From St. John Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Winfield PA, stjohnthewonderworker.com, 570-863-9039

(Note: The civil calendar runs 13 days faster than the Orthodox Church calendar, so our monthly newsletter appears in secular dating on the 14^th of each month, and dates are given first on the Church calendar and then on the civil.)

Special Pokrov Edition

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ of St. John’s Parish,

We begin October auspiciously as always on the Feast of Pokrov, the Holy Protection of the Mother of God, the original name of our parish, which we preserve in the mid-week Akathist of Holy Protection throughout the year. Please come if you can to our 7 p.m. Akathist for the Holy Protection Wed. Oct. 1/14, commemorating in particular this special feast.

May our Lady extend her protecting veil across our parish, our community, our country, and our outreach efforts on behalf of the Orthodox Christian mission to North America!

(Above) Photo by Longinus of St. John’s on a Fall morning.

A Season for Prayer

As we enter the Fall in earnest, the quiet time sometimes known as “Indian Summer” in these parts, having just celebrated our fall feast of St. John the Wonderworker of America a couple days ago (Sept. 29/Oct. 12), let us give thanks to the Lord for His Providence, including the joyful time with our Bishop Luke of Jordanville for the feast. During his visit we added our third Reader, Reader Nicolas, recently married to our new member Sofia. Axios and many years!!! Reader Nicolas now serves alongside Readers Luke and Nicholas–all three remote students in the Seminary that Vladyka Luke directs as Rector, glory to God!

(Above) Ordaining our third Reader at St. John’s. Axios!

Vladyka also led a lunch discussion for laity and inquirers, reminding us of the missionary nature of our community. In his remarks at the end of Liturgy, he reminded us of the need to follow the missionary example of our patron St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, as we also ask St. John for his intercessory prayers for our works and lives, so that we may continue growing “step by step” under God’s direction.

Archdeacon Paisios, the Jordanville beekeeper, also checked out the site for our planned parish apiary on the Church land, which was then blessed by Bishop Luke. With remote help from the Archdeacon, we hope to have bees in residence this coming year. This is a first phase of our effort to engage in community gardening on our Church land, called the Garden of the Theotokos.

October is a relatively quiet month on our parish calendar, but we have a significant film outreach opportunity (see below), following first of all on the unmeasurable gift of Divine Liturgy each Sunday. Please invite your neighbors, friends, co-workers, and inquirers.

The new Church year of 7535 hits her stride this month, and the evening of the year moving toward the reminder of wintry mortality, yet glowing with the promise of the Nativity of our Lord, affords us time for meditation and renewed attention to prayer and spiritual study (see also the appendix to the newsletter).

Special Free Film Showing

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s famed film Andrei Rublev, about the iconographer-saint, will be shown by the Bucknell Orthodox Christian community with St. John’s on Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 7 p.m. at the Elaine Langone Student Center Forum, Level 2, at Seventh Street and Moore Avenue, on the Bucknell campus. All are welcome! Discussion will follow led by St. John’s Priest Paul, a Bucknell English professor and Orthodox Christian campus chaplain.

Regular Weekly Services and Programs

Saturday Vigil 4:30 p.m.
Sunday Divine Liturgy 10 a.m. (Hours at 9:40)

Wednesday Akathist 7 p.m. (usually to the Holy Protection of the Mother of God, and specially dedicated to the Feast of Pokrov on Oct. 1//14).

Orthodoxy Online Class 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday (please check in with Fr. Paul for the link, priestpauls@pm.me; we are working through Priest-Martyr Sysoev’s Law of God book, copy available online)

Bible Class Sundays 2:30 p.m. at the Bucknell Barnes & Noble bookstore café in Lewisburg (finishing the Wisdom of Sirach and then to start Acts of the Apostles; no homework or prior knowledge is needed)

Coffee-Hour Education Program, after Divine Liturgy each Sunday. Oct. 18, 25, Nov. 1: Iconography Introduction by Reader Luke. In November/December: Sessions on Orthodox approaches to Bible Study by Ephraim, proper conduct during services, and Orthodox Christian time.

New Officers-Elect

At our recent parish annual meeting we had our yearly election of officers, with some rotation after three-year terms. We are very grateful in particular for Treasurer Vince Mazeski’s invaluable work, and Cam Mazeski for her dedicated help in many ways, as they rotate off, and also thank Reader Nicolas for all his work as Warden, while he rotates now to the Treasurer-elect position. Here are the new officers-elect (recommended by Priest Paul to Metropolitan Nicholas for his blessing, and not yet “sworn in”):

Warden, Justin Bogar

Treasurer, Reader Nicolas Teisher

Secretary, Reader Nicholas Maher

Parish Council Member and Cemetery Director, Reader Luke Soboleski

Parish Council Member and Sisterhood Representative, Matushka Olga

Auditor (not on the Council), John Osgood

The current Officers and Parish Council will continue until the swearing-in of the new Council hopefully within a few weeks, God willing.

Fundraising Projects in Future

At the recent annual meeting, we discussed fundraising projects for the new Church year, including for the permanent iconostasis, and food fundraisers. Also we discussed a plan to institute annual pledges for regular donations starting in January 2027, to add budget planning. Stay tuned!

“Halloween” Vigil

The popular and increasingly occult holiday of Halloween in the secular West falls on Saturday this year (Oct. 18/31). Please make our child-friendly Vigil service at 4:30 p.m. the focus of your activities.

Prison Ministry

Priest Paul continues to visit the Muncy SCI regularly, with a couple other volunteers from our parish in the process of having their clearances completed to help. We hope to have Bucknell students involved as well. Please pray for our Orthodox sisters there, Tania and Tatiana, and also our catechumen Elisabeth. Please contact Fr. Paul if you would like to help volunteer or support.

Brotherhood of St. Alfred the Great

We are planning a fellowship hospitality lunch at a member’s home on Sunday Nov. 1, with hopefully a rotation of others to come. Stay tuned!

Sisterhood of St. Olga of Alaska

The Sisterhood has been occupied with gardening and cleaning projects, and at the annual meeting a return to a regular schedule for coffee-hour prep was discussed, for the Sisterhood to follow up on as doable.

Sick/Shut-in Ministry

Fr. Paul continues to make home, hospital, and nursing-home visits as needed. Many thanks to Justin for helping with rides.

Help for the Poor

The Rector in his report mentioned a few options for developing this ministry further, hopefully this Church year, and perhaps in the Christmas season.

A reminder on preparation for Communion

Please come prepared for the Eucharist by saying Preparation Prayers (in the Jordanville Prayer Book, and in the little “blue booklet” from Jordanville, and posted on our website here: https://4c966451-a460-4c35-b2e2-1fda434811be.filesusr.com/ugd/729f7e_7171a90ddb0e499a8e141483b6c26a7d.pdf

Also, if you cannot attend Vigil the night before for a good reason, please say Reader’s Vespers at home, and come early on Sunday to ask a blessing from Fr. Paul to receive, or refrain. (Here is the Reader’s Vespers service: https://www.saintjonah.org/services/vespers.htm)

You should be fasting properly during the week, and on the night before receiving please fast from all food and drink starting at midnight, unless you have a medical reason not to, asking Father’s blessing; likewise from marital relations the day before.

Confession should be given whenever any sinful act or passion is a stumbling block to receiving, remembering that we pray that our receiving may not be to our condemnation. When in doubt, it is better to come to confession, a mystery of the Church that provides a “spiritual reboot” with healing prayers, or to refrain. Confession is completely confidential and a benefit to all of us as sinners. Please observe the tradition of a minimum of confessing at each of the four major feasting seasons of the Church year. When possible, contact Fr. Paul in advance to schedule. As Bishop Luke pointed out at our recent feast, such preparation is not legalistic, but healing, and part of our spiritual training. Even as athletes train for their worldly contests, or we may train and sacrifice for worldly careers and family life (none of those being considered legalistic but essential for different types of health), so we must do for our spiritual warfare, with God’s help. Our Diocesan Bishop in a recent statement highlighted that confession and counseling as a spiritual father should be with done the Parish Priest (though with an exception for monasteries). If you have questions, please consult with Father Paul. Glory to God for all things!

A reminder on appropriate dress at Church

Long-sleeve shirts or jackets for men, with long pants.

Long dresses or skirts for women with shoulders covered, head coverings especially when coming up for Communion.

Please pray for our catechumens!

Noah, Corey, Charles, Ty, Laura, James, Wyatt, Aaron, Elisabeth

***

APPENDIX: PRAYER GUIDE

Please consult with Fr Paul, but this adaptation below of the “Optina 500” prayers for people living in the world may be helpful. It involves simplified Orthodox Christian morning prayers and readings, and other daily prayers based on the famous Russian Orthodox Optina Monastery’s 500 cell rule, but adapted for those living in the world in America. Again, please consult first with Priest Paul, priestpauls@pm.me.

***

Morning prayer: (these prayers can be found in complete form in prayer books or online, and are also given in full below under Small Compline/Evening Prayer below)

“Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us.”

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth…

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal… x3 with bows

Glory to the Father… Both now…

Most Holy Trinity have mercy on us, Lord be gracious to our sins, Master pardon our transgressions, Holy One visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name’s sake.

Lord have mercy x3
Glory…. Both now…

Lord’s Prayer, ending with:

“Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers…”

***

[Then during the day a total of 500 “Jesus Prayer” daily, with 50 prostrations daily, which can be divided up during the day]

Prayer Rope Prayers (could be 3 groups in the morning and 2 in the evening, on a 100-knot prayer rope, or other combinations of 5 x100 per day)

First group of 100. One hundred prayers with prayer rope, on each knot: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Make the sign of the Cross with your right hand as you say the prayer standing if possible. A full prostration every ten prayers, or in whatever combination works well, 10 prostrations per 100 prayer-rope prayers. At each prostration, cross yourself as you say the Jesus Prayer.

Second group. Then again as above with the first group. [again the groups can be divided throughout the day]

Third group. Then again as above with the first group.

Fourth group. One hundred prayers on the rope consisting of “Most Holy Theotokos save me.”

One prostration for each ten 

Fifth group: As above with the first group.

Scripture reading daily: One chapter of the Gospel each day

***

Evening prayer: Small Compline (simple version without extra Akathist/Canon, see text below)

Small Compline as a Reader Service (Note that a booklet with Small Compline is available from Jordanville; please again keep in touch with Fr Paul for guidance and any questions, priestpauls@pm.me)

Note: The translation used is primarily that of Fr. Lawrence of Jordanville.   The order of service is based primarily on the Reader Service Typikon by Bishop Daniel (the Old Rite Bishop of the ROCA) and translated by Fr. George Lardas.  All the psalms are from The Psalter According to the Seventy, © Copyright Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA, used by permission. Some other material, such as prayers and hymns, are also Copyright HTM, used by permission. All rights reserved. These works may not be further reproduced, beyond printing out a single copy for personal non-commercial use, without the prior written authorization of Holy Transfiguration Monastery.  

Senior Reader:  Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. 

Reader: Amen.  Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee. 

