Agia Sophia Cafe & Bookstore: Harrisburg, PA

Just had to share this; its such an amazing concept!

May our Lord bless and make fruitful this unique witness to Orthodoxy!

Agia Sophia Cafe & Bookstore

I must give credit to Rev Fr Stephen Vernak (family friend), pastor of Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church (OCA) in Harrisburg, PA, as well as the dedicated clergy and laymen of the Orthodox Christian Charities of Greater Harrisburg (OCCGH).

Visit HERE for their website to learn more about their mission, progress, and awesome atmosphere!

The Blessing of this new establishment was held recently (7/31/11), presided over by His Grace, Bishop TIKHON (OCA - Diocese of Eastern PA); news on the event and awesome pictures and videos of the ceremony can be found HERE.

The following are some of my favorites:

- A Day in the Life of the Non-Coffee Drinker

Transfiguration of our Lord: Orthodox Feast

In the Life of the Church, we celebrate the Great Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord on August 6th. During this Feast, the farmers use to gather the early fruits of their summer harvest (grapes, apples, figs etc.) and to present them in the Church to be blessed and to give them for free to congregation. This is an ancient Christian custom; these fruits are called the “beginnings”.

Transfiguration of our Lord

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"Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, 'Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.'"

While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!' And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. But Jesus came and touched them and said, 'Arise, and do not be afraid.' When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, 'Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.'"   -Matthew 17:1-9 (Gospel lesson of the Feast)

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When O Christ our God, Thou wast transfigured on the mountain, Thou didst reveal Thy glory to Thy disciples, in proportion as they could bear it. Let Thine everlasting Light, also enlighten us sinners. Through the intersessions of the Theotokos, O Thou bestower of Life, glory to Thee.  -Troparion of the Feast of the Transfiguration (Tone 7)

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- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director

Orthodox Young Adult Conference 2011

ORTHODOX YOUNG ADULT CONFERENCE

“I’m Orthodox…My Friends Are Not”

led by Rev Fr James Shadid & Rev Fr Symeon Kees

SEPTEMBER 23-25, 2011 - HOUSTON, TX

*Discussion/Workshops
*Bar Social
*Houston Astros Baseball Game
*Orthodox Trivia Game

Registration Cost of $30 along with Medical Liability/Registration Form due by September 12, 2011

Four Points by Sheraton Hotel
713.942.2111 ONLY $75 per night
“St George Church” Group Discount Code

Conference sponsored by Young Adult Ministries (YAM) of Greater Houston, Antiochian 20/40 Fellowship, and Fellowship of St John the Divine of the Diocese of Wichita

For more information, please contact:

Paul Fuller
Youth & Young Adult Director
St. George Houston, TX
Phone: 713.665.5252 or 502.592.9981
E-mail: paulf518@yahoo.com

- A Day in the Life of the Conference Planner

Shreveport DOWAMA Parish Life Conference 2011: Revisited!

Much love and gratefulness goes out to the Parish Family of St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Shreveport, Louisiana for hosting the DOWAMA Parish Life Conference this summer (June 15-18, 2011)!

2011 Antiochian Conference Theme

It was truly a blessed gathering, filled with lots of Christian love, fellowship, and fun! St George Houston was well represented with about 40 conference participants. As for myself, I was lucky enough to travel with a great group of teens and a very helpful female chaperone (Ms. Amanda Zabaneh). Our Teen SOYO joined in many of the activities provided by the hard-working folk hosting this Conference. Some highlights included numerous liturgical services, Bible Bowl Competition, Oratorical Festival, and Creative Arts Festival, as well as a SOYO General Assembly, Service Project to a local Nursing Home, and a fun afternoon in the sun at a neighborhood pool and games spot.

Congratulations to our own local chapter Teen SOYO President, Danielle S., who was elected to serve as President for the Diocese of Wichita & Mid-America Teen SOYO! Mabrouk!

A yearly highlight of the Conference is the Bible Bowl Competition, in front of a packed house of cheering fans, Teen & Adult teams competed in a fun and tightly contested event! Our St George Houston Teen (Kathrine S., Mariam K., Areen B.) & Adult teams courageously battled, and our Adult Team came in 2nd place among the other Adult teams, falling short by only a few points in the competition.

