Last service: Orthros & Divine Liturgy

Father Jordan's sermon on St. Procopius and living in evil times

Watch the entire service

Saturday, July 18 @ 4 pm

“Journey to the Kingdom” will focus on a deeper understanding of the Divine Liturgy. The class will take place in the church.

You are welcome to attend in person or participate online. We email the Zoom details. (If you have not received these details and would like to join, email Bruce.)

As members of our Orthodox Christian Church which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ established through His Supreme Sacrifice on the Holy Cross, giving His holy Body and Sacred Blood for the Life of the world, we have been facing unwelcomed difficulties in unncessary discussions concerning the manner our people partake of the Holy Eurcharist. In the past two thousand years of the Church, during the first millennium the manner of the people receiving the Holy Eucharist was evolving. But for the past millennium the Church established the way in which people of all ages, including baptized infants and the elderly, could easily partake of the holy Body and sacred Blood of the Lord without difficulties in receiving the holy gifts.

Continue reading Metropolitan Isaiah's message concerning the partaking of the Holy Eucharist.

Between 23-25 June 2020, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was convened for its regular meeting of the current month at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Geneva. On the first day, the synodal members were engaged in their cooperative work with many of the Hierarchs of the Throne in Europe that were invited as well.

During this meeting, the Official Letters of Their Beatitudes the Orthodox Primates that had been received thus far in response to the letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch to them of May 17th of this year, on the issue of the mode of distribution of Holy Communion that emerged after the appearance of the coronavirus pandemic, were read and discussed. It was satisfactorily determined that their opinion coincided with that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This consists of the following:

a) The Mystery of the Divine Eucharist is non-negotiable, because we believe that through it it is transmitted to the faithful the Body and Blood of the Savior Christ “unto the remission of sins and life eternal” and it is impossible that through this Mystery of Mysteries any disease might be communicated to those who partake. For this reason, the Church remains steadfast and immovable in its teaching towards the essence of the Mystery of Holy Communion.

b) As to the mode of distributing the ineffable Mysteries to the faithful, the Church, respecting Holy Tradition that is interwoven inextricably with the daily ecclesiastical practice and kenotic experience, and as the guardian and vigilant watchman of those traditions handed down from the Holy Father, finds no need for a change of this mode, especially under pressure from external factors.

At the same time, the Mother Church, mindful of the special needs of Her children in the Diaspora, urges the Chief Shepherds who serve in the Diaspora that with a pastoral sensitivity, responsibility, and consciousness, to temporarily make, by economia, accommodations to problematic situations that arise from local laws of the State for the greater spiritual benefit of the Christian people, always in coordination with the Sacred Center at the Phanar.

In Geneva, 25, June 2020

From the Chief Secretariat of the Holy and Sacred Synod