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of all impurity, and save our souls, O Good One. 

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (Thrice)

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. O Lord, blot out our sins. O Master, pardon our iniquities. O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name’s sake. 

Lord have mercy. Thrice.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

Our Father, Who art in the Heavens, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 

Senior Reader:  O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. 

Reader: Amen. 

Lord have mercy. Twelve times.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

O come, let us worship God our King. 

O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ our King and God. 

O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ Himself, our King and God. 

Psalm 50

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of Thy compassions blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know mine iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil before Thee, that Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, and prevail when Thou art judged. For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me. For behold, Thou hast loved truth; the hidden and secret things of Thy wisdom hast Thou made manifest unto me. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be made clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me to hear joy and gladness; the bones that be humbled, they shall rejoice. Turn Thy face away from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and with Thy governing Spirit establish me. I shall teach transgressors Thy ways, and the ungodly shall turn back unto Thee. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation; my tongue shall rejoice in Thy righteousness. O Lord, Thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I had given it; with whole-burnt offerings Thou shalt not be pleased. A sacrifice unto God is a broken spirit; a heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise. Do good, O Lord, in Thy good pleasure unto Zion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be builded. Then shalt Thou be pleased with a sacrifice of righteousness, with oblation and whole-burnt offerings. Then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar. 

Psalm 69

O God, be attentive unto helping me; O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be shamed and confounded that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and brought to shame that desire evils against me. Let them be turned back straightway in shame that say unto me: Well done! Well done! Let them be glad and rejoice in Thee all that seek after Thee, O God, and let them that love Thy salvation say continually: The Lord be magnified. But as for me, I am poor and needy; O God come unto mine aid. My helper and my deliverer art Thou, O Lord; make no long tarrying. 

Psalm 142

O Lord, hear my prayer; give ear unto my supplication in Thy truth; hearken unto me in Thy righteousness. And enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath humbled my life down to the earth. He hath sat me in darkness as those that have been long dead, and my spirit within me is become despondent; within me my heart is troubled. I remembered days of old, I meditated on all Thy works, I pondered on the creations of Thy hands. I stretched forth my hands unto Thee; my soul thirsteth after Thee like a waterless land. Quickly hear me, O Lord; my spirit hath fainted away. Turn not Thy face away from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear Thy mercy in the morning; for in Thee have I put my hope. Cause me to know, O Lord, the way wherein I should walk; for unto Thee have I lifted up my soul. Rescue me from mine enemies, O Lord; unto Thee have I fled for refuge. Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. Thy good Spirit shall lead me in the land of uprightness; for Thy name’s sake, O Lord, shalt Thou quicken me. In Thy righteousness shalt Thou bring my soul out of affliction, and in Thy mercy shalt Thou utterly destroy mine enemies. And Thou shalt cut off all them that afflict my soul, for I am Thy servant. 

The Doxology

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will among men. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory. O Lord, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty; O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; and O Holy Spirit. O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sin of the world; have mercy on us; Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord, O Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen. Every night will I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy Name forever, yea, forever and ever. Lord, thou hast been our refuge in generation and generation. I said: O Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee. O Lord, unto Thee have I fled for refuge, teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. For in Thee is the fountain of life, in Thy light shall we see light. O continue Thy mercy unto them that know Thee. Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this night without sin. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the God of our Fathers, and praised and glorified is Thy name unto the ages. Amen. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes.. Blessed art Thou, O Master, give me understanding of Thy statutes. Blessed art Thou, O Holy One, enlighten me by Thy statutes. O Lord, Thy mercy endureth forever; disdain not the works of Thy hands. To Thee is due praise, to Thee is due a song, to Thee glory is due, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

The Symbol of Faith

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man; And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And arose again on the third day according to the Scriptures; And ascended into the heavens, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life; Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the prophets. In One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, And the life of the age to come. Amen. 

Then: 

It is truly meet to bless thee, the Theotokos, ever blessed and most blameless, and Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify. 

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. Thrice.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. O Lord, blot out our sins. O Master, pardon our iniquities. O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name’s sake. 

Lord have mercy. Thrice.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

Our Father, Who art in the Heavens, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 

Senior Reader:  O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.   

Reader: Amen. 

If the temple be dedicated to the Lord or to the Theotokos, the troparion of the temple is said first, then the troparion of the day (see below), then “O God of our Fathers…”, etc. 

If the temple be dedicated to a saint, the troparion of the day is said first, then the troparion of the temple, then “O God of our fathers…”, etc.  See the question about Patrons, if you are unsure about which troparion to use here.  If need be, you could simply omit the troparion for the temple, and use only the troparia given here.

Lo, thy care for thy flock in its sojourn/ prefig­ured the supplications which thou dost ever offer up for the whole world./ Thus do we believe, having come to know thy love,/ O holy hierarch and wonderworker John./ Wholly sanctified by God/ through the ministry of the all-pure Myster­ies/ and thyself ever strengthened thereby,/ thou didst hasten to the suffering,/ O most gladsome Healer.// Hasten now also to the aid of us who honour thee with all our heart.

On Sunday night:

Supreme Commanders of the Heavenly Hosts, we unworthy ones implore you that by your supplications ye will encircle us with the shelter of the wings of your immaterial glory, and guard us who fall down before you and fervently cry: Deliver us from dangers since ye are the Marshals of the Hosts on high. 

On Monday night:

The memory of the righteous is celebrated with hymns of praise, but the Lord’s testimony is sufficient for thee, O Forerunner; for thou hast proved to be even more venerable than the prophets since thou wast granted to baptize in the running waters Him Whom they proclaimed. Wherefore, having contested for the truth, thou didst rejoice to announce the good tidings even to those in Hades; that God hath appeared in the flesh, taking away the sin of the world and granting us great mercy. 

On Tuesday night:

Save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance; grant Thou unto Orthodox Christians victory over enemies; and by the power of Thy Cross do Thou preserve Thy commonwealth.· 

On Wednesday night:

O holy Apostles, intercede with the merciful God, that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of offenses. 

And to St. Nicholas, Fourth Tone:

The truth of things hath revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an icon of meekness and a teacher of temperance; therefore thou hast achieved the heights by humility, riches by poverty. O Father and Hierarch Nicholas, intercede with Christ God that our souls be saved. 

On Thursday night:

Save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance; grant Thou unto Orthodox Christians victory over enemies; and by the power of Thy Cross do Thou preserve Thy commonwealth. 

Troparion of the patron of the Temple is sung here.

Troparion for our Patron

Lo, thy care for thy flock in its sojourn/ prefig­ured the supplications which thou dost ever offer up for the whole world./ Thus do we believe, having come to know thy love,/ O holy hierarch and wonderworker John./ Wholly sanctified by God/ through the ministry of the all-pure Myster­ies/ and thyself ever strengthened thereby,/ thou didst hasten to the suffering,/ O most gladsome Healer.// Hasten now also to the aid of us who honour thee with all our heart.

Then, Sunday night through Thursday night (if simple service):

O God of our fathers, Who ever dealest with us according to Thy kindness, do not withdraw Thy mercy from us, but through their intercessions guide our life in peace. 

Adorned in the blood of Thy martyrs throughout all the world, as in purple and fine linen, Thy Church, through them, doth cry unto Thee, O Christ God: Send down Thy compassions upon Thy people; grant to Thy community, and to our souls great mercy. 

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servants, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting. 

Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

Through the intercessions, O Lord, of all the saints and the Theotokos, grant us Thy peace, and have mercy on us, as Thou alone art compassionate. 

On Friday night:

O Apostles, Martyrs, and Prophets, Venerable and Righteous Ones; ye that have accomplished a good labor and kept the Faith, that have boldness before the Savior; O Good Ones, intercede for us, we pray, that our souls be saved. 

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servants, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting. 

Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

To Thee, O Lord, the Planter of creation, the world doth offer the God-bearing martyrs as the first-fruits of nature. By their intercessions preserve Thy Church, Thy commonwealth, in profound peace, through the Theotokos, O Greatly-merciful One.

On Saturday at Compline, the troparion and Kontakion of the Resurrection in the occurring tone for Sunday are read, if available. If not, available, then use the weekday version above.

IT SHOULD BE KNOWN: that from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, and during all of the Holy Great Lent, on all Saturdays at Compline the Kontakion of the Resurrection is not read, but rather the one from the Triodion (except the fifth week of Lent), as also during the Holy Pentecost season on all days, the Kontakion from the Pentecostarion is read, until the Sunday of All Saints. If there occur on Sunday a feast of the Lord, only the Kontakion of the feast is read. But if there be a feast of the Theotokos, or one of the saints that have a Polyeleos, or a great doxology, the Kontakion of the Resurrection is read, but that of the occurring feast or saint is omitted.

Reader: Lord, have mercy. Forty times.

Thou Who at all times and at every hour, in heaven and on earth, art worshipped and glorified, O Christ God, Who art long-suffering, plenteous in mercy, most compassionate, Who lovest the righteous and hast mercy on sinners, Who callest all to salvation through the promise of good things to come: Receive, O Lord, our prayers at this hour, and guide our life toward Thy commandments. Sanctify our souls, make chaste our bodies, correct our thoughts, purify our intentions, and deliver us from every sorrow, evil and pain. Compass us about with Thy holy angels, that, guarded and guided by their array, we may attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of Thine unapproachable glory; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

Lord have mercy. Thrice.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim; who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify. 

Senior Reader: Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.

Reader: Amen. 

On Sunday nights during Great Lent, the prayer of St. Ephrem is said here.

Then in any case:

The Supplicatory Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos

O undefiled, untainted, uncorrupted, most pure, chaste Virgin, Thou Bride of God and Sovereign Lady, who didst unite the Word of God to mankind through thy most glorious birth giving, and hast linked the apostate nature of our race with the heavenly; who art the only hope of the hopeless, and the helper of the struggling, the ever-ready protection of them that hasten unto thee, and the refuge of all Christians: Do not shrink with loathing from me a sinner, defiled, who with polluted thoughts, words, and deeds have made myself utterly unprofitable, and through slothfulness of mind have become a slave to the pleasures of life. But as the Mother of God Who loveth mankind, show thy love for mankind and mercifully have compassion upon me a sinner and prodigal, and accept my supplication, which is offered to thee out of my defiled mouth; and making use of thy motherly boldness, entreat thy Son and our Master and Lord that He may be pleased to open for me the bowels of His lovingkindness and graciousness to mankind, and, disregarding my numberless offenses, will turn me back to repentance, and show me to be a tried worker of His precepts. And be thou ever present unto me as merciful, compassionate and well disposed; in the present life be thou a fervent intercessor and helper, repelling the assaults of adversaries and guiding me to salvation, and at the time of my departure taking care of my miserable soul, and driving far away from it the dark countenances of the evil demons; lastly, at the dreadful day of judgment delivering me from torment eternal and showing me to be an heir of the ineffable glory of thy Son and our God; all of which may I attain, O my Sovereign Lady, most holy Theotokos, in virtue of thine intercession and protection, through the grace and love to mankind of thine only begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Whom is due all glory, honor and worship, together with His unoriginate Father, and His Most Holy and good and life creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

A Prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ, by Antiochus the monk

And grant unto us, O Master, in the coming sleep, rest for body and soul, and preserve us from the gloomy slumber of sin, and from every dark and nocturnal sensuality. Subdue the impulses of passions, extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one that are cunningly hurled against us, assuage the rebellions of our flesh, and every earthly and fleshly subtlety of ours lull to sleep. And grant unto us, O God, a watchful mind, chaste thought, a sober heart, a sleep gentle and free from every satanic illusion. Raise us up at the time of prayer firmly grounded in Thy precepts and keeping steadfastly within us the memory of Thy judgments. All the night long grant us a doxology, that we may hymn and bless and glorify Thy most honorable and majestic name: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 

Most glorious, Ever-Virgin, Mother of Christ God, present our prayer to thy Son and our God, that through thee, He may save our souls.

My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit: O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.

Choir:  Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Lord, have mercy.  Thrice.

O Lord, bless.

Senior Reader (Facing the East, rather than facing the people):  O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, our holy and God-bearing fathers, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us, for Thou art good and the Lover of mankind.  

Choir:  Amen.

Senior Reader:  Remit, pardon, forgive, O God, our offenses, both voluntary and involuntary, in deed and word, in knowledge and ignorance, by day and by night, in mind and thought; forgive us all things, for Thou art good and the Lover of mankind.

Choir:  Amen.

Senior Reader:  O Lord, Lover of mankind, forgive them that hate and wrong us.  Do good to them that do good.  Grant our brethren and kindred their saving petitions and life eternal; visit the infirm and grant them healing.  Guide those at sea.  Journey with them that travel.  Help Orthodox Christians to struggle.  To them that serve and are kind to us grant remissions of sins.  On them that have charged us, the unworthy, to pray for them, have mercy according to Thy great mercy.  Remember, O Lord, our fathers and brethren departed before us, and grant them rest where the light of Thy countenance shall visit them.  Remember, O Lord, our brethren in captivity, and deliver them from every misfortune.  Remember, O Lord, those that bear fruit and do good works in Thy holy churches, and grant them their saving petitions and life eternal.  Remember also, O Lord, us Thy lowly and sinful and unworthy servants, and enlighten our minds with the light of Thy knowledge, and guide us in the way of Thy commandments; through the intercessions of our most pure Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and of all Thy saints, for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages.  

Choir:  Amen.

Choir:  Lord, have mercy.  Thrice.

Senior Reader:  Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.  Amen.

Good King Wenceslaus went out
on the Feast of Stephen 
When the snow lay round about, 
deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, 
tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, 
gath’ring winter fuel.

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou knows it telling:
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain”

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear them thither”
Page and monarch, forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather.

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how
I can go no longer”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly”

In his master’s step he trod
Where the snow lay dented
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing”

So goes the famous old English carol for the passion-bearer Prince Wenceslaus whom we commemorate today, the patron saint of the Czechs and Bohemia, his feast being the national day of the Czech Republic to this day. In Slavic, by the way, his name is Vyacheslav.

This Orthodox Christian duke or prince was known as a righteous ruler, meaning a just ruler in Christian terms. Although his martyrdom true to his faith is commemorated, his life was remembered for deeds of kindness such as the one celebrated in the carol.

Our Lord’s Gospel teachings remind us at the start of the Beatitudes that blessed are ye poor in spirit, for yours is the Kingdom of heaven, and blessed are the meek, for ye shall inherit the earth. In the original Greek, poor in spirit can mean destitute in the spirit, having no other hope but the Holy Spirit. Meek in the original Greek carries the meaning of mild or gentle. All these remind us of the importance of following our Lord’s command to love our neighbor as he loved us, and to ourselves be that poor in spirit and meek person, even if we are in some situations powerful and privileged, like Prince Wenceslaus.

There was a brilliant electrical engineer, mathematician, and philosopher, outstanding in many fields, Father Pavel Florensky, a devoted Orthodox Christian priest, who however got somewhat offtrack in some of his views about so-called Sophiology at the time of the Russian Revolution. That heresy, advanced also by others, was condemned by the Church, although he was not sanctioned personally. Father Pavel bravely wore his priestly clothes while working on Soviet industrial projects and became sentenced to prison for his faith. It is thought that he was condemned partly because of his efforts to save the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh, whom we commemorated this past week. While in trouble with the authorities, in order to save another man, Father Pavel signed a false confession. At the same time, the relics of St. Sergius were saved by the secret committee that Fr. Pavel chaired.

Those miracle working relics were restored to St. Sergius Monastery of the Holy Trinity after World War II because of this, but Fr Pavel in the meantime had been killed by the godless communists. Although he is included in a famous icon of the New Martyrs of the Church, he has never formally been glorified. Like all of us he made mistakes, notably his confusion about so-called Sophiology, a heresy. Yet nonetheless his care as a priest for his flock led him to put his own life at risk for the sake of another man even though that other man had falsely informed on him. And he risked his life again to preserve the relics of one of Russia’s greatest saints for the sake of the faithful in time to come, even as those faithful were spiritually destitute under the godless Communist state.

In this he, like the deeds and intercessions of the Passion-bearer Wenceslaus, remind us of the Christian imperative that we care for others even more than for ourselves, even with all our sins and unworthiness, as we must seek wisdom humbly from God.

As we move ahead in this new Church year, growing the missionary work that Christ also made part of our purpose in His great Commission, let us consider how we too can care for others more. Consider our parish ministries to the ill and shut-ins, and to prisoners, we can always use more volunteers and support for those efforts.

Also, consider how, in the spirit of Christ’s words in Matthew 25 that when we help the least of those in need, we help Him, and He will remember us.

How can we in the Church year ahead also expand our ministries to the poor, perhaps through a program of Christmas gifts to children in need, expanding our existing help to poor children of Orthodox families in Africa, perhaps making food for poor families in the area, and so forth.

Such efforts also can include inviting those destitute in spirit and meek to come to Church, to events such as our Bishop’s visit tonight and tomorrow–by being ourselves destitute in the Holy Spirit and meek in emptying our selves in our Lord, to help others.

For in losing ourselves, as He said, we find ourselves in Him.

Glory to God for all things!

Rector’s Report from St. John’s Russian Mission Orthodox Church Annual Meeting, on the Sunday of the After-feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 7535/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers. (The Annual Meeting came shortly after the 11th anniversary of the Mission Parish and covers the second year of his rectorship.) Above, a Russian painting of a priest blessing soil for farming.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As we enter the new Church year of 7535 we ask God’s grace for continued strength, growth, and wisdom in our mission work. We thank God for all His help, and we ask His forgiveness for our sins and omissions. And as your sinful Rector I thank all of you for your sacrifices and work and especially prayers on behalf of our Lord’s mission.

As illustrated in this month’s newsletter, https://ecosemiotics.com/2026/09/14/st-johns-september-newsletter/, two images stand out in representing our mission as we pass from the old year to the new. One is the hawk perched on the Cross above our Dome, which finally was installed this past summer. This is a nice image of our aspiring faith and taking up the Cross for our mission work. The recent installation of that dome, together with the work done on our siding, marked a beautiful completion this year of the exterior work on our Temple, glory to God!

The second photo was of the marquee of the Campus Theatre featuring our outreach movie event. It was a reminder of all our outreach events this past year, for we remain a mission parish whose prime goal is missionary work in our region.

During the past year we have had eight baptisms, and we have eight catechumens. We also had an additional Reader, and his wife, a choir musician, take on helpful roles in the Church as new members, together with other new members, some starting as servers and chanters, one of whom is nominated to be Auditor this coming year, and another who has become our chief groundskeeper. Glory to God!

Our mission’s growth has also been distinguished this past year by a growing and young clergy team of converts. This past year we had our second Reader join our first in studies at the Pastoral School, my alma mater, which this year merged with Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville. Our outgoing Warden also joined the Pastoral School, and is scheduled to become a Reader when the Bishop visits next week. A community our small size having three seminary students (and soon to be three Readers) is unusual and a blessing, glory to God! It is my hope that we will continue to develop our clergy team in the next few years, if blessed by our Bishops, to include a full range of clergy ranks for our services and missionary work, glory to God! Given that we are a small mission lacking resources to provide clergy salaries and benefits, developing a homegrown local clergy team over time is very important. Please pray for our clergy!

In relation to the liturgical life of our Church, we also have seen the choir develop with help from the compiling of music binders for services. These follow the ROCOR framework of services more closely than we as a mission did in earlier years. Thanks especially in the past year to Elisabeth and Reader Nicholas for their work on this, as well as of course Sophia, and others for their continued work for the choir and chanting.

We had one wedding recently that drew many non-Orthodox to our Church, and in the process we added a new married household including a new member to our parish. Many years to the newlyweds Nik and Sofia!

And during the past year we had our first funeral that involved the first burial in our Orthodox cemetery next to us here. Memory eternal to our brother in Christ John Sam!

In our campus ministry, we have had a student at Bucknell and another at Susquehanna step forward to help with renewing campus Orthodox activity, which I am advising. We developed with students the film series as outreach, and will have our fourth film coming up at Bucknell on Tues. evening Oct. 20, the classic movie Andrei Rublev about the iconographer saint, followed by discussion. Please come and invite friends!

Matthew 25 raises the question of what we have done for the prisoners and the sick. In our ministry to those unable to attend Church due to health reasons, we  make regular visits, often weekly, and have traveled in that ministry as far as Harrisburg in the south and up to Williamsport in the north.  Justin has helped with rides to Church for one member at a nursing home who otherwise could not make it. The Sisterhood has gathered at the home of one of our shut-ins. We also have started a prison ministry at the Muncy Women’s State Correctional Institution, where I am volunteer Orthodox Chaplain. This work has included bringing confession and communion to some inmates who have not had that opportunity for many years. We have had a baptism and also made a catechumen there. Glory to God! We hope in future also to do more for the poor also mentioned in the Gospel.

We had two families depart this past year who had joined up with us for a few years after an unfortunate dispute at another parish in the region in a different jurisdiction. They live a distance away, and decided to rejoin their former parish closer to them, with a healing of sorts, thank God. They all left on good terms and we wish them well. One of those families experienced a very sad loss, and I beseech your continued prayers for them.

As Rector I have traveled to the Clergy conference at Jordanville last spring, as well as representing the mission at the feast day of our cathedral in Mayfield. I plan to travel with one of our parish to the triennial Diocesan Congress in a couple weeks. Other travels have included going with a few members to the conference on Orthodox mission in the South and by extension our region Appalachia, and earlier Warden Nik and I attended a ROCOR conference on Church music in West Virginia. I have regular visits, often weekly, to members unable to attend Church due to medical reasons, which this past year have involved going as far as Harrisburg in the south and up to Jersey Shorein the north.  I also have traveled this past year for house blessings and hospital visits, from Frackville to Mifflinburg, Jersey Shore to Elizabethville, sometimes during the night. I let you know of these travels only so that you will keep praying for this work. Glory to God!

