members of our family, our friends or other people around us not being Orthodox or not living religious life, not caring for their salvation, the only right way to convert them is to serve them to show them our love, compassion, and mercy. The only right way is to pray for them, so the Lord may lead them into a right direction. Let us then ask our Lord, the Savior of the world who came to not to condemn but to save, and who suffered for our sake, let us ask that He may grant us to follow this only right path to salvation!”

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

Following the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector preached a short sermon in Russian stressing the main ideas of his English homily. He also made announcements about the future celebrations of the Holy Week and Pascha.

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 March 18, 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. Following the Scripture readings he preached a homily in Russian. An English translation of that homily is as follows:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Time goes by, and now we have passed more than half of Lent. Today is the 4th Sunday of the holy time of fasting. This Sunday we honor the memory of St. John of the Ladder – the great ascetic and monastic mentor. In his famous book called “The Ladder of Divine Assent,” he described how a man, struggling with his passions, gradually ascends to piety. In this work are listed as steps of the ladder, those small victories that a man can accomplish in his personal perfection, with God’s help and through the grace of the Holy Spirit in, eradicating his sins and shortcomings.”
“So we, noting that we have already passed most of the Great Lent, must sum up some of the results of our endeavor of fasting. We must honestly answer how we practiced in fasting and prayer, in deeds of piety. Did we use the time that was given to us? Did we go up the stairs? After all, the Lord has given us this period of time, these four weeks for our spiritual perfection. So, did we do it? Or was our time spent on other things and cares?”
“The Lord says that we ​​will have to give an account for all of our life. And telling us thus, the Lord calls us to appreciate the time we have been given, and that we must not give a chance to our enemy, the enemy of the human race, to capture our soul. And we should not seek false comfort, a feeling that that our enemy does not bother us. If a person thinks so, then he is deceived or has long been living under the influence of that same enemy, that is, the devil. This can be compared to a disease. If a person feels pain, then the body is fighting. And the person seeks treatment, goes to the doctors. But it may happen that the disease has already overcome the human body so much that it does not feel pain. In this case, doctors say that the body gave up. Therefore, it is also useful for us to feel the devil’s temptations, suffer from satanic slander and feel the arrows of the evil one that hurt our soul. Unfortunately, many people are already incapable of that, they live peacefully without remorse and without spiritual sensitivity. In this case, the enemy has already overcome them, and it is very difficult or almost impossible for such people to free themselves from such a deplorable spiritual state.”
“Today’s Gospel lesson is telling us about a boy who was possessed by an unclean spirit. His father desired him to be healed and he brought this boy to the Disciples of Christ. But, unfortunately, at that time they themselves were not spiritually mature, they were on a lower step of the spiritual ladder, so they could not cast out the evil spirit from that miserable boy. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the only one who could accomplish such a healing. And thus, that boy possessed by an evil spirit that was torturing his body, throwing the boy into the fire and into the water willing to destroy him – this is an image of the sinful human soul. It also suffers all the time, it is exposed to the attacks of the evil one and sometimes it may become possessed by him. And only such things as faith, prayer and fasting are able to help it.”
“The Lord says to the father of the possessed boy, “Everything is possible to him who believes” (Mk. 9, 23). And He says to His Disciples that “this kind can come out by nothing prayer and fasting” (Mk. 9, 29).”
“Therefore, let not be deceived those who say that there is enough to have some kind of “faith in the soul”, and not a sincere and firm Christian faith. Let not be deceived those who believe that you don’t need the Church prayers, rituals and Sacraments. Let not be deceived those who believe that fasting is a relative matter and that it means little. We heard the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The only one weapon in the fight against sin, against the power of the devil is fasting and prayer! And there is no other weapon. And if we do not use this weapon in the fight against evil, our soul will be in the same position as the son of that man, about whom we heard today in the Holy Gospel.”
“At the same time, we have to remember that our own strength is not enough to pray and fast appropriately, but we need the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross, and who conquered the power of the devil and who had risen. Then our souls will also be resurrected, like that boy in today’s reading: the boy who first was numb, and everyone thought that he was dead, and then he began to live.”
“Dear brothers and sisters! Let us use all our strength for the spiritual warfare and let us spend the remaining time of the holy Lent in fasting and prayer. Let all the attacks of the enemy be repelled from our souls, so we may joyfully encounter the holy and bright days when we will be buried together with Christ, but we will rise with Him also!”