So, who took the "gold" you ask among the Adults? The DOWAMA SOYO Youth Directors (Ms. Erin Learned of St Elijah OKC, Ms. Andreea Balan of Ss Constantine & Helen Dallas, and myself)! After the victory, I learned that there was actually a trophy presented to the Adult team - its ridiculously large! We decided to rotate churches to house the trophy, so look for it soon in my office at St George probably this fall.

The competitions, elections, and awards aside, it was just wonderful to spend quality time with everyone in attendance! As a Youth Director, its awesome to see the teens gather with their friends and interact - yes, they even let us chaperones join in on the fun! Their smiles simply light up the room, and its a blessing to witness!

Don't forget to join us next year in Houston for the 2012 DOWAMA PLC hosted by St Joseph - enjoy a very funny intro video HERE.

Enjoy some pictures from the Shreveport PLC 2011 below:

St George Houston, TX family at the PLC

St George Houston Teen Bible Bowl Team

Border of TX & LA, Houston crew

Dallas crew with Fr Antony Bahou & Ms. Andreea Balan

Just swingin' away in the sun!

DOWAMA Youth Directors - 2011 Adult Bible Bowl Champions
Erin Learned, Paul Fuller, and Andreea Balan

Serious faces, except for the priest in the background, nicely done
Fr. Anthony Baba of St Anthony in Spring, TX

Championship pose!

- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director

Saints of Healing: Orthodox Services in the Houston Area

For the healing of soul, mind, and body...

In society today, there are many blessed people who work in fields that offer services of healing for the soul, mind, and body. We have physicians, therapists, psychiatrists, massage therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, and counselors. Men and women who offer help/assistance to those struggling with ailments of their soul, mind, and body.

In the Life of the Church, throughout the Church year we commemorate many saints refered to as "holy unmercenaries." They lived pious lives offering great service to their fellow man through prayer and healing without payment. Saints such as Cosmos & Damian, Cyrus & John, Sampson the Hospitable, Panteleimon, Tryphon, Vlassios (Blaise), Luke the Apostle, Spyridon, Artemios, and numerous others.

While many people in society suffer in a variety of ways, it is a great comfort to witness the miraculous abilities of professionals who work diligently to heal and ease those who suffer. Whether one works in a hospital or private practice, examines charts or perscribes medication, listens and offers words of encouragement through counseling and therapy, all can use the great examples of those who have lived a life worthy of Christ the Great Physician.

Christ - the Great Physician

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With these great healing saints in mind, liturgical services will be held throughout the year on their feastdays. Our hope is that those in such professions as listed above will participate in services supplicating prayful intercessions from these examples of those who help the healing of soul, mind, and body.

Kontakion of the Holy Unmercenaries (Tone 2):
You have received the grace of remedies, spread strength over those in need, glorious, wonderworking Physicians; but by your visitation, cast down the insolence of enemies, healing the world by wonders.

Our first batch of special services begins over the next few weeks:

Tuesday, July 26th @ 7:30p, Akathist to St Panteilemon
Tuesday, August 2nd @ 6:00p, Paraklesis to the Theotokos during the Dormition Fast
Thursday, August 4th @ 6:00p, Paraklesis to the Theotokos
Tuesday, August 9th @ 6:00p, Paraklesis to the Theotokos
Thursday, August 11th @ 6:00p, Paraklesis to the Theotokos

Hope you can join us!

Please check the St. George Houston, TX calendar for the schedule of services throughout the year and join us in worship to our loving and merciful God through the supplications of these "saints of healing."

- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director

Vehicle of Choice, a Fiery Chariot?

This was the chosen mode of transportation for the Holy Prophet Elijah (Elias), as he was taken up into the heavens. In commemoration of this great Old Testamental prophet, on his feastday (July 20th) in the Life of the Church, Orthodox Christians receive a special blessing of their own modes of transportations - vehicles, bicycles, airplanes, boats, etc.