Our Diocesan Bishops have issued a statement this summer in which they stated as a rule for us to follow that confession and the counseling of a spiritual father needs to be received from the parish priest, not from a priest elsewhere (with an exception for monastic situations). In the past I’ve been flexible about this, but this is a firm rule from our Bishops. As part of that I remind everyone that the minimum is to have confession at each of the four great fasts each year, but confessing regularly is spiritual self-care; the prayers are healing. Some do it more and that is good, and the blessing of this spiritual “reboot” needs to be sought of course whenever a sin or passion would be an obstacle to communing.

Speaking of spiritual self-care, when I traveled to Jordanville to see Bishop Luke and talked with him about his upcoming visit here, he gave me an obedience as your Rector: To guard time for prayer and contemplation and keeping whole for service. As your sinful and unworthy priest I’m glad to give and this is not meant to complain or brag; it is a great blessing to serve. But as we are planning for new clergy ranks, we have to plan for how to sustain them, recognizing that such work and expenses also are a sacrifice for clergy family members as well. While we are unable to pay clergy salaries and cover expenses as we did for my predecessors, Fr Claude when I saw him recently on his own suggested starting with a gas allowance. This would be helpful also for clergy families in our service team who travel far.

To return to the basic reason for our community, it is like a marriage, to support one another’s salvation, and to help save our neighbors and family members also, as a mission parish and Church family. Our Bishop’s upcoming visit illustrates this. Even with our small community, Bishop Luke is eager to emphasize a teaching element in his visit, so that our lunch will be with his blessing an experiment in not featuring visiting clergy, as much as we love to have them, but God willing a kind of round table where he will teach us on pastoral and doctrinal matters necessary for our salvation and evangelism. This means hopefully by the way that we need turn out and bring friends! Secondly, his visit will feature an Archdeacon who is a very accomplished beekeeper, to help us with plans to get long-planned beekeeping started, God willing. Since we acquired our land, some eight years ago, we have had interest by members in shaping a community landscape potentially including beekeeping, a small orchard, and gardening, to build our community and invite in others. We had have called this idea “the Garden of the Theotokos.”

Foremost of course comes the joy of celebrating the Eucharist with our Bishop, our living link to Apostolic times. To circle back at the end to Church activities, in addition to hosting services for all 12 major feast days, services across Holy Week, and weekly Vigils, we continue to host the weekly Online Orthodoxy class and Bible Study, and hope to engage more of us and more of the neighborhood so to speak next year in these ongoing activities. We have started coffee-hour education programs, which so far have included Cuthbert’s account of his pilgrimage to Georgia, discussion of a model of the Old Testament Tabernacle and its prefiguring of our Orthodox Christian Church worship, and currently Reader Luke’s iconography classes, with future topics to include such issues as Orthodox time-keeping and approaches to Bible study. Also, we’ll hear later at today’s meeting about fundraising to build out the iconostasis design by nationally prominent Orthodox architect Andrew Gould as part of our Temple beautification. This will hopefully help with outreach as well in the beauty of our services.

Finally, we hope to keep growing our community presence. Just yesterday we were out at the Mifflinburg Oktobertfest passing out brochures about our Church and about Orthodox Christianity. This past year we were at the Pineknotters Festival in Norrie with a table, and also did mini-processions at the Christkindl festival and in downtown Lewisburg and Sunbury. More visitors and inquirers than ever find us online. We hope this year to renew our online outreach further, too. May the Lord prosper our efforts.

In conclusion, as your Rector and spiritual father I ask your prayers as you are always in mine along with St. John Mission Parish. I give a metanoia in prostration before you all, with thanks for your sacrifices, prayers, and work for our Lord’s Church, and to ask your forgiveness for my sins and offenses. Let us thank God for our mission, and hold each other up in love and unity in the Orthodox Gospel of Jesus Christ. Glory to God for all things!

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church for the Leave-taking of the Exaltation of the Cross, 7535/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

St. John’s mission had a presence at the Mifflinburg Oktoberfest this weekend, which also marks on the Church calendar this year the Synaxis of all the Saints who have shone forth in Germany. Two of the most famous early Orthodox Saints of Germany came from Britain. They are St. Ursula of Cologne, who lived on earth in the fourth century, and St. Boniface of Mainz from the eighth century. Both were martyred by pagans. German Orthodox saints also include in the last century the Martyr Alexander Schmorell, a young man who witnessed to the Orthodox faith in opposing tyranny in Germany during World War II, a period when many Orthodox Christians were martyrs for our faith both to neopagan Nazism and atheistic Communism.

This year also marks the centennial of our Russian Church Abroad’s presence in Germany, where it grew first under refugees from Communism, and again from displaced persons after World War II. Our diocese in Germany recently acquired Seifriedsberg Castle in Bavaria for a monastery, symbolizing its growth now from converts.

The commemoration of the German Synaxis today also marks a fitting Apodosis or leave-taking on our Church calendar to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross that, together with the Nativity of the Theotokos, mark the opening of our new Church year. For just as the Theotokos exemplified the joyful sorrow of ascetic self-sacrifice in her life from her birth, fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, so too must we witness to Christ both on the Cross and Resurrected, by emptying ourselves into Him as symbolized by the Cross. In doing so, we find ourselves by losing ourselves, and learn to love as He did, to love our neighbor more than ourself, in Christ.

Our patron Saint John, whose upcoming commemoration Oc.t 11-12 we will commemorate with a visit from our Bishp, God willing, also illustrated bearing a Cross of witness in different ways. Helping orphans in dangerous streets of Shanghai, enduring an unjust lawsuit by parishioners, working wonders with his prayers, he slept briefly in a chair and reposed beneath our beloved Kursk Root Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. So, unworthily following our saint’s example, may we too carry our Cross. 

Elder Ephraim of blessed memory, whose spiritual children founded the Monastery of Holy Protection near us, and who is profiled in the book Glorified in America published by Holy Trinity Press in Jordanville, once gave a short homily that relates to our Gospel today about taking up the Cross. https://otelders.org/theology-and-spirituality/st-macarius-and-the-skull-elder-ephraim-of-arizona/ He said,

Saint Macarius the Great, walking in the desert, found in his path a human skull. He struck the skull with his staff and asked it: “Who were you in life? What kind of person were you?” A voice was heard from the skull, saying: “In life I was a pagan priest.”

And that voice added: “You are Macarius, the man of God, and your prayers reach even me, who am in hell.” And the Saint, being amazed, asked: “How, then, do idol-worshippers benefit? And what is the benefit of my prayers?”

The other replied again: “Your prayers reach so far as to bring a little light to the place where we dwell, to this dense darkness in which each one believes that he is alone in hell”—another measure of hell as well: for a person to think that he is alone in hell and that there are no others, for to believe that there are others is also a small consolation.

“And your prayers bring a little light, and we see that beside us there are others condemned to hell; and for us this is a consolation.” And immediately the Saint struck the skull again with his staff and said: “God forbid that such a situation could ever be a consolation: for a man to see those who are tormented together with him in hell!”

And through all the signs and proofs of the ascetic Tradition, clearly and beyond all doubt, is fully confirmed the teaching of our Church concerning eternal hell.

What remains for us, if we Orthodox Christians firmly believe that, if we sin, if we do not repent, if we do not weep, if we do not change our lives, we shall go to hell, and our hell will be that dreadful hell, that eternal hell, that eternal death and separation of our soul from our sweetest God, is to compel ourselves and take heed to our life, so that it may be fitting for salvation.

As human beings, we all err, without exception, however great and powerful we may be. To be without sin belongs only to God alone. Every person is sinful. More or less, we all have sinned; we have grieved, embittered, and wounded the heart of God.

Now we must restore it, sweeten it and gladden it through repentance and change. And at each of our sins, at each wandering astray, we must immediately turn our mind and our word, both spoken and inward, toward saying: “My God, I have sinned; forgive me, I have erred!”

And immediately, if possible, let us shed tears, for this repentance and these tears receive power; they receive God’s forgiveness. And when we come under the epitrachelion [at confession], we receive forgiveness in deed. That is, we receive perfect forgiveness from God.

And if you have known, and surely you have known, the joy and rest of the soul at the moment when we confess and receive forgiveness. And merely with the concern for all that I have said, all in which I have erred, all by which I have embittered God, at this moment I receive the remission of sins, I receive forgiveness, the gate of Paradise is opened to me, I am set free, at the hour of death, from despair and hopelessness.

For how will a man despair and lose hope when his conscience will testify for him, saying: “Yes, I have sinned, but I repented and received forgiveness according to the law”? Since the sinner receives forgiveness according to the law, there should not be, at the hour of death, despair and hopelessness.

Hopelessness and despair follow and grievously afflict the one whom the hour of death finds unrepentant and uncorrected. Hopelessness and despair are the fruit of this life. Therefore, not only do we receive forgiveness, the remission of sins, and become blessed, but we also gain deliverance from despair and hopelessness at the difficult hour of the separation of our soul from the body.

For the separation of the soul is grievous. We have not tasted this separation. We perceive it in imagination and in theory, but not in reality. Those who have died have tasted this separation, but they were not permitted to convey it to us, to tell us what this pain is like, this grievous and terrible pain of death.

We understand it from the expression of the face. We see people at that hour when they surrender their soul to God; we see it in the features of their face. If you have known, if you have seen, most often it becomes very grave. But this does not mean that the person has gone to hell. Yet this is how things are. It is their nature.

If the Christian becomes conscious of these realities, these truths which we see in practice, internalizes them, and reflects upon them and lives them, then from these is born the light of the fear of God; and when the light shines, a man walks uprightly.

And I must humbly pray that not only we, but all our Christians may be made worthy of this saving preparation for death. For, as we have said, after death there is no repentance.”

In conclusion, Brothers and sisters, let us remember the mystery that the fear of God is also identifiable with the Christian virtue of love. This involves taking up the Cross, with a sense of wonder at God’s love for us, and a willingness to go the extra mile in denying ourself in Christ to love our neighbor more than ourself. May God make it so. Glory to Jesus Christ!

(Above, icon of the finding of the Cross. Below, Vigil for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross at St. John’s Church.)

An homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 7535/2026, from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Let us consider an ancient prophecy of the Cross from more than 2,600 years ago. In the Orthodox (Septuagint) Bible, the Prophet Habakkuk exclaims:

“ O Lord, I have heard thy report, and was afraid: I considered thy works, and was amazed: thou shalt be known between the two living creatures, thou shalt be acknowledged when the years draw nigh; thou shalt be manifested when the time is come; when my soul is troubled, thou wilt in wrath remember mercy.”

Saint Augustine wrote that the “two living creatures” mentioned in Habakkuk’s prophecy of Christ can be understood as the two thieves crucified on either side of our Lord. One, the Wise Thief, sought Jesus’ mercy and received it according to Scripture and Tradition. This is why the so-called foot rest on our Russian Cross, as seen also above our temple, tilts upward to the Right of Christ. “Today you shall be with me in Paradise,” says our Lord, Who through His Cross reopened Paradise for all of us.