The choir led by our Choir Director, Olga Roussanow, prayerfully sang penitential hymns and hymns in honor of Venerable John of the Ladder during preparation for Holy Communion.

Following the Liturgy dismissal the Rector preached a short sermon in English explaining the content of his Russian homily.

On the Third Sunday of Lent the Orthodox Church venerates the Holy Cross. This year on this day, March 11 we had a beautiful celebration in our parish church conducted by our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov.
Before the reading of the Hours the Rector solemnly transferred decorated cross from the altar to the middle of the church and placed it on the stand. After the Gospel lesson during the Divine Liturgy Fr. Igor preached the following homily in English:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Today’s 3rd Sunday of Lent is dedicated to the veneration of the Holy Cross. Our Lord Jesus Christ says that the way of salvation is the way of the Cross. It requires certain dedication and denial to a selfish attitude.”
“However, people don’t like to follow this way. Ours had been called the “me-generation”. Everything is focused on what I need and what I want. For instance, a pregnant young woman may not be willing to have a child and wants to have an abortion. She may say, “I am not going to let that damn child interfere with my career… or even with my ski trip”. We are being told that the whole purpose of existence is self-discovery and self-fulfillment. The foundation for right or wrong is not then what God commends, but what self demands, “whatever makes me happy”. And if anything stands in the way of my pleasure, be it family, or my neighbors, or even God – they are to be eliminated.”
“This way seem to be the latest and the coolest lifestyle, but it is not new. It’s just another name for sin and it was started a long time ago, at the beginning of the world, by Satan himself. He was not satisfied being one of the most beautiful God’s creatures – an angel – he wanted to be “number one”. So, he started a rebellion against God. He later tempted the first people, Adam and Eve.”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ has something to say to that kind of attitude in today’s Gospel lesson: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it” (Mk. 8, 34-35). He tells us that the only way to the Kingdom of God is to deny oneself and to take up the cross. And if we are selfish with life by trying to preserve it just to serve ourselves, we shall lose it. It is only as we forget self and lose ourselves in loving service to others, we will find life and real happiness.”
“Our Lord did deny His very self as God and took up the cross for us. Therefore, the cross became so precious for each Christian that we venerate it, as we especially do today. Let us remember that it was also a tool of Lord’s denial of Himself. And we cannot achieve any self-fulfillment without God and without denial of our selfishness. If we give in to the temptation and begin to live by the attitude of selfishness, we will lose our true happiness and our salvation. Some Holy Fathers say that the Antichrist number, the mark of the Beast, 666 is interpreted from Greek as Cristos Xenos Stauros – “Christ strange to the Cross”. If Christ did not take up His cross, no salvation could be accomplished. And the Antichrist will exactly attempt to imitate Christ, but without the Cross, without self-denial and sacrifice. Let us beware of that.”
“A great Russian writer Dostoyevsky told the following tale: “There was a wicked woman. When she died, she left no single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire. The guardian Angel however, found that she had once pulled an onion from her garden and had given it to a beggar. God allowed the Angel to take the onion, let her take hold and be pulled out. The Angel did this and began to pull the woman out. Then other sinners in the lake, seeing her getting out, caught hold of her so as to get out with her. But she was wicked and began kicking them saying, ‘I am to be pulled out, not you! It’s my onion, not yours!’ As soon as she said that the onion broke, and the woman fell back into the lake and is there to this day”. If only that woman had not said “my onion”, if only she had said “our onion”! Thus we say “Our Father”, not “my Father”, therefore we say “our daily bread”, not “my daily bread”.”
“Dear brothers and sisters! This story should be a lesson for all of us that we are not isolated, but we have to care for each other, deny our very self and thus achieve salvation through the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ.”

