November  2006
 

”The Monastery Church of St. Naum Ohrid, Macedonia”
In this Issue

 Journey to Macedonia
Recommended Reading
Gift Aid
Bluebell & Wonder

Journey to Macedonia
 Part I: Thessaloniki
 By Fr Samuel

The first two nights of my last holiday were spent in a hotel in Thessaloniki... just far enough out of the centre to join the end of the very long traffic jam to get into the centre. This was a very tiring start to what was to be a great time, rescued only by the chance to venerate the relics of St. Demetrios, the patron of Thessaloniki, one of the Great Martyrs and a myrrh-streamer.
St. Demetrios was martyred in 306 and his holy relics have been a blessing to the faithful, exuding myrrh and a wonderful fragrance which fills the city on his Feast, October 26th.

It was a great relief, though, to leave the crowded city to travel by coach into Macedonia between hills and forested mountains to our real destination of Ohrid, where St. Nikolai Velimirovic wrote the Prologue... a synaxarion or daily lives of the saints. We would find a great welcome there and be able to venerate the relics of several saints. We prayed for you all at the tomb of St. Naum of Ochrid in his monastery church. We were able to attend Great Vespers in the church of St. Clement and St. Panteleimon, venerating the relics of St. Clement of Ohrid and bringing back the gift of cotton wool which had been around the hand of St. Clement.

There will be more to write for you over the next few issues of the Newsletter as space is available.
 

Book Reviews

Holy Relics by T. L. Frazier, published by Conciliar Press
By Fr Samuel

May I recommend this very inexpensive, under £3, booklet which gives good clear and easy to understand answers to many of the frequently asked questions about venerating relics. As a Protestant investigating Orthodoxy, before becoming Orthodox, he asked all the usual questions and came up with answers which may well surprise some of you. This booklet is available on our bookstall.

I intend to introduce you to some of the Relics which we have at St. Michael's in the next few issues of the Newsletter, so be prepared.


Books for Young Families
By Simon Harvey

If, like us, you have a young family and wondered if there was anything on the bookstall that was written for you, then you may be pleased to know that there are a number of reasonably priced publications that you might enjoy.

“Conversations with Children” and “Children in the Orthodox Church Today” by Sister Magdalen. Sister Magdalen is a nun based at the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex. Her insights into children and young people in the church are very astute and these two books offer a lot of very sensible advice on the value of children in the church and ways to contribute to their spiritual life as parents and as a church community. They are backed up by plenty of practical examples.

“Walking in Wonder” by Elizabeth White (published by Concilliar Press) is a shorter book that looks at how we communicate Christian values, and in particular, Christian spirituality to our children. Written by an educator, it contains lots of ideas for activities which teach values rather than just facts to learn. Reading through the book, it occurred to me that the book is also very useful for educating the parents too!

All three of these publications are fairly easy to read, although “Conversations with Children” covers more theoretical points than the other two. For anyone interested in children in the church community or Christian home, I highly recommend these books.
 

If you have any items for the newsletter, please e-mail Simon Harvey at simon.harvey@stoke.gov.uk or else leave a copy of your submission with Father Samuel or with Simon at church. Ideally, submissions should be made by the 15th of the month to get into the following month’s edition. Exceptions may be made in emergencies.
 

Help St. Michael's to raise more money - at no additional cost to you

As many of you know, St. Michael's is a registered charitable organisation. What this means is that we are able to claim from the Inland Revenue 28p on every £1 donated to St. Michael's as "Gift Aid". If a parishioner donates £5 as Gift Aid, St. Michael's is able to claim additional £1.40 from the Government. Last financial year we were able to claim back £2,180!

Anyone who pays tax in the UK can participate in the Gift Aid scheme. There are two ways to ensure St. Michael's is able to claim Gift Aid on the donations you make:

1. You can sign a Gift Aid Declaration (available from Alice or Isaac). This will cover ALL donations you make to St. Michael's, provided your donations are identifiable. This is convenient if you donate regularly via a Standing Order or by cheque.

2. You can use Gift Aid envelopes provided in church for one-off Gift Aid donations. These work better if you prefer to donate cash at church.

One drawback of the Gift Aid scheme is that unless we are able to identify who the donation is from, it becomes impossible to ascertain whether this person has given us permission to claim Gift Aid from the Inland Revenue. For this reason, we cannot claim anything back from the Government on cash donations offered in the open plate.

Please be assured that identities of the individual donors and the amounts offered to St. Michael's are kept in the strictest of confidence by the co-Treasurers and are only used for the Gift Aid purposes.

We would like to encourage you to participate in the scheme if you are able to. There is a significant amount of money St. Michael's can recover if more people chose to take advantage of the Gift Aid envelopes! There is no additional cost to you if you chose to participate!

That said, we would like to recognise that different people may prefer to contribute in different ways. St. Michael's is grateful for any and all contributions. We thank you once again for your overwhelming generosity!

In Christ
Alice Davidchack
Isaac Davies
co-Treasurers
 

Hello children!

Here we are again with more of our daily adventures.

My mummy asked me to go with the pail to the farm and ask Buttercup, the cow, if she could spare some of her milk so that she could make cheese, which is yummy and is our favourite food.

I asked if Bluebell could come too but her mummy said that she would have to bring her sister Snowdrop. We were happy too. Snowdrop wanted to play a game but she is so tiny we did not want to play anything where she might get hurt.

As we walked through the meadow of flowers we could see the dandelions were seeding. They looked like lots of soapsuds on a stick. We each chose one and on the count of three ran to it, climbed up and blew all the fluffy seedlings everywhere! It was fun. Snowdrop loved it.

I visited your Church with Bluebell. We found crumbs on your floor. We picked up as many as we could find. Grandad Moses told us it was very special and we were lucky to find it.

 Question: Can you tell why the bread offered to the people is so special?

Question: What did the priest do to the bread to make it special?

Bluebell and I would not drop any on the floor. Not a crumb!

Bluebell would like to know what the big bottle of water by the Icon of Saint Winifred is called and what it is used for. Can you find out?

We have to take Snowdrop home so Bluebell and I will say goodbye for now.

Love

Wonder