This is why also the Wise Thief, known in Russian Orthodoxy as Saint Rakh, historically was portrayed in iconography on a door of the iconostasis to the north of the royal doors. He was depicted as being in Paradise, the meaning of his name in Slavonic. He showed entry into Paradise through Christ, symbolized as an entrance through the iconostasis into the Church altar area, the fulfillment of the old “holy of holies” in the Old Testament Temple, which opens for believers at the time of the Eucharist. The second figure crucified beside our Lord on the other side, the foolish thief, reviled and blasphemously ridiculed Christ. The two thieves represent all of us and each of us, in the conflict between emptying ourselves in Christ versus wrongly asserting ourselves.

Saint Augustine secondly at the same time said the “two living creatures” could represent Moses and Elijah with our Lord at the Transfiguration, with them personifying the law and the prophets. This too relates to our feast today, the Exaltation of the Cross. For today’s feast comes 40 days after the Feast of the Transfiguration, following a traditional timeline for the Crucifixion. The Feast of the Transfiguration is understood by Church Fathers as a day when Jesus Christ showed His glory to His closest disciples, so that they could remember and not be overwhelmed by the Crucifixion to come. Later, the Church deemed the Feast of Transfiguration too joyous to be celebrated during Great Lent, and so it was moved to the harvest time of the season of the fast leading up to the Dormition, which is known as the Summer Pascha. So today’s commemoration of the finding of the Cross under St. Helen and the recovery of the Cross from the heathen Persians was moved to today, 40 days after the Transfiguration. We have in effect a sense of Holy Week here that straddles the beginning of the Church Year. It is a reminder too, so near the Nativity of the Theotokos, of the prophecy by Righteous Simeon to her as a new mother aged 14 that a sword also would pierce her heart—meaning that she would participate in the sorrow of the Crucifixion of her Son, becoming an intercessor for us.

Finally, St. Augustine also said that Habakkuk’s prophecy of “two living creatures” on either side of our Lord could be interpreted in terms of the Old and New Testaments. Our Lord fulfilled both combined in synergy. He fulfilled the Old Testament law and prophets, in His New Testament, as fully God and fully man. The Cross also symbolizes the coming together of the transcendent or divine, with its vertical bar, and the incarnational or human in its horizontal bar. Maybe one could speak also of the coming together of Greek or Gentile wisdom with Old Testament wisdom, since the New Testament was composed in Greek, and the old originally in Hebrew, although it survives most authentically in the Greek Septuagint. The crossing so to speak in that sense indicates the Byzantine aspect of Orthodoxy mixing Greek with biblical terminology and culture, from which Russian Orthodoxy takes her role as the outgrowth of the so-called “Third Rome” of the Christian Roman Empire of the Greek-speaking world.

It could also be said the two creatures, related to this, symbolize the Word and the Son, if the Word is taken as the divine and the Son as the human (although the phrase Son of God can also refer of course to the divine). This coming together of the two natures, fully God and fully man, must be understood however as unconfused and undivided, as the Church teaches, two natures in one Person.

In any case, the Cross, bringing together the transcendent and the incarnational, is the answer to the greatest mystery of classical philosophy, of Plato’s emphasis on the ideal and Aristotle’s emphasis on the organic. They both come together and are fulfilled in the Word made flesh and crucified and Risen.

But ultimately the Cross most of all indicates Christ’s giving of His life for us, of course. The footrest in the Orthodox Cross significantly indicates the outreach from our Lord’s sacrifice to us as saving grace, in His love. 

St. Theophan the Recluse, a major saint of 19^th century Russia, spoke of the inner meaning of our major feast today in these terms: https://orthochristian.com/48848.html 

“The Exaltation of the Lord’s Cross has arrived. Then the Cross was erected on a high place, so that the people could see it and render honor to it. Now, the cross is raised in the churches and monasteries. But this is all external. There is a spiritual exaltation of the cross in the heart. It happens when one firmly resolves to crucify himself, or to mortify his passions—something so essential in Christians that, according to the Apostle, they only are Christ’s who have crucified their flesh with its passions and lusts (cf. Gal. 5:24). Having raised this cross in themselves, Christians hold it exalted all their lives. Let every Christian soul ask himself if this is how it is, and let him hearken to the answer that his conscience gives him in his heart. Oh, may we not hear, “You only please your flesh in the passions; your cross is not exalted—it is thrown into the pit of the passions, and is rotting there in negligence and contempt!”

“When the Lord was taken down from the Cross, the Cross remained on Golgotha, and then it was thrown into the pit that was in that place, where this instrument of execution was usually thrown, together with other refuse. Soon Jerusalem was razed and all of its edifices were leveled to the ground. The pit containing the Cross of Christ was also filled over. When the pagans rebuilt the city (the Jews were forbidden to come near the place where it was), it happened that on the place where the Cross of Christ was hidden, they placed an idol of Venus, the pagan Goddess of fornication and all manner of lusts. This is what the enemy suggested to them. This is how it is with our inner cross. When the enemy destroys the spiritual order in the soul, this is our mental Jerusalem, and then the spiritual cross is thrown down from the Golgotha of the heart and is covered over with the garbage of the affections and lusts. Lustful self-pleasure then rises like a tower over all our inner peace, and everything in us bows down to it and fulfills its commands until grace shines upon us, inspiring us to cast down the idol and lift up the cross of self-crucifixion.”

This is why we as Orthodox Christians wear a Cross. Laity wear the Cross next to their skin under their shirt, so it is close to the heart and it is worn in humility that we bear the Cross as such. I did this for 24 years after my baptism into the Orthodox Church. But the last three years of my life, since being ordained as a priest, obediently I now wear a Cross outside my black robes as a priest, publicly around my neck. Why? Purposely to be a fool for Christ, as a sinful Priest who is in the public role of handling the bloodless sacrifice, as a shepherd unworthily representing our Bishop and ultimately our Lord, yet all sinfully in black. For the great human temptation is pride, which led Judas to betray our Lord. Wearing a Cross publicly means I am accountable for my role in the Church and my behavior, and also that I am marked as a target to be killed for others in times of persecution, so that others may be able to escape, which is part of our Russian Orthodox tradition too. It also marks me, like a red light on an old-fashioned emergency phone box, as an Orthodox priest in public for those who are in urgent spiritual need or may try to find the true faith. But we all do and must bear the Cross we receive at baptism as Orthodox Christians in our heart. To do that in the most authentic way we must start by recognizing our own sins first and foremost of all, so that we can follow our Lord. Crucifying our old self, taking up our Cross, we remember how John was the only one of the Apostles who did not meet a violent martyr’s death like our Lord. That is because he did not run from the Crucifixion initially as did the others. He kept with our Lord until the end and embraced the Cross in that way.

But for all the Apostles came the bright morning of the Resurrection. And remember brothers and sisters, every Sunday is the Lord’s Day, the Day of Resurrection, when we are blessed to partake of our Lord’s sacrifice and make ourselves a sacrifice of our lives for Him. Today too is the day of Resurrection. Thus the Cross is the Ladder for us to climb to obey our Lord’s New Commandment, to love one another as He loved us.

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

Remarks from a wedding at St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, on the afternoon of the Feast of the nativity of the Theotokos, 7535/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

The wise Solomon said that the way of an eagle in flight is too wonderful, like the way of a man and a woman. For both are mysteries in a way that stand for larger mysteries.

Nicolas and Sofia, your Church family, your families, and friends are so grateful, blessed, and joyful today for your wedding, and for the coming together as one of two beautiful but arduous spiritual journeys. These journeys led you first from youth to the Orthodox Church and then to one another. And in a sense you bring all your families and friends together with you now. You can today feel all the love not only between you but among us, and from God, here in this mystery of the ancient Church. Glory to Jesus Christ! He is with us as He was at the Wedding at Cana of Galilee ,in the icon before us.

What is the most important thing in marriage, Matushka and I were asked by an Orthodox priest before our wedding years ago. Love I said, respect she said. No you’re both wrong, said the priest. It is commitment! Commitment to one another and to Jesus Christ. And that is symbolized in the icon of the Wedding at Cana before us today. It is a mysterious icon in its way, and a portal to the spiritual realm, as is marriage in Orthodox Christianity. The purpose of marriage is to help one another find salvation and also to help others with that along the way. And the Orthodox Christian wedding service like the icon is also a sign of the Marriage of Jesus Christ to all in His Church including the wedding couple.

A wise priest has said of this icon, “In a sense, the only groom in the icon of the wedding in Cana of Galilee is Christ himself, and the bride is identified twice: once crowned and sitting at the head of the banquet celebrating her coronation, and once as Mary, the Mother of God, intimately standing close, to His right and behind Jesus, talking softly to him, with Jesus’ head turned toward her.  These are both mystically pictures of the bride, at once exalted to the head and prominent position as queen of the heavenly household, and at the same time hidden behind Christ Her Groom speaking softly only to Him and receiving His full attention…” (https://www.pravmir.com/the-marriage-icon/)

This also is an especially beautiful day to start your journey together in married and family life. Today is the first major feast of the Church year, the Feast of the birth of the Virgin Mary to the patron saints of marriage, Joachim and Anna. When in the wedding ceremony you go around with me the icon of the Wedding at Cana, the choir sings,   “Rejoice, O Isaiah!  A Virgin is with child, and shall bear a Son, Emmanuel, both God and man. Orient is His name; Whom magnifying we call the Virgin blessed.” The names Emmanuel, or God with us, and Orient for rising dawn, are so hopeful and appropriate for today’s celebration of this mystery of the Church. The verse from Isaiah is so important that even Protestant translators of the King James Bible turned to the earlier Greek Septuagint for translating it, when usually they used the later Hebrew, which did not detail the virgin birth. In Trinitarian terms, the Virgin Mother, our Intercessor the Lady Theotokos, as Bride of God becomes also the Mother of God the Son. Christian marriage likewise is blessed as symbolic of such a mutuality of love that includes all of us in the Body of Christ and families and friends of the beloved couple together as well. The Slavs have a name for this mystical unity of the Church, sobornost.

But why is it that often we weep in feeling such unity, at happy as well as sad happenings, sometimes with both feelings together? In a film, there may be some moment that moves us as we watch, and we find our ears tearing up, but it is not sad but joyful. Even in tragedy we can have joyful tears; at a recent commemoration of 9-11 I wept when hearing again of one man’s effort against the attack. That was a tragic story but wondrous at the true tale of self-sacrifice. At a wedding, we find tears when we are happy, lifted up partly I think by such a beautiful moment of self-sacrifice motivated by love, and in Christ, above the daily struggles and challenges that also are part of life. It symbolizes how St. Simeon the New Theologian said we should have tears, however small, when coming to joyfully but repentantly receive the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharist.