The choir prayerfully performed penitential hymns during preparation for Holy Communion.

After the Liturgy dismissal the Rector preached a short sermon in Russian conveying the main ideas of his English homily.

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.

On March 4, on the Second Sunday of Lent, St. George Parish family gathered for a nice celebration. Following the Hours the Divine Liturgy was served by our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov. After the Scripture lessons he preached a homily in Russian.

Fr. Igor recalled that the Second Sunday of Lent is sometimes called “the Sunday of the Light-creating fasts”, and during the week preceding it the Church is praying for the enlightenment of the souls of faithful who fast. The darkness of our souls exists because of sin. And the enlightenment our souls need is in our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. A person who is suffering from certain sin resembles the one being in a dark room. He may easily hurt himself by any subject. In a similar way, any simple thing or simple product may cause a person harm if it is an instrument of sin. For example, God blessed wine, and we know wine to be a useful and healthy product, but if a person is possessed by the sin of drunkenness, wine becomes very harmful to him. It destroys one’s life. This can be seen in any serious sin.
When a person is possessed by a sinful passion, usually suffers not only soul but body also. Take the sin of anger: it may cause spasms in the stomach and lead to ulcers. It may also cause high blood pressure and lead to a stroke. Human soul and body are so connected that they may “catch each other diseases”, as one preacher said. This is why in today’s Gospel story our Lord Jesus Christ first forgave the paralytic’s sins and then healed him of his disease. That man’s sins were the cause of his paralysis. Probably, the reason of his sufferings was one unforgiven sin.
The light to enlighten our souls is coming from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This uncreated light was seen by the Apostles on Mt. Tabor during Christ Transfiguration. And certain holy people could see that light in their lives because of their spiritual endeavors. The Saint whom we honor today, on this Sunday, St. Gregory Palamas, was writing and preaching about that light and about a possibility to acquire it.
Fr. Igor called the parishioners to pray and to ask the Lord to enlighten our souls and lead us to salvation. He finished his homily citing the words of a known Church prayer: “Christ, the true Light, enlighten and sanctify every man who comes into the world…”

Following the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector preached a brief sermon in English stressing the main thoughts of his Russian homily. He also expressed best wishes to our parishioners Andrew and Anton Malyshev who returned from their trip to Europe, as well as to Natalia Tsyvilyova who offered a thanksgiving for an important achievement in her life.

On Sunday, February 25, following the Lenten Mission Vespers served at St. John the Baptist Church in Little Falls, NJ clergy of the Eastern States Deanery gathered to hold a Deanery meeting.
After a delicious supper served at the parish hall the Dean of Eastern States, Priest Aleksiy Paranyuk opened the meeting and expressed his gratitude to all those in attendance. The Dean welcomed new clergy of the Deanery recently ordained and appointed by His Grace, Bishop John.
The clergy further discussed a number of administrative and pastoral issues which concern our Eastern States Deanery.

On February 25, on the First Sunday of Lent, the Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov participated in one of the traditional Lenten Mission Vespers served in our Deanery. This day such service had been celebrated at St. John the Baptist Church in Little Falls, NJ.

As the Chancellor of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, our Rector headed the celebration of Vespers. He was co-served by the Dean of Eastern States, Priest Aleksiy Paranyuk, Rector of St. John the Baptist Church in Little Falls, NJ; Archpriest John Kassatkin, Rector of the Holy Cross Church in Hackettstown, NJ; Archpriest George Konyev, Rector of the Three Saints Church in Garfield, NJ; Hieromonk Stephen (Bushman), cleric of the Deanery; Priest Demetrius Sukhorukov, cleric of Nicholas Church in Bayonne, NJ; Deacon Andrew Masey, cleric of the Holy Cross Church in Hackettstown, NJ, and Deacon Nicholas DeGraaff, cleric of the Three Saints Church in Garfield, NJ.

