Announcements

Beloved brothers and sisters, dear children in the Lord,

Our Lord Jesus Christ grafts us into His body, inviting us to become saints, “just as He is holy.” (1 Peter 1.16) Our Creator wants us to be in communion with Him in order to taste His grace, which is to participate in His sanctity. Communion with God is a life of repentance and holiness ; whereas estrangement from God, or sin, is identified by the Church Fathers with “evil of the heart.” Sin is not natural, but derives from evil choice” (Theodoret of Cyrus, Dialogue 1, Immutabilis, PG 83.40D) or from the evil spirit, since “no one sins, who promises faith,” according to Ignatius of Antioch, the “God-bearer.”

On 13 February 2015, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, at the proposal of His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew unanimously elected the very reverend Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne, Jean (Renneteau) as bishop of Charioupolis as auxiliary bishop to the Patriarch.

Dear Fathers, beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Year after year, the approach of the Feast of Christ’s Nativity fills with joy Christians who are preparing to celebrate this solemn Mystery. And it is right to so rejoice, for the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled: today, "unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given" (Isaiah 9.6). In truth, the feast we are celebrating today is the feast of the God Who gives Himself by becoming incarnate and humbled for the life of the world. This is precisely what the Apostle John the Theologian declares, saying: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Without this sacrificial gift from God, humanity would never have been able to truly know God and unite with Him, as much as this is possible for human nature, and so have access to the Heavenly Kingdom.

December 22, 2014

+ BARTHOLOMEW
By God's Mercy Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome
and Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Plenitude of the Church:

Grace, mercy, and peace from the Savior Christ, born in Bethlehem
 
Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,
 
"Christ is descending from the heavens;
let us meet Him!"
 
God has appeared on earth and, at the same time, we have seen the perfect man together with the inconceivable value of the human person. Today especially, we experience the condition of humanity after the fall, as we daily affirm with the Psalmist that "all have gone stray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good – no, not one!" (Psalm 13.3; Rom. 3.12-13)

Before the incarnation of Christ, humanity could never imagine the inconceivable value of the human person, which was weakened and distorted after the fall. Only the most illumined people could perceive, even before the time of Christ, the value of the human person and the response to the Psalmist's question: "What is man that God would remember him?" (Psalm 8.5), which they proclaimed in the Psalmist's words: "You have made man a little lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor." (Psalm 8.6)

Many stakeholders of our Deanery would like us to be as professional as possible when running our parishes, bearing in mind that we are mostly volunteers. The Archdiocese requires us to meet certain norms, parents, carers and families want us to safeguard our people, donors want us to safeguard the funds and property that they give us. To help communities and parishes with these complex tasks, the deanery has developed a set of up-to-date constitutional material to make sure that we are using all the latest tools available to us.

The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius is pleased to present details of this year's Conference, taking place at High Leigh Conference Centre

Updated timetables for the period January to March 2014 are being added to The Orthodox Eucharistic Community Of St Theodore Of Canterbury and The Orthodox Community Of St Luke The Evangelist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent .