University Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1SP

 CONTACTS:

To message Archimandrite Kyril or to arrange a baptism or wedding please email the Parish Priest@bristol-orthodox-church.co.uk  (Tel. 01179706302 or 07944 860 955).

  For more see:  CONTACTS

UpComingREV | UU Taos

Every Saturday: 5.30 p.m. Vespers

Every Sunday: 10.30 a.m. Divine Liturgy

 

WEEKLY SERVICES & INFORMATION (Note: our Parish follows the “New” (Revised Julian) Calendar.)

Saturday, 16th March. 

5.30 p.m.    Vespers

Sunday 17th March.  Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.  Cheesefare Sunday. Forgiveness Sunday.  St Patrick, Enlightener and Patron of Ireland.

10.30 a.m.  Divine Liturgy 

Readings:

Romans 13:11b-14.4        Matthew 6:14-21

1.00 p.m. Vespers of Mutual Forgiveness.

After today (Cheesefare Sunday, 17th March) we eat no flesh meat, fish or dairy foods until Pascha.  In the coming week (17th-22nd) a strict fast is enjoined.

SERVICES FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF THE GREAT FAST (LENT):

Monday 18th – Thursday 21st, each day:

6.30 p.m.  Great Compline, including a portion of the Penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete.

 

Friday, 22nd March

6.30 p.m.   Vespers with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

 

Saturday, 23rd March. 

5.30 p.m.    Vespers

 

Sunday 24th March.  First Sunday of the Great Fast. Celebration of the triumph of Orthodoxy (Restoration of the Icons).  Eve of The Annunciation.  Meat fast.

10.30 a.m.  Divine Liturgy 

Readings:

Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40 (or to 12.2a)        John 1: 43-51

Monday 25th March.  THE ANNUNCIATION to Mary, the Theotokos, Mother of God and Ever-virgin

Fish wine and oil allowed.  But we fast through the day until after the Divine Liturgy.

6.30 p.m.  Vespers and Divine Liturgy of the Feast.

 

FORGIVENESS SUNDAY:  Prayer “Behind the Ambo” after communion:

Blessed are you, Lord, and highly exalted and glorified and good.   In your divine providence you set the length of the year, and have anchored us in these days of inner peace.   Give to your servants the good fruit of righteousness in all their works.   Give them might and power for the destruction of sin, and for the renewal of soul and mind, so that during the forty days of the fast we may overcome the crafty contrivances of the intruder, for you are our God.   Through prayer and fasting you have made humans equal to angels, and you entrusted the fasting Moses with the tablets of the Law written by your divine hand.   Now, Lord, return us to the safe harbour of the honourable Passion of your Christ, so that, with the wood of the Cross as our weapon, we may be victors over sin and worthy of your joyful third-day Resurrection.   Through the prayers and supplications of the all-pure Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary and of all your Saints, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.

THE  LENTEN FAST:

The norm for fasting in Great Lent is that we eat less in order to pray more and remember our neighbour more by works of fellowship and charity.  To that end, we refrain from all meat, fish but not other sea-food), eggs and dairy foods. It is good for us to feel some bodily hunger in order to remember first, that our lives are a gift from God, not a right; and that, secondly, as Christians our primary relationship and preoccupation is not with material things of this passing world, but with the Eternal Banquet that the Resurrection invites us to.

On weekdays we do not use oil or wine (in other words, foods that express celebration or bodily enjoyment).  On the Sabbath (Saturday) and The Lord’s Day (Sunday) we have oil and wine as these are also eucharistic days (we do not celebrate the Divine Liturgy on fasting weekdays).  If medical or other considerations make a full fast difficult, consult your priest for guidance.

DO READ Fr Alexander Schmemann’s Great Lent as well as the Introduction to The Lenten Triodion by Bishop Kallistos and Mother Mary.  From your calendar-lectionary, or from one on line, do read the daily scripture readings from Genesis, Isaiah and Proverbs.  These lead us through Salvation History from the beginning to its culmination in Pascha.