Following the Great Prokimenon a sermon in English was delivered by Deacon Andrew Masey.

After the Vespers dismissal Archpriest Igor Tarasov expressed his gratitude to the clergy and lay people present for their participation in the Mission service. Following the church service, a delicious supper was offered to the guests of the Little Falls Church in its parish hall.

On February 25 the Church celebrated the First Sunday of Lent, also known as Sunday of Orthodoxy. On that occasion we had a beautiful celebration at St. George Church. Our Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil. After the Gospel lesson he preached the following homily in English:

“Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! After the first week of Lent we came to the celebration of the First Lenten Sunday, also known as feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. The Gospel reading that we heard today is about finding Christ. It tells us how the first Disciples met Jesus and came to believe that He is the Messiah. Thus today’s Gospel is about finding God.”
“One of the first Apostles, Philip found another future Disciple, Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (Jn. 1, 45). Thus Philip and Nathanael (commonly known as Bartholomew) , as well as other Apostles found the Messiah, the Christ. They have found the true Son of God; they have found God.”
“Dear brothers and sisters! This is the main and the most important goal of human life – to find God, to find our Creator and our true Father. Recently we celebrated feast of the Meeting of the Lord and reflected upon that profoundly spiritual and meaningful event when righteous elder Simeon finally met the Christ and could enter into eternal communion with God. Today we reflect upon the holy Apostles, namely Nathanael and Philip who met Jesus and recognized Him as the Christ. That recognition, that encounter with the Messiah initiated a new life for them, a life which also led them to eternal communion with the Most High in His Kingdom. Therefore, every human being has to strife to encounter God and be admitted into His everlasting Kingdom.”
“Unfortunately, many people live and never truly come to know their true God and Creator. These are the men and women who do not accept Christ, who do not belong to Christian faith or those who reject the very existence of God. But even for many those who formally accept Jesus Christ and embrace Christianity, the true encounter with God may never take place. It happens either because of their spiritual inability due to sin or because of their incorrect understanding of God. Due to sin many of us are not able of meeting God in our lives. But this can be changed by true and sincere repentance, by a desire to convert. Then we, sinful people, may become able to encounter with the Lord. But it is more difficult for those Christians who do not hold the right belief. Only holy Orthodox Church can give us a chance to meet the true Christ. Only being an Orthodox Christian grants us an opportunity to encounter God because being Orthodox we can learn the correct faith and correct understanding of the truths about God.”
“This is why, dear brothers and sisters, it is important to embrace not only Christianity, but the true Christian faith which is preserved in the holy Orthodox Church. Despite our sinful state, it may give us a chance to approach God, to find Him and to follow Him into eternity.”
“Today let us also reflect upon another important question: is it enough to find God, to meet Him, to become worthy of His eternal Kingdom? Righteous Simeon, we said, met the Child Jesus and could die peacefully. For him it was quite enough. Holy Apostles encountered Jesus and stayed with Him for about 3 years. Then He died on the cross, He rose from the dead, He stayed with them for another 40 days and then He ascended into the heaven. Was that enough? No. They received the Holy Spirit. They began to preach to the nations; they converted a lot of people to Christ. Many of them died for Christ in several years, but some lived for about 20 years and kept preaching and doing their apostolic work. They did after 3 years of knowing Christ. We should remember that after His Ascension into heaven Christ did not really leave the Apostles. He told them, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mt. 28, 20). So, He was with them but they had to do their work.”
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, after coming to know God, after the encounter with Him, we need to do our work. Unless we die as St. Simeon, we need to act. We have to imitate Holy Apostles and other Saints who acted upon their salvation and salvation of others. How long do we know Christ? The answer to that question may slightly vary. We are all supposed to know Him after our Baptism. But since for many of us it occurred at the early age, many of us truly met Christ later. It could be 40, 30, 20 years ago depending on each person’s age and situation. Let us then ask ourselves, “What have we done after meeting Him?” Did we act? Did we preach like the Apostles? Did we undertake the endeavors of faith and piety like the heroes mentioned in today’s Epistle lesson? Were we ready to sacrifice our lives for Christ like Holy Martyrs? Did we fasted and prayed like Venerable ascetic Fathers? Did we attempt to be an example to others? The Lord is waiting for our actions, our cooperation with Him in this world.”
“Dear brothers and sisters! Celebrating this Sunday of Orthodoxy, let us be grateful for the gift of the true faith and for the joy of knowing the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Let us also continuously act upon our salvation and service to others in order to achieve God’s divine glory!”

