Newsletter 7 – Sunday, 4th September 2011

Afterfeast of the Dormition

Troparion of the Sunday, Tone III
Let the heavens rejoice, / let the earth be glad! / For the Lord has shown might with His arm,/ He has trampled down death by death. / He has become the first-born of the dead. / He has delivered us from the depths of hell, / and has granted the world great mercy!

Troparion of the Dormition, Tone I
In giving birth, O Mother of God, thou hast kept thy virginity, / and in falling asleep thou hast not for-saken the world. /Thou, O Mother of Life,  /  hast passed over into life, // and by thy prayers thou dost save our souls from death.

Kontakion of the Sunday, Tone III
On this day Thou didst rise from the tomb, O Merciful One, / leading us from the gates of death. / On this day Adam exults as Eve rejoices; / with the prophets and patriarchs they unceasingly praise / the divine majesty of Thy power!

Kontakion of the Dormition, Tone II
Neither the tomb nor death  /  had power over the Mother of God,   /  who is ever watchful in her prayers and in whose intercessions lies unfailing hope.  /   For as the Mother of Life, she has been transported into life   //  by Him Who dwelt within her ever-virgin womb.

Epistle 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, and then by the twelve.

After that, He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that,He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.

Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Gospel Matthew 19:16-26
Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”. So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No-one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments”.

He said to Him, “Which ones?”. Jesus said, “ ‘You shall not murder’, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, ‘You shall not steal’, ‘You shall not bear false witness’, ‘Honour your father and your mother’, and, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’.”

The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”. Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me”. 

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.

When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”. But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”.

Calendar for September
●     Thursday 8th September: Meeting of the Vladimir icon of the Most Holy Mother of God (feast established to commemorate the deliverance of Moscow from invasion by Tamerlaine in 1395)●     Sunday 11th September: THE BEHEADING OF THE HOLY GLORIOUS PROPHET, FORERUNNER, JOHN, BAPTIST OF THE LORD
●     Wednesday 14th September: BEGINNING OF THE CHURCH YEAR
●     Sunday 18th September: Holy Prophet Zachariah and Righteous Elizabeth, parents of John the Forerunner●     Wednesday 21st September: THE NATIVITY OF OUR MOST HOLY LADY, THE MOTHER OF GOD AND EVER-VIRGIN, MARY
●     Saturday 24th September: VENERABLE SILOUAN OF MOUNT ATHOS (1938) (parish patronal feast to take place on Sunday 25th September)
●     Tuesday 27th September: THE UNIVERSAL EXALTATION OF THE PRECIOUS AND LIFEGIVING CROSS. Repose of St John Chrysostom (407).

Times of the next Liturgies
●     PATRONAL FEAST DAY:  SUNDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER. Hours and confessions 10.30 Liturgy 11.00
●     Sunday 9th October
●     Sunday 6th November

Parish news
Many congratulations to Ben and Evelina Dee-Shapland who had their fourth child on Sunday 28th August. Welcome to Daniel Nicholas Arthur Dee-Shapland, a younger brother for Sofia, Catherine and Alexander. Mnogaya Leta!

The  Dormition of the Mother of God 
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. 

The  Feast  of the Dormition of the Mother of God - which combines two events:  Her death and Her resurrection in the body on the third day - has  been  for  centuries,  indeed,  from  the  very  beginning of the existence  of  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church  its Feast, its joy, its glory. 

The   Mother  of  God  has  not  been  a  passive  instrument  of  the Incarnation;  without  Her  'Amen'  the Incarnation would have been as impossible  as  without  the  will  of God. She is the response of the whole  creation  to  God's  love and to God's gift of self not only to mankind  but  to  the  whole  Cosmos  He  has  created. And in that we rejoice,  because  Her  word is our word. Her word was perfect, as Her trust was, Her faith was, Her gift of self was. Ours is imperfect, and yet  our  voices resound within Hers, weakly, hesitantly at times, but with faith and also with love.

She  is  the  glory of all Creation; the Mother of God: one might have expected  that  death could not touch Her; but if death and a death so cruel  could touch Her Divine Son, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son of man - of course She had to pay the tribute of all the earth to the sin of man and also die. But according to  Orthodox  Tradition,  death  could  not keep Her prisoner. She had given Herself unreservedly and perfectly to God, and it was to God, no longer  to the earth that She belonged. And on the third day, when the Apostles  came  and  reopened  Her grave for one of them to be able to venerate  Her,  who  had  not been present at Her burial, it was found empty:  She  had  risen because the bonds of death could not hold Her, and  corruption  could not touch a body which had been the body of the Incarnation. What a wonderful joy to think that now, side by side with the risen and ascended Christ, one of us, of mankind, a woman of flesh and  blood is enthroned and in Her we can see the glory which will, we believe, be ours if we are faithful to God as She was. 

So,  let  us  rejoice,  and  not  only  here where our church has been dedicated  since the early eighteenth century to the Assumption of the Mother  of  God,  to Her Dormition, but with the whole Russian Church, and with all those who belong to it and are scattered over the face of the  world,  one  with  the Mother Church, one with the Mother of God, worshipping  the  Lord  with  all there is in us and seeing in Her the image of the whole Creation in adoration before the Living God. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh 

Sunday, 28th August 1986.