Certain moments in this fallen world catch us up in a larger experience of life, into a sense of other worlds, and weddings are among the most of those moments. Even in our small country church in American Appalachia we dwell, in this service, in living traditions with biblical and apostolic roots, in the sense of a natural supernatural beauty that surrounds us at this wedding today. This lifts us all into what in Orthodoxy we call joyful sorrow or bright sorrow. Such tears become like a waterfall we pass under into a hidden land as if on a boat at Niagra Falls. It is a sense of simultaneous joy and sorrow, joy for the moment and the coming together of the bride and groom with Christ in the Church, sorrow perhaps for our own regrets and the passing nature of mortal things. But still the tears are joyful, like a reminder of the salvific water of baptism, or the tears of our Lord at the Garden of Gethsemane, which watered the earth and bore fruit as the Cross bloomed like Aaron’s Rod as the Tree of Life in the Resurrection.

Likewise the crowns given the bride and groom today are crowns of joy for them as king and queen of a new family household, a little church and a little kingdom. Yet they also are crowns of martyrdom, reminding us all of the hard work and struggle that goes into marriage and family. Echoing this combination of meanings, at the celebration of Orthodox weddings afterward, by Russian custom guests will call out gorka (“bitter”) to call the bride and groom to kiss in a sweetness of life.

As the Patriarch Confessor Tikhon of Moscow wrote, “matrimony is perfect and acceptable to God, but only when at its foundation there is no desire of material gain, no low impulse, but the mutual love and devotion of the husband and wife, joined to self-forgetfulness, constancy, gentleness, patience, when the husband loves his wife and takes care of her, and the wife respects her husband and obeys him, as the head, which the Holy Church also demands from them (Ephesians 5, 22-29). Moreover, in order to be acceptable in the eyes of God, marriage must be entered in only in the Lord (Corinthians 7, 39), the blessing of the Church must be called on it, through which it will become a sacrament, in which the married couple will be given grace, that will make their bond holy and high, unto the likeness of the bond between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5, 23-32), which will help them in the fulfillment of their mutual duties.” (https://www.orthodoxhistory.org/2010/07/06/st-tikhon-address-to-a-newly-married-couple/)

Brothers and sisters, often in Church we will wish a new priest or deacon “many years” and “Axios,” meaning worthy. While this is not of course an ordination of clergy, it is also a mystery of the Church. We humbly and lovingly wish to you both, Nicolas and Sofia, in the same spirit, that God may grant you many blessed and happy years together, and that with His grace and your hard work you may be worthy of your calling as husband and wife together in Christ. May you keep your zeal in the Holy Spirit and avoid worldly pride, and all of us too, by your example and our memory of this day. For as Alexei Karamazov said in Dostoevsky’s great Orthodox novel, “And if even only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation.”Amen.

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, for the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, 7535/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Today, the Nativity of the Theotokos, the birthday of the Mother of God, also commemorates her provision for us in a particular way: This is one of the two feast days of the Wonderworking Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God.

The Kursk Root Icon is one of Russia’s most ancient. Its frame depicts nine prophets who foretold the Incarnation in which the Virgin Mary played a central role. For she gave Christ’s human nature, as he was both fully God and fully man, two natures in one person, unconfused and undivided. 

We have a copy of the icon on our high place above the altar table. Also it is in the icon of our patron St. John by the door, where he is holding it, and in fact he died beneath the icon.

One special thing about how the icon shows the Mother of God’s love for us her people is how it was a kind of spiritual life saver in particular rough periods of Orthodox Christian history. Today is the date of its discovery, when in 1295 it was found at the base of a tree after an invasion by the Tatars. They were a fierce Turkic-Mongol regime that turned Muslim and oppressed Russian Christian culture for centuries while Catholic Crusaders and missionaries pressed in from the West and North.

In this, the discovery of our Lady’s icon, perhaps from some destroyed Church, was a sign of hope. Indeed, the Kursk Root was a more ancient type of icon of the Theotokos known as the Sign, because it presented the conception of Christ in her womb as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that a virgin would give birth. Besides Isaiah, the other prophets on the icon whose inspired words point to her miraculous role include Moses, Daniel, David, Jeremiah, Elijah, Gideon, Habbakuk, and Solomon.

When first discovered on this date, from beneath the icon when taken from the ground poured forth miraculously a pure life-giving stream, which later was incorporated into a chapel honoring the icon. When Tartars split the icon in two, it miraculously grew together again. It survived an anarchist bombing miraculously. And it was believed to have been a factor in helping to save Russian from invasion by Poland and by Napoleon. It also miraculously kept reappearing at its original humble chapel in the woods. The Kursk Root icon became a sign in more than one way. It also later stood for hope in the face of the largest persecution of Christians in history, under the Bolshevik yoke. And it has visited our little mission in Northern Appalachia three times.

The trials and tribulations of Russian Orthodox Christianity sometimes can remind a student of history and the Bible of the trials and tribulations of the children of Israel detailed in the book of Fourth Kingdoms in the Orthodox Bible. Trials came because of departures from true faith and worth, from corruption and idolatry, but also as in effect tests of faith and strengthening of fate. The results of the latter can be seen how Russian Orthodoxy was carried around the world in the exile diaspora after the Russian Revolution. Our mission is evidence of that.

And in that missionary exile of Russian Orthodox Christian tradition, the Kursk Root Icon played a role as in effect the standard for preserving faith, a kind of symbolic yet real spiritual life preserver. She became the sign of our Lady’s love for her Son’s Church, and the roots of the providence of God including the Theotokos’ role as intercessor, going back all the way to the prophecies of the Old Testament. We are also reminded of this by the figure of the Lord of Hosts at the top of the icon, representing God’s dynamic nature expressed in the uncreated energies of God from the Holy Trinity as a whole. Yet that working out of grace and the provision of God in the worst of troubles is in many ways personified by her care.

The Kursk Root icon has acted as a portal for many believers to that spiritual reality she exemplifies. Consider for a moment how that spiritual reality of her life is expressed in the lestovka, a form of prayer rope increasingly popular among modern Orthodox Chrisians, Lestovka means ladder, and in its 100 steps, 38 are dedicate to the weeks of gestation in the Theotokos’ womb of our Lord and God and savior Jesus Christ. 17 are dedicated to a total count of Old Testament colleagues prophesying his birth by the virgin. Another 33 register his years of earthly life, from his birth to the Virgin to his death and resurrection, all of which she witnessed. So deeply is the Theotokos woven into the Gospel. And the Lestovka prayer rope was true wireless communication, as it the Kursk icon.

The Church understands the Virgin’s life and her birth of Jesus Christ to be fulfillment of the Old Testament tabernacle and ark, in which God was said to dwell among his people. This is an indication too that the Orthodox Church is the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel, not any modern secular government. And this too is because of the Virgin Mary, whose genealogy of course included the line of David.

I’ll close by offering a short selection from St. John of Kronstadt on today’s feast, and the Theotokos’ love for us exemplified by her death and reading: (from https://www.mystagogyresourcecenter.com/2025/09/homily-one-on-nativity-of-theotokos-st.html)

“Nineteen hundred years ago, humanity was elated and exalted by the birth from the righteous yet barren parents, Joachim and Anna, of a wondrous infant – the Virgin, who was destined before the creation of the world to be a marvelous Mother in the flesh of God the Word Himself, the Creator and Savior of the world – the God of spirits and of all flesh. The sorrow of the barren parents, descendants of King David the prophet, who longed for a blessed progeny and suffered reproach from neighbors who had the blessing of offspring, was exceedingly great; yet, within them was a strong faith in the God of Israel – a steadfast hope in His mercy, fervent prayer, unwavering devotion to the God of their forefathers, and an unshakeable expectation of the promise made long ago by God to Israel – the Messiah, the Deliverer of mankind. And their sorrow was soon turned into joy; faith and hope were not put to shame; the complete devotion of Joachim and Anna to God was rewarded with an extraordinary and glorious fruit – the pure Maiden Mary. Even before her birth, the righteous parents made a vow to God to dedicate and consecrate to Him the Child that He would give them; and upon her birth, they immediately fulfilled their vow and brought her to the Temple of God – to be raised for the Lord. 

“The joy of the righteous parents Joachim and Anna was imparted to all true believers, to the entire Christian kin; in particular to the Holy Church, which preserves the treasures of faith with a pure conscience – and loudly and worthy praises all the wonderful works of God’s providence concerning the salvation of mankind. For only she, encompassing with the Holy Spirit all the heights, benefits, and greatness of God’s deeds pertaining to us; while the adulterous and sinful world is completely occupied with its vanity – its worldly cares, its passions, its treasures, its vain amusements, and pays no heed to the gracious and salvific works of God, nor to its true benefit and salvation.

“And so let us all rejoice at the birth of the Most Holy Virgin from the righteous Joachim and Anna, and let us give thanks to the Lord, who has granted us the Most Gracious and Most Wonderful Intercessor of the Christian race, who covers and protects us from sins and from visible and invisible enemies, as well as from great woes and tribulations, when we, with faith and hope, turn to Her.

“Through Her and the God-man Christ, the Son of God, born of Her, heaven, closed by sins, was opened again to the faithful people, paradise, our ancient homeland, was opened again, and we were all given the opportunity to enter it through faith, repentance and virtue, through the grace and generosity and love for mankind of our Savior, who redeemed us from sin, the curse and death. Amen.”

Dear brothers and sisters, as we celebrate the birthday of our Mother in the Church, let us also remember how she always stands to help us. We may like the inhabitants of ancient Israel or Judea feel we are adrift in a corrupt idolatrous culture, but let us keep with her as our intercessor and helper, and cling as to a lifesaver to her Kursk Root Icon.

At the wedding here this afternoon, we’ll be reminded of how she asked her son to change the water into wine at the Wedding of Cana, and Christ did in his first public miracle in the Gospel of John. According to Church Tradition, the bridegroom at that wedding was the Apostle Simon who would become an early apostle to Britain.

That’s a connection directly from her earthly life to the early influence of Orthodox Christianity on the Anglo-American culture in which our mission evangelizes today. 

May we ask the Mother of God on her birthday for a gift, the gift of her prayers to her Son for our mission work in America today. Let us ask her to ask her Son that the everyday water of worldly life in 21^st-century America may be turned into the wine of the blood of Christ that unites us in love in this little country Church as we celebrate her birthday. And let us revere the great treasure of the Russian Church Abroad, the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God we also celebrate today. Glory to God for all things!

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 7535/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Although we are a mainly English-speaking mission parish in America, there are certain Slavic and Greek words that resonate with special meaning for us.

One is podvig, an ascetic self-sacrifice. Another, phronema, or way of life in Orthodoxy. Then there is sobornost, meaning mystical unity, the full Orthodox sense of catholic. Lesser known but important is govenie, meaning the ascetic weekly preparation for Communion and the spiritual accountability and humility involved. And still another lesser known but important is the word you may not have heard, smirrennomudrie. This means “humility of wisdom.”