The choir prayerfully performed penitential hymns and hymns of the Sunday of Orthodoxy 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 a short sermon in Russian stressing the main thoughts of his English homily and congratulated the parishioners on the completion of the first week of Lent.

On February 21, on Wednesday of the first week of Lent the Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Compline with the reading of penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete.

This Canon is composed as a conversation of a person with his own soul. It reveals that often we imitate sinners mentioned in the Scripture but do not wish to follow the steps of the righteous ones. It also calls us to bring the fruits of repentance and not to exalt ourselves.

Following the service the Rector preached a sermon about the significance of penitential Canon for the faithful. He pointed out that the Canon teaches us to seek spiritual perfection and to acquire the divine grace to become saved. In order to acquire the grace one needs to bring the fruits of his spiritual endeavors and to make a sacrifice pleasing the Lord. Recalling the sacrifices of the first men, we know that righteous Abel offered to the Lord the best of his flock while Cain offered just any kind of fruits of the soil. God favorably regarded on Abel’s offering but not at Cain’s. Thus we need to offer God the best we can. Then we can acquire His blessing, His grace and His assistance. At this time of the beginning of Lent, our best things to offer the Lord would be our endeavors of repentance, fasting, prayer and avoiding bad habits. Thus the Lord may bestow His blessings upon us and help us to endure this journey of Lent.

On February 18, on the Cheesefare Sunday, we had a nice and prayerful celebration in our parish. We also celebrated feast of the Meeting of the Lord transferred to Sunday. Rector of St. George Church, Archpriest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy. After the reading from the Gospel he preached a homily in Russian. An English translation of that homily is as follows:

“Today is Cheesefare Sunday, the last day before the beginning of Lent. Today the Church wishes us to commemorate the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. Today we also celebrate feast of the Meeting of the Lord, a great holy day which is always celebrated 40 days after Christmas. On this day we recall that the Most Holy Mother of God brought the Child Jesus into the Temple of Jerusalem to present Him before the Lord and God. By doing so, the parents of Jesus fulfilled the command of the Law of Moses. Since He was the first-born Son of His Mother, according to the Old Testament law He had to be offered to God. His parents had to come to Jerusalem, to the holy Temple and to perform a ritual, a sacrifice for Him. And they did so. They accomplished this after 40 days of His birth because, again according to the law of Moses, the Blessed Mother had to wait 40 days to be considered purified after childbirth to be able to enter the Temple.”
“The Gospel of the feast tells us that there was a righteous man named Simeon who met the Blessed Mother and the Child Jesus in the Temple. Simeon received Christ in his arms. He knew immediately that this Child was the Redeemer promised by all of Israel’s prophecies. Being inspired by the Holy Spirit, Simeon uttered prophetic words which form the hymn sung or chanted at the end of every Vespers service: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word…” (Lk. 2, 25-29). Thus, this holy elder finally met His Lord and Savior, achieved a goal of his life – to unite with God. But holy tradition tells that Simeon waited many years for this moment. The Most Holy Mother of God waited 40 days of purification while Simeon waited much longer – years, even centuries.”
“Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord always gives some time to wait, to go through a labor, a test. The number 40 is very much frequent in such spiritual matters. We just said that Meeting of the Lord occurred 40 days after His Nativity. But we may recall that 40 years God made the Jews to wander in the wilderness before they became ready and worthy to inherit the Promised Land. 40 days our Lord Jesus Christ fasted in the wilderness before He began His earthly ministry, His mission of salvation of the world. And 40 days, according to our pious beliefs, human soul after death is waiting to be admitted into the place where it will wait for the Last Judgment- either to heaven or to hell. 40 years, 40 days…”
“Tomorrow we start Lent, the 40 days of spiritual endeavor, spiritual labor and warfare. This is given us to prepare for Pascha, for the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. These 40 days of fast are given us as a symbolic time to return to the paradise lost by Adam but regained by Christ. Just like the Jews in the wilderness aiming to the promised land, just as the Blessed Mother waiting to bring Her first-born Son to the Temple and just as Jesus Christ Himself who fasted in the wilderness, we are supposed to reach our goal: to become ready and worthy to celebrate Holy Pascha, to enter into the joy of our Lord, to feast rejoicing of His Resurrection from the dead. But this symbolic goal must remind us of our main and real goal: to join the Lord Himself in His eternal Kingdom, to enter into His everlasting joy, into the banquet hall of His never-ending feast. It did happen to righteous elder Simeon who waited and was not disappointed. It could happen to us. And it will if we endure the test, if we fulfill the endeavor, if we win the warfare.”
“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us ask our Lord Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother to assist us in our journey towards Holy Pascha. Let us ask them to lead us through these 40 days of Lent and through our life to reach eternal Kingdom of the Lord, so we may, along with holy Simeon say,” Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace!””

The choir beautifully performed the hymns of the Meeting of the Lord during the time of preparation for Holy Communion.

After the dismissal of the Liturgy the Rector preached a short sermon in English stressing main ideas of his Russian homily. He also made some announcements regarding the beginning of Lent and the service schedule.

Following the Divine Liturgy the Rector performed Vespers with the Rite of Forgiveness. After the singing of the Great Prokimenon he changed his priestly vestments to the Lenten color of black.

After the Vespers dismissal the Rector preached a sermon about the importance of forgiveness in our spiritual, as well as our earthly life. After finishing the sermon he asked for forgiveness bending his knees. The parishioners also knelt down and asked their pastor for forgiveness. Then each one of the faithful could come to the Rector to kiss the cross and to express the forgiveness.

Following the services of this special day the Rector and parishioners joined at the Blini Lunch. We enjoyed delicious meals, especially the blini, nicely prepared by our ladies.

The Annual Parish Meeting of St. George Church was held on Sunday, February 11, 2018, following the Divine Liturgy. Rector, Archpriest Igor Tarasov presided.

Church Warden, Olga Roussanow read the minutes of the last Annual Meeting held in 2017. The Rector reported on financial situation. He informed that parish income in the year 2017 was much higher  than in the previous year, but it was only due to a special donation of 10,000 euros (11,677 dollars) generously made by a Ukrainian businessman and politician. Otherwise, we would have a deficit due to the increasing expenses. Thanks to a generous contribution from Ukraine, we had almost a $ 10,000 surplus.  Thus, financial support of the parish and paying membership dues are very important.

It had been noted that Parish membership increased due to the joining of 3 persons.

Further, a future project to change the flooring in the church was discussed. The Rector pointed out that the donation made to our Parish should cover the most of the expenses anticipated in order to complete such a project. It had been recommended that several estimates taken from the companies willing to perform the work of changing our flooring to wood. The work is planned to be done some time after Pascha.

Parishioners discussed also some other issues and concerns.