January 21, 2007

•  ~Celebrating and Remembering the Past~

  Today was the start of the 100 year anniversary celebrations at the Church where my grandparents, on both sides, (immigrants to this country in the early 1900s) raised their children and my parents raised us. We had our first snow of the winter today too. Most of the local Churches were closed but I was looking forward to going to my childhood Church for the celebration. Fr. took Basil and Jonah to our parish and Nicholas, Maria~Angelica and I ventured out onto the snow covered highway to Holy-Trinity St. Nicholas. When I was a senior in high school we had a young , Holy Cross Seminary graduate, who came to our parish to serve as a  lay assistant for two years, he is now a Bishop, Bishop Savas of Troas.  His Grace was my Sunday School teacher my senior year of  high school and when I was in college he led our local YAL. His Grace left our parish for studies in Oxford, England under the guidance of Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware). A few years later I landed in England for my own studies and it was nice to have someone I knew from home and that knew the Greek-American experience. Our entire community has such great memories of his time with us and today he visited us again to kick off the centennial celebrations. Last night Fr. and I were able to visit with him a bit, at a small party in his honor and today we were all together for the Philoptochos Vasilopita Luncheon. His Grace, Bishop Savas of Troas, was the guest of honor and keynote speaker. It is really amazing to see His Grace return to our Church as a Bishop, he was the best chanter and theologian our parish has ever known and we were all so very blessed to be his students. My childhood parish has the distinct honor of being the Greek Orthodox parish in the United States with the most Presvyteras (wife of the Priest) to come out of one community  there are 9 now,  I was number 8. We also have two nuns and two priests.

  Glory be to God!

   

  • 9:07 pm
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