|
January 2008
In this Issue
A Report on What We Did, as a Parish,
Last Year
Please forgive the delay in the
production of this newsletter, but here
it is. I thought I would give a report
on what we did, as a parish, last year.
In January last year some of us went to celebrate with
Fr.Constantin and his Romanian parish in
Mirfield. We were made most welcome and
fed very well. The following week we
baptised Emma Louise (Elizabeth) Bostan.
Now the Bostans have moved to Australia
but still think of St. Michael’s as
“home” and have sent photographs and
greetings.
Great Lent was observed with our usual pattern of
Wednesdays: Pre-sanctified Liturgy, and
Fridays: Akathist. Again we sang the
Akathist to the Holy Cross, on the Third
Sunday of Great Lent, at the Sandbach
Ancient Crosses.
March saw the falling asleep of the oldest member of
our church family Elizabeth Boothby at
the age of 100 years. How wonderfully
faithful she has been, becoming Orthodox
at the age of 88 years, receiving the
Holy Gifts at home, but in her heart
with us for every service.
Memory Eternal.
Pascha was, as always, replete with visitors and
celebrated with gusto!
May saw Matthew Carson on work experience from school.
We made full use of him at church, with
lots of clearing and several trips to
the tip with rubbish from the cellar. He
also learned to bake Prosphora and make
candles and had an introduction to how
our choir music is arranged. Even a day
at OCB warehouse did not exhaust him.
In June we joined the Doncaster pilgrimage to Crowland
in brilliant sunshine.
In July there was an outing to the Tram Museum at
Crich, where Fr.Samuel was photographed
a lot by people who assumed he was
various personages from the Archbishop
to the Pope.
In August our annual pilgrimage to Ilam was wonderful,
as usual, with Archimandrite Deiniol
from Blaenau Ffestiniog presiding.
In September we had a pilgrimage and outing to Penmon
and joined the Holywell pilgrimage,
presided over by Archbishop Gregorios,
in October.
On 19th October our beloved Metropolitan Gabriel
reposed. He had never been to
St.Michael’s but we were always in his
prayers.
Memory Eternal.
November saw Nicholas and Nina Chapman emmigrating to
America.
We also had another parish outing, this time to Matlock
for Christmas shopping.
December saw much work done on the coffee room and,
just in time for Christmas, the
installation of the new Royal Doors.
Leon, from Walsingham, has now almost
completed the Iconostasis and it looks
very beautiful.
We have managed to spend almost all our “pot of gold”
but not all on ourselves … we have been
able to help Monk Elias, the people of
the Lebanon, the St. Gregory Foundation
and the new Greek Orthodox church in
Leyland.
The Building Fund raised less than half the cost of
reordering the coffee room, so we had to
use all our reserves. I am sure that
this will be topped up again by more
donations.
We have always tried, without too much effort, to be
welcoming at St.Michael’s and we have
been delighted to add to our church
family this year a few more Romanians
and even two or three British converts.
Archimandrite Simeon from Lichfield and
Fr. Dennis from Doncaster have been good
enough to serve Liturgies when Fr.
Samuel has been away.
We have tried to look at how to provide our children
with some kind of “ religious education
” . This has not been easy, with
families spread far and wide. A new
solution is being tried … Fr.Samuel is
willing to download and print out
copies, for various ages, from the
American Antiochian Website of lessons
based on the Sunday Gospels … for
parents to use with their own children …
just ask!
We thank God for His goodness to us over the last year
and ask for His continued blessing in
2008. Glory to God for all things!
|