And that humility of wisdom, smirrennomudrie, is a part of the Orthodox way of life especially associated with one of the saints whom we commemorate today, the Holy Elder Macarius of Optina Monastery, who reposed on this date in 1860. I.V. Kireyevsky, a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox philosopher, became a disciple of Elder Makarius, and helped produce many of the books of the fathers and saints that came out of Optina monastery under the direction of the elder during that period. Their relationship bore fruit because Kireyvsky after a conversation with the elder wrote a long letter to him with many questions that he as an intellectual had about the faith. But his letter crossed in the mail with a letter from the elder answering those questions, even though he had not yet received Krireyvsky’s letter. Clairvoyantly the holy elder seems to have known the questions already. Kireyevsky was persuaded that here was wisdom beyond academic learning.

The Holy Elders of Optina of course are important for our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad tradition, especially to American converts through the influence of their lives and writings on the brotherhood of Blessed Seraphim Rose. But they are important influencers for good on world Orthodoxy as a whole, too. And that in many ways is through their “humility of wisdom.”

Elder Macarius helped encourage this by his emphasis on preserving, renewing, and circulating the writings of earlier Church fathers and saints. He helped to make Optina monastery in the 19^th century a center for such publications and scholarly effort, but not in a Western scholastic way. Always the emphasis was on how we must learn from and through the Church fathers in Orthodox Tradition, guided by the Holy Spirit, not through our own individualistic rationalism, as became the norm in Western religion in modern times.

Humility of wisdom became a basis for keeping Russian Orthodoxy alive, and renewing, in the diaspora after the Revolution, and also in the later flowering of English-language translations of the fathers and saints that we see today in our work in the Orthodox mission to America, glory to God! Elder Maciarius’ emphasis on the humility of wisdom runs against the grain of our modern ethos of using knowledge for self-assertion, comfort, and worldly power, the fruits of which may be seen in AI.

Kireyevsky wrote, “The task of Russian philosophy is not to reject Western thought, but to supplement it with what is revealed in higher spiritual vision—the living experience of ‘higher knowledge’—in which the wholeness of spirit, lost in the Fall and impaired by the triumph of logical thought in Western Christianity, is recovered.”

Let us hear directly the words of Holy Elder Macarius from letters to his spiritual children (these quotations and other information about him here are drawn from the book on the elder published in English by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood Press, in their Optina Elders series: 

He writes: “Acknowledging yourself to be a sinner you must not despair, but humble yourself more and marvel at God’s love for mankind, for He forebears you and awaits your conversion and repentance….  Are you a sinner? Do not despair… Your weapon against the devil is your forebearance…. If you sin every day, then you must repent every day. Have you decayed today because of sin? Renew yourself by repentance….

“Imagine a spark falling into the sea: can it withstand the sea and continue to glow? How small is a spark in contrast to the sea, and how small is sin in contrast to God’s love for mankind! … God’s love for mankind is unlimited.”

“The beginning of all these temptations is pride. A man imagines that he is living piously, not judging his own sinfulness at all, but sometimes even judging others—then the Lord allows the enemy to lay snares for him. Be attentive to your own way of life, check your conscience, and you will always come, however unwillingly, to the conviction that you have not yet fulfilled even one of the Lord’s commandments as a Christian should….

“In order to deliver yourself from these falls, you must acxquire humility. As far as the sinful thoughts at church or while praying at home are concerned, since they are not caused by you, but by the enemy, you don’t have to be troubled. Try not to dwell on these thoughts, but turn to God instead with the prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

“….try to live piously, not judging anyone, loving all. In all worldly conflicts, blame yourself and try to forgive he other. If someone offens you in something, then think that God has allowed it in order to test your Christian patience. Think more often of the greatness of God and your own wretched nothingness. Be attentive to your own doings, and not allow yourself thoughts of your own worth, like the Pharisee, but repeat more often the prayer of the Publican. Read spiritual books, and subscribe to spiritual magazines, this will keep you occupied, and will strengthen you in spiritual activity.”

St. Macarius’ letters are peppered with parallels to writings of the saints and of Holy Scripture, in keeping with his grace-filled virtue of “humility of wisdom.”

The antidote for artificial intelligence lies in smirennomudrie, humility of wisdom, in Holy Orthodox Tradition. For in Orthodox Christianity, intelligence is personal and an expression of grace–and wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge are four of the great biblical seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are not designed to self-medicate us into passiveness, but rather to arouse us into what Dostoevsky called active love, as the Gospel reading today calls us to do, in Christ.

Brothers and sisters, may our intelligence not be artificial, but personal, graceful, expressive of love, supernaturally natural in Christ– in short smirennomudrie, humility of wisdom, as shown to us by our father among the saints Elder Macarius of Optina and his legacy. Glory to God for all things!

Proclaiming the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ
St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, September 7535/2026 Newsletter

New Year’s Resolution

Dearest to Christ,

As we enter the new year 7535 in Orthodox Christian reckoning (based on the Bible from the Byzantine era), two photos sum up aspects of our past Church year at a glance. One (above) is a picture of an immature red-tailed hawk perched on the Slavic Cross on our recently installed Onion Dome, taken by Longinus. The hawk can be taken as a local symbol here in Penns Woods of the soaring vision gifted us by the Holy Spirit, God willing, and in our Orthodox Church Tradition including Holy Scripture. The Cross indicates the need for our continued humble and repentant struggle as we enter a new year’s cycle of worship on the Church calendar. Lord have mercy!

The second photo (below) is from our showing of the film Moses the Black at the Campus Theatre last week, as part of our outreach activities to the community, glory to God! It is a reminder of those outreach activities in local downtowns and to our area university students and in our prison ministry as well as of course regularly in our services and coffee-hour education programs, but also of the whole primary orientation of our parish as a mission with God’s help. It likewise reminds us of the needs of sacrifice, most of all in the challenges of spiritual warfare daily, but also of time and when possible financial support, in the work of each and all of us as missionaries for the Orthodox Gospel. May the Lord give us good strength!

“New Year’s resolution” often means something on our “to do” list for the new year. But “New Year’s resolution” can also mean a quality of character that in Orthodoxy we understand ultimately to be God-given: A state of openness to faith and service, reflecting the Biblical virtue of might or courage, perseverance–resoluteness. May God grant us such resolution in our mission work in following our Lord’s New Commandment in 7535, to love one another as He loved us.

Looking forward to this month, you’ll see below upcoming events: Most of all our regular services, a major feast, and the visit of a Bishop for our fall feast, as well as our annual meeting, the baptism of a new arrival, and the wedding of our Warden to a new member of our parish. Glory to God for all things!

Asking for your prayers.

Father Paul the unworthy Rector

***

Please note: On the Church calendar, September and our New Year start on the civil (secular) calendar’s  Sept. 14, when our monthly newsletter appears. Dates are listed below by the Church calendar/slash/civil calendar.

Regular Schedule

Vigil 4:30 p.m. Saturdays, Divine Liturgy 10 a.m. Sundays (Prayers of the Hours 9:40)

Akathist Wednesdays 7 p.m.

Confessions at Vigil or by appointment

Online Orthodoxy Saturdays 10 a.m.-11 (please email Fr Paul for the link, priestpauls@pm.me), except 9/19

Community Bible Study, 2:30 p.m. Sundays (though not Sept. 7/20)

Prison Ministry Mondays.

Please check stjohnthewonderworker.com calendar to confirm.

Special Feasts and Events

Baptism of the Infant Anthony, Sunday Sept. 7/20, 8 a.m. (before Liturgy).

Nativity of the Theotokos: Vigil 6:30 p.m. on Sunday Sept. 3/20, and Divine Liturgy on Monday Sept. 8/21

Wedding of Nicholas and Sophia: 2 p.m. Monday Sept. 8/21.

Annual Parish Meeting (Members only): After Liturgy on Sunday Sept. 21/Oct. 4. Elections and reports, planning for the year ahead.

Fall Feast and Bishop’s visit. The Feast of the uncovering of the relics of St. John will be commemorated at Vigil on Sunday Sept. 29/Oct. 11 at 6:30 p.m. and at Divine Liturgy on Sept. 30/Oct. 12 at 10 a.m. (Prayers of the Hours at 9:40 a.m.)  Bishop Luke is scheduled to visit us, and plans to engage at meals with discussion with members, catechumens, newcomers, and inquirers, in instruction on Orthodox Christianity. This will be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the faith from an Orthodox hierarch and educator (Bishop Luke is also Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary). All laity and inquirers welcome!

Financial Support and Planning

A reminder that we aspirationally tithe at St. John’s, and we may be requesting voluntary private pledges for 2027 at the Annual Meeting to help with budget planning. We also hope to begin a public fundraising campaign for a new permanent iconostasis (designed by architect Andrew Gould) soon.

In addition, please note that in order to keep our budget planning on track, we are asking that any projects related to the Church or property first be routed to Fr Paul as Rector, and then as needed he will route them to the Parish Council for review. Any project, large or small, should first be reviewed, even if a donation of time and money, to determine its possible impact on the larger budget and also its appropriateness for the site. Thank you for all of everyone’s help with donations of time, money, other gifts, and most of all prayer!

Many thanks to our Treasurer Vince for all his work in keeping track of our budget!

Please Pray for our Catechumens

Corey, Noah, Charles, Laura, Ty, James, Wyatt, Aaron

Diocesan Assembly

Our Diocesan Assembly will be held Oct. 9-11/Oct. 22-24 in Nyack, NY (main day of business on Thurs. Oct. 10/23). We’re looking for a lay delegate who could be at the Assembly with Fr. Paul. Please be in touch with him if you are interested. This is a good way to get to know the governance aspects of our Diocese and its part in the larger Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and highlights the conciliar as well as the hierarchical aspects of our Lord’s Church.

Prison Ministry

Fr Paul continues to visit the prison regularly (usually each week) for two classes that each include prayers. On the New Year (Sept. 1/14 he made a new catechumen, Elizabeth). Please pray for our Orthodox Christian inmates Tatiana, and Tanya, and for the catechumen Elizabeth, and for Letitia and Crystal who are also in the catechumen class (we have about a dozen others who attend the large-group class regularly too). We have a couple other parish members getting involved as well as a couple interested students. Please contact Fr. Paul if you would like to participate as a volunteer also.

Brotherhood of St. Alfred the Great

Many thanks to Longinus for all his work on cutting the lawn, which has helped our budget a lot. In addition, he has helped to spearhead efforts to clean up the “front lawn” at the doors to the Church. A contractor during the building made a mistake and dumped gravel and coal dust in what was supposed to be a couple small patches of grass lawn. Longinus has been donating his time and equipment to beautifying the space in time for the upcoming wedding. The brotherhood has discussed a field trip this fall to Holy Protection Monastery and perhaps later in the new Church year to Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia and to Jordanville. Thanks also to Nik and others for help with work around the building.

Sisterhood of St. Olga of Alaska

Matushka Olga has been assisting with plantings in front of the Church. She and Viktoria also have been helping with Church cleaning. The Sisterhood plans to work on helping to coordinate future coffee hours and also perhaps to have a lunch this fall.

Campus Ministry

Many thanks to Eleni for helping to promote services and events to students at Bucknell, and to Lizzy for her work at Susquehanna. Please pray for our students Eleni, Lizzy, Verna, Maia, and others. Upcoming films this fall will be on campus at Bucknell (see note above).