REMINDER – FOOD BANK:

 As we reduce our food intake in Lent we increase our prayer – and also refocus our charity.  DON’T  FORGET THE NEEDS OF OTHERS. Bring contributions please. Can we fill the box twice over during Lent?

 

CATECHETICAL HOMILY FOR THE OPENING OF HOLY AND GREAT LENT

+ BARTHOLOMEW
BY GOD’S MERCY ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE-NEW ROME AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH TO THE PLENITUDE OF THE CHURCH, MAY THE GRACE AND PEACE
OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, TOGETHER WITH OUR PRAYER, BLESSING AND FORGIVENESS BE WITH ALL

Most honourable brother Hierarchs and blessed children in the Lord:

The grace of our God of love has once again vouchsafed for us to enter the soul-benefiting period of the Lenten Triodion and arrive at Holy and Great Lent, namely to the arena of ascetic struggle replete with gifts from above and the joy of the Cross and Resurrection. During this blessed period, the spiritual treasure and dynamism of the ecclesiastical life as well as the soteriological reference of all its expressions are revealed with clarity.

We have already learned much from the impasse and self-righteous arrogance of the Pharisee, from the barren moralism and hard-heartedness of the elder son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and from the callousness and condemnation on the Day of Judgment of those who proved indifferent to the “least of our brothers” that were hungry, thirsty, foreigners, naked, ill, and imprisoned. Moreover, the value and power of humility and repentance, of forgiveness and mercy were revealed to us as attitudes that the Church emphatically calls us to nurture in the period that opens up before us.

Holy and Great Lent is a welcome time of spiritual, inner and physical purification and discipline, which—as we just heard in the Gospel passage that was read—traverses through fasting, which should not be practiced “so that others may see,” and through forgiveness of our brothers and sisters: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you” (Mt. 6.14). After all, this is what we confess each day with the Lord’s Prayer, when we say: “as we forgive the sins of our debtors” (Mt. 6.12).

Yesterday, on Cheesefare Saturday, the Church honoured the memory of the saintly men and women who shone in ascetic life. Saints are not only models for the faithful in the good fight of life in Christ and according to Christ. They are also our fellow travellers, friends and supporters in the ascetic journey of fasting, repentance, and humility. We are not alone in our effort, but we have God, who encourages and blesses us, as well as the Saints and Martyrs, who stand beside us, and above all the First among the Saints and Mother of God, who intercedes for us all to the Lord. Sanctity is proof of the power of divine grace and the human synergy in the Church, which takes place through participation in the holy sacraments and fulfilment of the divine commandments. There is no “gratuitous piety” or “easy Christianity,” just as there is no “wide gate” or “spacious way” that leads to the heavenly Kingdom (cf. Mt. 7.13–14).

The Church constantly reminds us that salvation is not an individual, but an ecclesiastical event, a common discipline. During the God-guarded Holy and Great Lent, what becomes apparent for the spiritual life of the faithful is the definitive meaning of participation in the life of the community—that is to say, in the Christian family and parish, or else in the monastic coenobium. We would like to highlight the function of the Christian family as a community of life for the experience of Great Lent’s spirituality. Our predecessor among the Saints, John Chrysostom, described the family as “a small Church.”[1] Indeed, it is in the family that occurs the rendering of our existence into that of the church; it is there that the sense of the social and communal character of human life and the life in Christ as well as the love, mutual respect and solidarity are developed; and it is there that the life and joy of cohabitation are experienced as a divine gift.

The joint endeavour to apply the ecclesiastical rule and ethos of fasting in the context of the family manifests the charismatic dimension of ascetic life and, more broadly, the conviction that whatever is true, honourable, and rightful in our life comes to us from above; that despite our own cooperation and contribution, in the end they transcend whatever is humanly achievable and accessible. After all, the communal aspect of life, the love for one another that does not seek its own, and the virtue of forgiveness, do not allow room for human rights-ism and complacency. An expression of such a spirit of “common freedom” and eucharistic asceticism is precisely the inseparable connection between fasting, charity, and participation in the parish and liturgical life of the Church. Living out this “Lenten spirit” within a Christian family leads us to the depth of truth in the ecclesiastical experience and constitutes the birthplace and source of Christian witness in our secularized contemporary world.

