Dear and good fellow parishioners,
I hope you are enjoying a safe and relaxing summer! Things are getting busy here at the church with preparations being made for our Greek Festival, Sept 12th through the 15th. Please check your Sunday Bulletins and emails to volunteer for baking, cooking and working to make this year’s Festival the best one ever.
The month of August is also a very special liturgical and ecclesiastical month as we celebrate the Dormition/Assumption of the Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary. The preparation for the August 15th Feast comes following a 15 day period of fasting and evening Paraklysis Services. Please check the schedule of Services for the times and days. Our Holy Tradition offers much praise to the Panagia, second only to the events surrounding the life of Christ. The Dormition/Assumption really captures the last days of the life of the Virgin Mary, her repose, and then her bodily Assumption into heaven. Our particular Church has a magnificent icon of the Dormition of the Panagia on the wall beneath the choir loft. I so enjoy explaining the icon’s relevance to the event on August 15th. There is history, theology, ecclesiology and beautiful psychology embedded in this outstanding icon that is often over- looked when we are leaving the church on our way to coffee hour. Please join me and Fr Andrew for all the Services during this month. They are prayerful and very enriching.
Some new developments in the parish! After 20 years of dedicated service to the Community, we will be bidding farewell to one of our Chantors, Angelo Lampousis. As you well know, Angelo has played a critical role at the Chant Stand, teaching Byzantine Music to so many of our parishioners, especially our good Joseph, as well as create and develop the Axion Estin Foundation with the help of Holy Trinity Parish Council and parishioners. We will miss him very much and wish him well! His last Sunday with us will be August 25th. Also concerning church music, we have added Arika Prime to the staff to assist Sappho at the organ on Sunday mornings. Welcome Arika!
We are also in need of a part-time person to assist us with our Holy Trinity Website: holytrinitynr.org. Many people access our parish through the website thus making it a very crucial part of our parish’s ministries. If anyone knowledgeable concerning web-design would like to volunteer some time, please contact me!
And, following much study, we will soon share some thoughts concerning the renovation of our Church kitchen facility. I had asked Dean Modroukos to offer his knowledge of kitchen use and de- sign, and he is preparing a CAD program for us to study and present to the General Assembly. As you may remember, we received a $100,000. gift in memory of Linda Faustini with the request that we use it for kitchen remodeling/updating. It’s taken a while, so stay tuned for upcoming developments. Our parish serves and feeds many people throughout the year. Seldom have we received such a generous gift to perpetuate this great hospitality and service that Holy Trinity is known for.
And finally, with the enthronement of our new Archbishop ELPIDOPHOROS, please know that he has been invited to celebrate the Divine Liturgy here at Holy Trinity on the weekend we are hosting the District Choir Conference in late November. May God grant him many years!
May God Bless Us all!
Most Faithfully,
Father Nick