St Nicholas Orthodox Church Southbridge Massachusetts

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ANNOUNCEMENTS 01 21 2024


• Collection for Problem Pregnancy today and next week. Problem Pregnancy is a Sanctity of Life pregnancy crisis pregnancy center that provides aid to women in crisis pregnancies, including help with housing if needed, pre-natal counseling, free pregnancy tests, abortion consultations, limited ultrasounds, clothing, diapers, and formula for infants up to 18 months, strollers, car seats, etc. All donations go directly to women and babies. No staff at PP is paid for their services, all staff are volunteers.
• Icon Auction next Sunday, January 28
• 2024 Calendars are available in the narthex.














Our newly consecrated Archpastor, Bishop Nikodhim of Boston and the Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America



ANNOUNCEMENTS 08 27 2023:
We are unable to get a video of the Divine Liturgy out this week for technical reasons.
Next Sunday, September 3, 2023, the Church will be closed.
We will be returning to 10:00 AM liturgy beginning September 12.



ANNOUNCEMENT 07 30 2023: We will be closed next Sunday, August 6. As it is the great feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, please make every effort to attend our sister parish of St. Michael Romanian Orthodox Church. Divine Liturgy at St. Michael begins at 9:30 AM.


ANNOUNCEMENTS 06 25 2023

  • There will be a forty-day memorial for our brother in Christ, Walter Majewski, on Sunday July 9, following the Divine Liturgy. A special cofee hour, sponsored by Walter's family, will be held after the memorial. May his memory be eternal!


ANNOUNCEMENT 05 21 2023

• The parish will be closed on Sunday, May 28 as Father John will be away.
• On Pentecost Sunday, June 4, we will celebrate a memorial service for all the faithful departed from our families at the end of the Divine Liturgy. Following the memorial, we will have a potluck luncheon in the parish hall, after which we will go to Oakridge Cemetery for the blessing of graves.
• The Morris Street yard sale is Saturday, June 10th. The Daughters of St Nicholas are asking for donations of costume jewelry and small household items. Please NO books, appliances, or clothing. For more information, please contact Debbie Elliott or Barbara Tiberii.
• Church hours will change for the months of June, July, and August. Divine Liturgy will begin at 9:00 AM during the summer in order to minimize the heat in church.



ANNOUNCEMENTS 04 02 2023

Announcements:

Wednesday, April 5, 2023, at 6 PM, we will celebrate our last Presanctified Liturgy of the Lenten Season. Please bring a Lenten potluck meal to share after the service.

Sunday, April 9, 2023, 10 AM, Palm Sunday Liturgy. We will read the holy gospels for the Resurrection of Lazarus and the Entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem. There will be a procession with palms around the church at the end of the Liturgy—outside if the weather is good; inside if it is inclement.

Please bring a dozen red eggs to the church on Holy Thursday or Holy Friday for distribution after the Resurrection Liturgy on Saturday.

Holy Week and Pascha


Great and Holy Wednesday, April 12, 6 PM, Holy Unction

Great and Holy Thursday, April 13, 6 PM, the Reading of the twelve passion gospels and the procession of the Holy Cross.  

Great and Holy Friday, April 14, 6 PM, The Lamentations Service and procession of the Epitaphion (the image of the crucified Lord after He was taken down from the cross with his weeping mother, the women disciples, and St John)

Great and Holy Saturday, April 15, 9 PM, the Nocturnes canon, the bringing out of the Light, and the Resurrection Liturgy

ANNOUNCEMENTS 03 05 2023


  • Sunday, April 2, General Confession following the Liturgy.


  • On Wednesday, April 5, we will have our second Presanctified Liturgy of Great Lent.


• Presanctified Liturgy this Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at 6 PM. A Lenten potluck dinner will follow in the Parish Hall. Please bring something to share.
• Woman's retreat at St Michael Romanian Orthodox Church next weekend. Please contact Preoteasa Camilia Downie at: downie.camelia@yahoo.com
• Next Sunday, March 12, 2023,  3 year Memorial for Louise Guillot


ANNOUNCEMENTS 01 22 2023

• We had our first in-person icon auction since Covid struck in 2020. We had a small number in attendance but raised a significant amount of money for the church. If you were not able to attend, you will be receiving an invitation to donate when you get your next quarterly dues letter in the mail.
• We are still collecting pasta for our local food pantries (Tri-community Food Pantry on Elm Street and St John Paul II Food Pantry at St Mary’s Church on Hamilton Street).  We will continue this for the next few weeks.
• On Saturday, January 21, Samuel Craig Cecchi was baptized into the Orthodox faith at St Nicholas Church. Samuel is the son of David Cecchi and Jessica Southard Cecchi. Rob Southard and Laura McCollough were the godparents.
• Metropolitan Tikhon’s Sanctity of Life Letter is attached above. It is beautifully written in the spirit of love and hope.
• We began a collection for Problem Pregnancy in Worcester today and will take another collection next week in honor of Sanctity of Life Sunday. Problem Pregnancy offers help to mothers in crisis pregnancies by giving them help with housing, clothing,  and much more.



ANNOUCEMENT 01 15 2023

  • Next Sunday, January 22, is our annual icon auction.

  • The icon auction has its roots in Albania during the four-hundred-year occupation by the Ottoman Turks. During that time the Muslim Turks would threaten to turn Orthodox churches into mosques unless the faithful “bought them back”. Once verses from the Quran had been said inside the building it could never be returned, but if the faithful could pay the price before that happened, the church and its contents would not be taken away. To raise the funds, the occupiers would “auction” off the building and its contents (including the iconostasis) to the highest bidders. Once the required fee had been paid, the Church was “returned” to the believers. What was once a “fundraiser” for the Ottomans is now a fundraiser for the church community. Icons are “auctioned” and taken home by the highest bidders until the next year. It is a way for the community to raise funds and have fun in the process; it is also a reminder to us all that there is a cost to discipleship.



ANNOUNCEMENTS 01 01 2023

• Next Sunday, January 8, 2023 We will celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (Theophany) and the Great Blessing of Water. Please bring your own water bottles from home, if you have them. We will have bottles at church for those who don’t have them at home.
• We will continue to collect pasta for two local food pantries (Tri-Community Food Pantry and St Mary/St John Paul II) in town for the remainder of the winter. Food pantries are reporting a severe shortage of pasta—a food that can be an easy-to-make base for lots of other dishes (pasta with sauce, macaroni and cheese, pasta with beans, and
various soups).



ANNOUNCEMENTS: 12 18 2022

The Christmas liturgy will be held at 5 PM on Christmas Eve , Saturday, December 24th
This will be the only liturgy for the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity. There will be no Sunday morning liturgy on the 25th.

  • We are  collecting pasta for our local Tri-Community Food Pantry. Pasta is in very short supply at most Food Pantries now due to larger-scale supply problems. You might be noticing that your local market has gaps, too. Pasta is one of the most versatile of all foods since it can be combined with anything (mac and cheese, spaghetti and meat sauce, pasta and beans, etc.) to create a good source of carbohydrates and proteins which can be stretched to provide an inexpensive meal for several people. Please bring your offerings to the church. We have a special collection box at the back of the nave.


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• On Sunday, November 20, following Divine Liturgy is the Annual Meeting of the Parish. Please be there to discuss the important matters we will be going over. The meetings generally last no more than an hour and your presence makes a difference.

• The Christmas Fast (Advent) begins on Tuesday, November 15. Except for the Thanksgiving weekend when we are allowed to relax the fast, this is a time of refraining from meat and other animal products. If we can keep the meat fast—especially in the last two weeks of the fast, let’s do so. If, from weakness, we cannot, then let’s try to keep the fast as strictly as we can on Wednesdays and Fridays during this time. It is not the letter of the law that counts, it is the effort we make to do our best at a time of year when there is so much temptation to “eat, drink, and be merry”.  And in all things, let’s be thankful to God for the great gift that He has given us in the incarnation and birth of His only begotten Son, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.


ANNOUNCEMENT

ALBANIAN PIES AND ETHNIC DELICACIES
        St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church
       126 Morris Street, Southbridge


*************************************
“TAKE OUT ORDERS ONLY”

WHOLE PIES:  BAKED OR UNBAKED FROZEN - $40.00
HALF PIES: BAKED ONLY - $20.00
Spinach, Leek, Sauerkraut, Squash
ETHNIC DELICACIES
Rolled Baklava - $2.00/ea          Kadaif - $2.00/ea
Twist Cookies – 4/$3.00
Date-Nut Filled Cookies - $2.00/ea
Kourabias (Butter Cookies) – 4/$5.00
**************************************
Deadline:  November 4, 2022
Call 508-764-6226 to place order and leave your name
and phone number to receive confirmation.
Orders to be picked up at 126 Morris Street, Southbridge
November 21 from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm



ANNOUNCEMENT:  Many of you know that one of our dear parishioners, Alexandra Lemoine, passed away this past week. The link to her obituary is below. The Trisagion service for the departed will be served at Sansoucy Funeral Home in Southbridge on Tuesday evening at 6:00 PM. The funeral service will be a 10:00 AM on Wednesday morning.
Link to Alex Lemoine's obituary: https://www.sansoucyfuneral.com/obituary/AlexandraAlex-Lemoine

ANNOUNCEMENTS: This past Friday (September 23, 2022) our Archdiocese elected Igumen Nikodim as our bishop. Fr Nikodim has been our acting Chancellor since Fr. Arthur Liolin resigned in 2021. Fr Nikodim received 40 votes to the holy order of bishop and was proclaimed by the unanimous acclamation of the Assembly. Fr Nikodim election should be upheld by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America soon and a date will be set for his consecration.

In other news, the Archdiocese affirmed by an over 2/3 majority the current method of parish representation in our diocese. This would include all active clergy in the parish, plus the Parish Council President and two lay delegates. The cathedral has a slightly greater number of representatives due to the special nature of a cathedral. All other parishes are equally represented in the Assembly.

September 11 2022:

  • Next Sunday, September 18, at 10:00 AM we will receive our catechumen, Will Story, into the Holy Orthodox Church through the rite of chrismation. Will has been attending liturgy here at St Nicholas since this past winter and has been singing in our choir. It is a great joy to receive him into the fullness of the Orthodox faith!

  • Please remember our archdiocesan seminarian Juxhin Shkurti and his wife Livia in your prayers this week. Juxhin is scheduled to be tonsured a reader this coming Wednesday at St Vladimir's Seminary


June 2022

We raised $1029 at our St Nicholas Yard Sale on Saturday (June 4)

After a hiatus of two years due to COVID we will be having our traditional Albanian Picnic on the last Sunday of the month (June 26, 2022). For all who missed our ladies' famous Albanian pies and our renowned shish kebab, ethnic music and dancing, and all-around good times--now is the time to come celebrate!

We have a new catechumen in our community. Will Story was enrolled in the catechumenate on the Sunday of the Paralytic, May15, 2022 and will be chrismated in the near future. It is a great joy to have him as part of our parish family. Will has been adding a very nice bass voice to our choir on Sundays.

Our fundraising for Ukraine has raised $1,400
The funds have been sent through the IOCC for direct aid to the long suffering people of Ukraine.


 
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