Sat May 03, 2008
St. Spyridon Stuff
What is going on at the Cathedral? As always, tons. We had a quiet week in some respects because our various groups do not meet during Bright Week. But other things were/are happening:
-We had two weekday liturgies (St. George and ZP) as well as an adult baptism.
-Our Philoptochos baking crew made 5000 koulourakia Thursday morning for the upcoming festival. Five thousand!
-The Hellenic Arts Society went to NYC today to visit the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I would have loved to be there but had previously committed to the American Heart Association's 5 mile Heartwalk. It turned out well in spite of the raw weather - thousands of us walked from the Worcester Common up to the end of Shrewsbury St. and back.
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Thu May 01, 2008
Friendship
Tonight I had the pleasure of attending and the honor of giving the benediction at the 39th Annual Friendship Dinner. This year we were hosted by the Probus club at Temple Emanuel. The annual event brings together various ethnic civic organizations/clubs. This year we had the AHEPA, Probus, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and Ladies AOH, and the Harmony club (French-Candadians). There were also representatives from the Gold and Blue Star organizations. We began with the presentation of the flags. Old Glory was first, of course, and the others followed. AHEPA was represented by the Greek flag, which we think of as the flag of the Hellenic Republic, which it is, but it is really the flag of the Hellenes. Probus was represented by the Israeli flag, the Irish groups had the Irish flag, and the French-Canadians
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Wed Apr 30, 2008
New Podcast!
Fr. Peter and I recorded a new podcast today - check it out here (it is number 18, at the bottom of the list). You can also listen to on iTunes (the fastest download option) and now have a new way of finding it - via the Facing East button on the St. Spyridon website (see the link on the right of my blog). As usual it is the two of us kicking back and talking about all sorts of things. There was a particular emphasis on Holy Week - we try to catch up on what has been going on in our lives. There will be another podcast up next week - probably Monday - so be sure to stay tuned for that as well.
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Pastor Emeritus
Several weeks ago Fr. Dean and I were talking about Fr. Solon and how he is our de facto Pastor Emeritus. Well, on Saturday, before the Resurrection service, we made it de jure. Fr. Solon served our Cathedral with distinction for many years as pastor and today continues to do so in his role of "retired" priest (no such thing, really). It was great to celebrate so many services with him this past week as throughout the year. He is, along with Fr. Dean, a tremendous role model for me as a young priest. There was some subterfuge Saturday night; Fr. Dean pocketed Fr. Solon's pectoral cross and slipped it to me, leaving poor Fr. Solon searching for it. He eventually gave up and was very surprised when Fr. Dean called him onto the soleas
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Welcome To Bright Week And The Easter Season
I have not posted since last Thursday - we had tons of services up to and including Monday, and I have largely lain low the past few days - just a few hospital visits, a School Committee meeting, popping into the office here and there, and doing some research for my next Cathedral News article. Holy Week and Easter went well, with big crowds and beautiful services. His Eminence Metropolitan Methodios, as per tradition, presided at our Agape service where we heard the Gospel read in several different languages that reflect the diversity of our Cathedral community (we easily could have had 20 or more languages but we limit the number for reasons of time). Vasil (Albanian), Elena (Belarusian), and Andreea (Romanian) all read in their native tongues, while good friend of the Cathedral Fr. Peter Beaulieu read the account
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Thu Apr 24, 2008
Basic Uzbek
That is the name of one of my favorite books - a typed and bound goverment textbook on the Uzbek language that was given to me by someone who rescued it from a book burning, of all things, at a monastery/seminary (we'll leave it at that - email me for details). Why am I talking about this? One of our readers for Agape vespers plans to read the Gospel in Slavonic but is willing to read it in Uzbek (one of her languages) if I can find it. My internet searches have so far been fruitless. Does anyone have this (the pericope is John 20:19-25)? I think it would be wild to have Uzbek be one of the Agape Sunday languages, especially because it is a Turkic language. In my pre-priesthood days I always made it a point to read the Gospel that day in Turkish as a gesture of friendship and brotherhood. Either Cyrillic or Latin script works; I highly doubt there are any extant Bible translations into Uzbek using the Arabic script.
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Tue Apr 22, 2008
Whence Katzion?
You may have noticed the katzion or hand censer has figured prominently in the Bridegroom services, and it will pop up a few more times this week. At the seminary people would cense with it using the tambourine method -shaking it side to side to make the bells ring - to varying degrees of success. At the Cathedral we do the "silent cense" - it took me a few times to get the hang of it. Ours looks a lot like the one in the link but it also has a base connecting the handle with the part that holds the incense. My question is this - from where does this censer get its name? From the tz combination I know it is not from ancient Greek. How about Latin, which of course doesn't really have a k.
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So Far
The week has gone well so far. Palm Sunday was very enjoyable. I debuted my new Metropolis set of vestments, so Fr. Dean and I matched for the first time in 2 1/2 years. Vaia had a splendid name day (and Prez a splendid birthday). We celebrated by going out for fish after church. It was like coffee hour part II - everyone at the restaurant was from the Cathedral! We really are one big family. There was a funny moment where I was holding Vaia and speaking with a parishioner. Everyone started laughing so I looked down and noticed Vaia had "defrocked" me - she had pulled out my collar tab and was attempting to eat it!
I have been interested to see what attendance would be like this year. My first Easter as a
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Sat Apr 19, 2008
Here Comes Holy Week
There are lots of services coming up this week, and we kicked things off this morning with liturgy for Lazarus Saturday. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday (and Vaia's first name day!) and then in the evening we kick off Holy Week proper with the bridegroom service. If you include today and Sunday morning, all the Holy Week services, Easter and Agape vespers, and liturgy on Bright Monday for St. George, well, that would be...let's see...17 services (we don't do presanctified liturgy Monday and Tuesday, and we do the Wednesday service twice). So today was a nice introduction to what will be, liturgically, a busy week. We had liturgy followed by a baptism. I then heard a bunch of confessions and went home late afternoon, squeezed a bike ride in, and now here I am.
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Mon Apr 14, 2008
Monday Night
Today was quite a busy day and the week itself looks to be busy as well - there really is no rest before Holy Week. Among other activities this morning I had the pleasure of visiting Margarita, who is largely housebound, to bring her communion. She regaled me with stories dating back to the '30s and gave me a sampling of the many languages she speaks: Albanian, Italian, Aromanian, Romanian, Greek, English and French. That is seven by my count, and most impressive.
As always, our Cathedral was teeming with activity tonight. The Philoptochos had a massive baking project going on for Easter while the Greek School PTA worked on their cookbook fundraiser. A group of parishioners met with Alexei from the Patriarch Athenagoras
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