Ministry to Sick and Shut-Ins

This continues with regular visits to Mary and Innocent, and to others as needed who are in hospitals are sick at home. If you would like to help as a visitor, please be in touch with Fr. Paul. Thanks for Justin in helping with this ministry greatly!

Film Series Continues Later This Fall

Please mark your calendars for the final (fourth and fifth) film showings in the Susquehanna Valley Orthodox Christian Film Festival hosted by St. John’s and the Bucknell University Orthodox Fellowship. Films are free, and will be followed by brief discussion. Invite a friend, inquirer, relative, co-worker to these outreach mission events.

Tuesday, October 7/20, 7 p.m. Bucknell campus: Elaine Langone Student Center Forum. Andrei Rublev.

Tuesday, November 4/17, 7 p.m. Bucknell campus. Elaine Langone Student Center Forum. Man of God.

Reminders: On Preparing for Communion and Appropriate Dress

Please remember that appropriate preparation for Communion includes following fasting rules, saying preparation prayers, and attending Vigil the night before (especially Vespers). Fasting includes following regular fasting rules for Wednesday, Friday, and any special fasting periods, as well as a total fast beginning at midnight the night before Communion, and from marital relations the day before. Confession should be heard at least during each of the four major fasting periods of the Church year, and before Communion (at Vigil or by appointment) if any deed or passion presents an obstacle to receiving Communion with a clear conscience, as otherwise it may be spiritually harmful. (Confession is always completely confidential.)  If you are unable to attend Vigil or at least Vespers, please say Reader Vespers at home and come to Liturgy early for a blessing from Fr. Paul to receive. https://www.saintjonah.org/services/vespers.htm Appropriate dress includes long pants and long-sleeve shirts for men, long dresses or skirts with shoulders covered and head scarves for women. Appropriate apparel is not to be legalistic but to support a spirit of humility and obedience before God for the community as a whole, as does the dress of your unworthy Priest. The whole tradition of preparation for Communion, called govenie, is to highlight our struggle with God’s grace to be accountable and repentant in approaching the Body and Blood of our Lord, in effect supping with Him in the greatest “feast” possible, of His Resurrection. Glory to God!

Our Diocesan Bishops have issued a statement that parishioners should receive confession from their parish priest who also should be their spiritual father for seeking counsel and prayer. With his blessing, you may also seek spiritual help from monastic elders and others, but this is to strengthen the Church family of the parish, where we all seek to support each other for salvation.

If you will be attending another Church on travels or pilgrimage, please ask Fr. Paul in advance for a blessing, so that you can then contact the Priest in advance to let him know you have been blessed to receive by your spiritual father, and ask for his blessing to do so.

Please be in touch

Feel free to contact Father Paul by phone or text, 570-863-9039, or at priestpauls@pm.me

St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, 92 St. John’s Lane, Winfield PA
Post Office Box 155, Winfield PA 17889
stjohnthewonderworker.com

Asking for your prayers!

Today’s Gospel Readings and commemorations of Saints Peter and Febronia remind us of the importance of love and fidelity and how they relate. Fidelity of course involves faith. The Apostle Paul laid out what have been called the three Christian virtues when he said faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love (I Cor. 13). The three, culminating in love, interconnect. Faith helps provide the basis for the natural supernatural power of love, as does hope. Marriage as a mystery of the Church, between a man and a woman and also symbolizing the unity of Christ and His Church, combines the Christian virtues in the mystical union (or sobornost) we know in the body of Christ as family for our salvation.

The tradition of Saints Peter and Febronia, special patrons of faithful and hopeful love, illustrates this mystical unity at the heart of Church. It is based in the ancient Russian city of Murom, home to many saints, old monasteries, and warrior-heroes of old Russia. Peter and Febronia became among the most celebrated, and post-communist Russia has a massive summer national holiday honoring family, love and fidelity that is dedicated to them. It is Russia’s answer to the celebration of the sin of Pride and sexual immorality and perversity in Western countries for a month around that same time of year, and we too honor these saints not out of conflict with others but, starting with ourselves, to show the righteous healing power of faith, hope, and love.

Today’s feast for those saints falls on the Sunday before the sixth day of September on the Church calendar and honors the translation of the relics of the two saints. According to tradition they were buried on the same day in 1228, and their bodies miraculously appeared together twice in a single tomb after twice being buried separately. But then in the last century under Communism their relics were treated with blasphemous ridicule in a museum. Thankfully the relics of the saints were transferred to the Holy Trinity Convent in Murom, Russia, in 1992, after the fall of atheistic Communism in Russia, to restore their public veneration.

In 2012 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church established this September-based feast marking that restoration of the relics, so that weddings also could occur on a feast of Saints Peter and Febronia, since the summer feast and the national holiday on the day of their repose falls during the Apostles Fast when weddings cannot be held. Here in our little country church in America, this year by meaningful coincidence we are hosting a special wedding for our parish in a little more than a week, appropriately. Adding to the meaning of today’s feast this year, today is New Years Eve on the Orthodox Christian calendar. Today is a day for resolutions, among which we can include resolutions about family, love, and fidelity, related to Saints Peter and Febronia, asking their intercession for our new year’s resolve.

It is well known that the Old Testament equates adultery with apostasy and idolatry, schism and heresy, and this is deepened spiritually in the New Testament. The traditions about Saints Peter and Febronia underscore the relation between personal fidelity or chastity and spiritual faithfulness. A traditional account of the saints’ lives goes like this (from: https://www.pravmir.com/life-of-the-saints-peter-and-Febronia-of-murom/):

Murom back in the Middle Ages was ruled by a good prince Paul. The devil sent a serpent that seduced and debased his wife in a case of demonic possession. The prince told her to trick the serpent into telling her how he is destined to die.  And when the serpent came, when it began to brag, she asked humbly and with respect: “You certainly know everything, and so you must certainly know to what kind of death you are destined.” And the great deceiver was himself deceived by the faithful wife and unknowingly betrayed his secret, saying “My death will come from Peter’s hand and Agric’s sword.” 

Peter was her husband’s brother, whom they asked for help. But they did not know Agric’s sword. Peter praying alone in Church one day was approached by a youth who asked if he would like to see Agric’s sword. He showed a niche in the bricks of the altar where the sword lay. Prince Peter took the sword and began to wait for an opportunity to slay the serpent. One day he spoke with his brother Paul and then shortly afterward saw Paul impossibly again elsewhere with Paul’s wife the princess. He realized the second Paul was a deception of the evil spirit to avoid being slain. He struck it with the sword, and the evil spirit returned to its true form and died in convulsions. Before it died, however, its blood spilled on Prince Peter, who became covered with sores and ulcers from this blood, and gravely ill.  Having heard that there were many physicians in the region of Riazan, Prince Peter told his servants to convey him there in his weakened state. 

One of the young men of his retinue there accidentally met in a village a beautiful maiden, Febronia, known for her wisdom, although of modest background. She said she could cure the prince if he proved kind of heart and not proud. Prince Peter offered the maiden great wealth for curing him, but she said she did not want worldly riches, but only to marry him. Peter agreed while not taking her seriously because of her low birth. She prepared an ointment for his healing. He was cured except in one place that she had ordered be left uncovered, where there was still a scab. He tried giving her great gifts and then left, but the rash returned from the remaining scab. He had to return to Febronia again for healing. She said she would only fully treat him if he became her wife, and this time he agreed sincerely. He then was wholly healed under her care.

They married and after Prince Paul’s death Prince Peter became ruler of Murom. He and Febronia lived very pious lives, closely obeying the commandments of God, and doing great works of charity among the common people, which Febronia led. But this aroused jealousy among the nobles. They tried to force Prince Peter to give up the commoner Febronia, but he would not do so, citing Jesus’ commandment on marriage. So they were exiled and sent down river by boat from the city. But the royal and pious husband and wife kept their faith that God would care for them even so.

A married courtier helping to oversee their exile sinfully was attracted to Febronia. She ordered the lustful courtier to scoop up water from the river one side of the boat and drink it, and then from the other side. Then Febronia approached him, and asked: “Tell me, did you find that the water tastes the same on both sides of the ship, or was it perhaps sweeter on one side than on the other?” The man answered: “No, my lady. The water tasted the same on both sides.” Then she replied: “And so is the nature of all women. Why then do you want to leave your wife and think about another woman?” The courtier then realized that the princess possessed the gift of reading the minds of men. Becoming afraid, he gave up his evil intentions.

It was not long before a party from the city overtook them as they were camping in the wilds. A lord from the city told them that it had been decimated after their departure by feuds among the nobles seeking to take power, and that many of them and their wives who had forced the exile were dead. “Those lords who have survived and all the rest of the people beg you to come back, my lord, and rule over us. And we will neither anger nor irritate you again…. Those of us who remain alive do love [Febronia], and we beg you not to leave us alone, your humble servants.”

Thus, Prince Peter and Princess Febronia returned to the city of Murom, and they ruled according to the commandments of God. Peter and Febronia always helped their people with alms and prayers. They treated all as if they were their own children. They loved everyone equally, and disliked only those who were proud or who exploited the people. Peter and Febronia lay up their treasures, not on earth, but in heaven. They were real pastors of their city. They always ruled with truth and humility, and never with anger. They gave shelter to pilgrims, fed the hungry, and clothed the naked. And they helped the poor in their misfortune.

When death was nearing, Peter and Febronia prayed to God that they both might die in the same hour. And they requested that they be buried in the same tomb and in a common coffin in which their bodies would be separated only by a partition. And as many pious elderly Orthodox Christians have done throughout history, together they took monastic vows, Prince Peter becoming Brother David, and Princess Febronia, Sister Euphrosinia. Shortly before death, Princess Febronia was embroidering a cover for the chalice of the cathedral. And a messenger came from Prince Peter, now Brother David, saying: “Sister Euphrosinia, I am ready to die, and wait only for you, so that we may die together.” But she asked him to wait until she finished embroidering, but as he neared death, she put it aside and they died together. 

Some of the people insisted that they should be buried separately since they had taken monastic vows. But when this was done, the next morning the people went to the caskets of Peter and Febronia and found them empty. The bodies of the holy prince and princess were found together in the tomb that earlier they had ordered prepared to share. The people, not understanding, once more placed the bodies in separate caskets. On the following day the bodies of Prince Peter and Princess Febronia were once again found together in the tomb. Since that time no man has dared to disturb their holy bodies until the Communists disparaged them but today the relics again are honored, as we do in our little Church today. And whoever touches with contrition the tomb wherein lie the holy relics of Peter and Febronia always received comfort and healing.

Brothers and sisters, faith, hope, and love are not a legal checklist. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit through Christ. Let us open our hearts to their grace, that the spark of God’s love in our heart may fan them with His uncreated energies, so that we may lose ourselves in our love for Him, and through Him with one another help brighten the land. Let us have holy righteous Prince Peter and Febronia be our models and intercessors. May they pray for us in the new year to hold this resolution firm, to live with faith, hope, and most of all love, as they did, in Christ. Glory to God for all things!