Brothers and children, pray that we may all travel with godly zeal along the way of Holy and Great Lent with fasting and repentance, in prayer and contrition, making peace within ourselves and with one another, sharing in life and showing ourselves to be “neighbours” to those in need through charitable works, forgiving one another and glorifying in all circumstances the God of mercy’s name, which is above the heavens, beseeching Him to deem us worthy of reaching Holy and Great Week with purified minds and of worshipping with joy and delight His splendid Resurrection.

Holy and Great Lent 2024

+ BARTHOLOMEW of Constantinople

Fervent supplicant for all before God

 

Sunday of Forgiveness (Cheesefare)

From the book “Great Lent” by Fr. Alexander Schmemann:

Finally comes the last day, usually called “Forgiveness Sunday”, but whose other liturgical name must also be remembered: the “Expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of Bliss”. This name summarizes indeed the entire preparation for Lent. By now we know that man was created for paradise, for knowledge of God and communion with Him. Man’s sin has deprived him of that blessed life and his existence on earth is exile. Christ, the Saviour of the world, opens the door of paradise to everyone who follows Him, and the Church, by revealing to us the beauty of the Kingdom, makes our life a pilgrimage toward our heavenly fatherland. Thus, at the beginning of Lent, we are like Adam:

Through food Adam was expelled from paradise; Sitting, therefore, in front of it he cried: “Woe to me …..One commandment of God have I transgressed, depriving myself of all that is good; Paradise Holy! Planted for me, and now because of Eve closed to me; Pray to thy Creator and mine that I may be filled again with thy blossom. Then answered the Saviour to him:
I wish not my creation to perish;
I desire it to be saved and to know the Truth;
For I will not turn away from him who comes to Me ….

Lent is the liberation of our enslavement to sin, from the prison of “this world”. And the Gospel lesson of this last Sunday (Matt. 6: 14-21) sets the conditions for that liberation. The first one is fasting – the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of flesh and matter over the spirit.  To be effective, however, our fast must not be hypocritical, a “showing off”. We must “appear not unto men to fast but to our Father who is in secret”. The second condition is forgiveness – “If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you”. The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. To forgive is to reject the hopeless “dead-ends” of human relations and to refer them to Christ. Forgiveness is truly a “breakthrough” of the Kingdom into this sinful and fallen world.

THE PRAYER OF ST EPHREM THE SYRIAN

This prayer above all characterizes our worship during the season of the Fast (Lent):

Lord and Master of my life,

do no give me a spirit of sloth, idle curiosity, love of power and useless chatter;

rather accord to me a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love.

Yes, Lord and King, rant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother; for you are blessed to the ages of ages. Amen.  

Thus is followed by a full prostration (metania).

There are several translations of this beautiful prayer in circulation, revealing the difficulty in fully realizing the meaning of the words used in the Greek text.    There is a beautiful and insightful reflection on this prayer in Olivier Clément’s  Three Prayers.

The Wikipedia article on the prayer gives this:

This Greek version is the form of the prayer found in the current liturgical books of the Greek Orthodox Church and all those churches that utilise Greek or Arabic in their services. Early Greek manuscripts preserve several variant texts, however, including the reading φιλαργυρίας (philargyrias, “love of money“) in place of φιλαρχίας (philarchias, “love of power“), which was taken up in the first Slavonic translations. It is difficult to know which form is more ancient, since both vices are serious afflictions for both monastic and lay Christians.