Prophet Elijah taken to Heaven in a Fiery Chariot

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Prophet Elijah

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The Life of the Holy Prophet Elijah can be found HERE. He preached the "good news" of One True God among his people, the Israelites, who had fallen away from their Covenant with God and began to worship pagan idols. The life of the holy Prophet Elijah is recorded in the Old Testament books (3 Kings; 4 Kings; Sirach/Ecclesiastes 48:1-15; 1 Maccabees 2:58). At the time of the Transfiguration, the Prophet Elijah conversed with the Savior upon Mount Tabor (Mt. 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke. 9:30).

As a side note, enjoy this article with photos about a Russian Orthodox priest blessing the crew and spacecraft (Russian Soyuz TMA-17) HERE.

Enjoy some pictures of parish gatherings for the Orthodox blessing of transportation on the feastday of St Elijah:

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May Christ our True God, who didst will to travel into Egypt as a new-born babe, through the intercessions of the holy and glorious Prophet Elijah, bless our vehicles and other modes of transportation and travel with us, all the days of our lives!

- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director

Trouble in Paradise: Adam, Eve, and Me

Orthodoxy sees Adam and Eve as being created by God with a certain vocation: to gradually become one with God increasing in their ability to share in His divine life (deification). To embrace their God-given vocation would bring life, to reject it would bring death. Their vocation is the vocation of all humanity. Their failure to obey the commandment of God is our own failure to obey. The freedom to obey or reject God belonged to our first parents; for God made man free and sovereign. Adam and Eve were overcome with the same temptation that afflicts all of humanity: to go their own way, to try and realize the fullness of existence without God.

The result of this affliction is death. This is the curse of humanity - to die. Thus to be re-created, Christ the Savior took on our humanity in order to destroy this affliction. As the great Orthodox hymn of Pascha tells us: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!" His death and resurrection is our opportunity towards salvation - sharing in His divine life. However, it is not forced upon us, to accept God's grace and love. 

Resurrection of Christ/Descent into Hades
Christ reaching out His hands to Adam & Eve

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Love is at the heart of all Orthodox theology. The love from God freely given to all is Christ's voluntary death upon the Cross (Tree). The ancestral curse (or original sin) that came into existence through the failure of the First Adam is destroyed by the Second Adam (Christ our Savior). We still live in a fallen world, and our acceptance of the God's grace and love is a process to be sure. But the opportunity to regain our vocation has been given through the Incarnation (God becoming Man), His death and resurrection.

For Western Christianity, original sin as described by Augustine is an inherit guilt felt by all of humanity due to the fact that we are all descendents of Adam. Because Adam, our first father sinned, I am also guilty in his turning away from God. Original sin becomes a legal, jurisdictional delimma for all of humanity.

This approach to the Fall from Paradise is foreign to early Christianity, which Orthodoxy continues to practice and believe. To be sure, our fallen nature is sinful. There is no man who lives and sins not; but my sins are my own choice. I choose whether to draw closer to God or further from Him.

In Orthodox thought, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise was not punishment done out of anger because of their sin, rather due to compassion. The expulsion from Paradise and from the Tree of Life was an act of love and mercy so that humanity would not become immortal in sin.

Expulsion from Paradise

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In simple terms, Orthodox approach to sin is therapeutic, viewing sin as an illness, while the Western Church tends towards a juridicial model seeing sin as moral failure. Orthodoxy focuses on the process and goal more than the sin. Salvation is a process that requires prayer, fasting, charity, and keeping vigil. A young monk was once asked what they do all day in a monastery, responding, "we fall and rise, fall and rise."

My parish priest/spiritual father once said, "if you're not struggling towards salvation, you're not doing it right!" This approach is crucial to our understanding of pastoral care; we need guidance and encouragement, hence the Sacrament of Confession is a face to face discussion. Humility is not an easy lesson to learn, real transformation is not instantaneous and we are in need of God's help.

Death has caused a change in the way we relate to God, to one another, and to the world. However, the choice offered to Adam and Eve remains our choice: to ascend to life or descend into corruption.

- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director