The Greek word σωφροσύνης (sōphrosynēs) in the second line is often translated in English as ‘chastity.’ However, this is a highly problematic archaism, since, in modern English, ‘chastity’ refers almost exclusively to sexual continence. The Greek word is much broader in meaning and carries the sense of soundness of mind, discretion, and prudence. Therefore, the prayer asks in the second line for a restoration to Christian wholeness and integrity, foreshadowing the petition of the third line that the supplicant might have the temptation to judge others removed from them (cf. Matt. 7:1–5).

 

 PARISH NEWS

BUILDING WORK:

The masons have finished the restoration work in the Church Altar (Sanctuary).  The stained glass window has been cleaned!  Thank you all for your generosity  to the building fund,. We have spent the money we had in hand for this project, but there is more to do:  The lower walls need to be re-plastered and repainted, so please continue to give generously to the building Fund!

THANK YOU for your generous donations. Without this, we would not have a space to worship in. We are extremely blessed to have our own space that does not need to be shared with other users. If we look after it, the building will be sure to last a few more hundred years and serve our community for many generations to come. 

GIFT AID

Are you a taxpayer? Do you put money into the donations box or Sunday collections?
As a charity, the Government will pay back to the Church the amount of tax you have paid on your donations. But for us not to miss out on the full amount, it is really helpful if you:

1) Complete a simple Gift Aid mandate form (available on the table at the back of the church – or just ask) and give it to our treasurer Neil;
2) and then put your donations into one of the little brown envelopes on the candle desk and then write your name on it.
3) The same applies if you are making donations online (see below) – we need your mandate form! That way our treasurer can account for it all to the tax man and get the full amount back.

SUNDAY OF FORGIVENESS:  Special Collection for Help for Gaza

There will be a second collection on March 17th for the charity Medevac Frontline.

Medevac Frontline was founded by a group of medics volunteering in Ukraine who identified a gap in medevac and training overseas. Every year millions of people are affected by crises such as conflict and terrorism, disease outbreaks and natural disasters. These crises have an impact on the delivery of health services, leaving already vulnerable people more at risk. However, there is no other specialised care team like Medevac Frontline that can transport and keep patients alive between disaster and hospital.

Medevac Frontline are aiming to send two more volunteer paramedics through the Kereb Shalom crossing to join colleagues in Southern Gaza. Your support will help them to purchase the necessary flights, insurance and additional medical supplies. The more medical supplies they can take the longer they can stay out there.

🚨PHONES IN CHURCH🚨

It is good practice to have phones turned off or in aeroplane mode during services .


Some selected saints (AND FEASTS)  of the coming days):-  through the day

    • SUNDAY 17TH – St Alexius, “The Man of God” (411). St Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Apostle and Patron of Ireland (c461).  St Withburga, solitary (East Anglia c743).
    • MONDAY 18TH – St Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem (368). St Edward “The Martyr”, King of England (c978).
    • TUESDAY 19TH – Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria at Rome (283).  St Nil(us) of Sora (1521).
    • WEDNESDAY 20TH – St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Bishop (687). St Herbert, hermit of Derwentwater, confessor (“soul-friend”) of St Cuthbert (687). The Slain Holy Fathers of St Sabas Monastery, John, Sergius, Patrick and others (796) [We have a relic of them in our church].
    • THURSDAY 21ST – St James the Confessor, Bishop of Catania (Italy 8/9c).
    • FRIDAY 22ND – Holy Martyr Basil, Bishop of Ancyra (Ankara, Asia Minor) (362/3).
    • SATURDAY 23RD – First Saturday of Lent: Commemoration of the Great Martyr St Theodore of Amasea.

 

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For those who wish to donate to our Parish online, our Facebook fundraiser can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/453504039824339/?fundraiser_source=external_url

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See the Patriarchal encyclical letter above for this week’s homily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like all small communities we rely on the generosity of friends and well-wishers.   If you would like to contribute to the continuation of our parish and the upkeep of our historic church building, you can make a  donation here:

https://www.facebook.com/donate/679204386685133/?fundraiser_source=external_url

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