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Home , Acheiropoieta, Feast of Orthodoxy

Sunday of March 21, 2021

THE THEOTOKIAN MARY’S ORTHODOX . 61 CANADA ROAD PAINTED POST, NY 14870. (A PARISH OF THE CARPATHO- OF NA ECUMENICAL

SCHEDULE OF SERVICES READING Sun Mar 21 9:30am Liturgy of St. Basil. Saint Paul’s Letter to the Sun. Of Orthodoxy Panachida Hebrews 11:24-12:2 mem of Anna Sovich Macura offered by daughter, Pani Joan SaintJohn 1:43-51 Wed Mar 24 5:00pm Liturgy of Presanctifed Gifts Tone 8 Liturgical Color:Purple Sat Mar 27 5:00pm Paracletice to the Mother of God

Contact Information Father Daniel Mahler Cell: 607.438.7339 Offce: 607.936.0689 [email protected]

CHURCH WEBSITE saintmarysorthodoxchurch corning.org

DIOCESAN WEBSiITE The of Holy Confession will be heard on Saturday ACROD.ORG 1:00-2:00pm, Sunday 8:45-9:15am or by calling Father @ WEARING OF MASKS 607.438.7339 to arrange a convenient time. Because of the elevation of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) in SPRING BAKE SALE! Steuben & Chemung The Altar Society is taking orders for their Spring Bake Counties Sale. They will be offering nut, apricot and raspberry WEARING OF FACE MASKS Kolachki cookies at $7.00 a dozen. MUST BE WORN AT ALL Please see Carole Herrlich or Diane Rodrigues to place TIMES IN THE BUILDING! Masks may be removed ONLY your order for Pascha before receiving Holy Communion!

1 Sunday of Orthodoxy March 21, 2021

EPISTLE READING

The reading is from Saint Paul’s 1st Letter to the Hebrews 11:24-40-12:2 Sunday of Orthodoxy

Brethren,

By faith , when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the feeting pleasures of sin.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fre, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign enemies to fight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. Others sufered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, aficted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

GOSPEL READING

The reading is from Saint John 1: 43-51. Sunday of Orthodoxy

Let us attend,

At that time, decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fg tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fg tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man,”

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PLEASE KEEP THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE IN YOUR PRAYERS:

His Eminence, Metropolitan Gregory; His Eminence, Metropolitan Antony; Protopresbyter Frank Miloro; Protopresbyter John Duranko; Protopresbyter Jim Dutko; Protopresbyter Luke Mihaly; Protopresbyter Lawrence Barriger; Protopresbyter Kenneth Bachofsky; Archpriest Marc Vranes; Archpriest Jason Kappanadze; Archpriest Thomas Edwards; Protopresbyter Michael Polanichka; V. Rev. Thomas Kadlek, Father Jonathan Tobias; Rev. James Gleason; V. Rev. Robert Lucas; Charles Ellis; Deacon Donald Koch; Pani Joan Mahler; Pani Connie Miloro; Pani Betty Jean Baranik; Pani Kathleen Dutko; Sally Ellis; Helen Verno; Eleanor Adzima; Michael & Delores Kundrat; Lyudmyla Hayova; Helen Coons; Michael Matzkevich; Marlene Wheet; Helen Molson; Nancy Murphy- Teed; Joyce Nissen; Gloria Ewsuk; Andrew Chudanic; Jeanne Zimmer; Sylvia Serdula; Carole & Gary Herrlich; Jean Cox; Dimitri Wallick; Andrew Havalchak; Basil Havalchak; Kathy Snearly-Mahr; Isaac Glosser; Rachel Corey; Robert Zobbi; Helen Nekelek; Julio Falcon; Mildred Sosonka; Shirley Scates; Donald & Dawn Covel; David Walk; Ken Crozier; Gregory Heath; Jean Hamar; Scott Hamar; Denise Topichak; Tracy Glass; Carol Bailey; John & Florence Medvitz; Joyce Merletti; George Ofcer; Katie (Kadlek) Kaitlynn Dillon; Thomas Cummings; Tillie Kaufman;

For all the First Responders, Medical Teams; Researchers and Scientists, for those with COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and for those who have died from it in this country and around the world and for those serving our country; Lucas, US Marine Corp; Jordan Worobey, US Navy; Jonathan Share, US Navy and for all of our Military personnel serving at home and around the world.

SHOE DRIVE

We are still accepting ‘old shoes’ in support of the Rainbow for Hope Animal Shelter. You may drop them of in the Church Vestibule when you come to Church on Sunday or tell Pani and she will set up a convenient time during the week for you to drop them of.

Memory Eternal

1944 +VASYL HAYOVA 2021

It is with great sadness that I announce the falling asleep in the Lord of +Vasyl Hayova in his home in the Ukraine this past Sunday. Vasyl, the beloved father of Natalia Hartmann (McKane) after a prolonged illness. Vasyl, is also survived by his loving and devoted wife Lyudmyla, his beloved grandchildren Katherine, Anna, Angelina & John McKane.

When visiting Natasha and their grandchildren, Vasyl and Lyudmyla became a part of our parish family as well.

We ofer our deepest condolences to the Hartman, McKane and Hayova families.

May his memory be eternal! Vichnaja jemu pamjat!

Father Dan

3 Sunday of Orthodoxy March 21, 2021

48 DAYS TO THE “GREAT DAY”

THE TRIUMPH OF ORTHODOXY

Tropar of the Holy (Tone 2):

We venerate Your most pure image, O Good One; and ask forgiveness for our transgressions, O Christ our God; for You of Your good will were pleased to ascend the Cross in the fesh, to deliver Your creatures from the bond of the enemy; therefore with thankfulness we cry aloud to You, O Saviour by Your coming to save the world, You have flled all with joy

Every time you enter the Church building, you are surrounded by the . Where else on earth can you pray with that experience? There is no other place. I read somewhere recently what a believer wrote: “I pray with icons because you become what you contemplate”.

Last year at a virtual Pani’ Retreat on October 10th, His Eminence, Metropolitan Gregory reminded our priests’ wives: “If you want to in Church undistracted, sit in the front where worship is on full display and the only thing you can see are the Saints in the icons. Don’t sit in the back of the church because every distraction possible can happen from there in that hour of worship”.

You have an opportunity this Lent to surround yourself with the Saints not only on Sundays, but several times at Lenten Services each week. Why would you eliminate their voices from your personal space this Lent? Listen to the Saints. They desperately want to tell you the secrets of a blessed life which can by yours.

Let the icons talk to you!

The whole earth is a living of the face of God”—St. (7th Century)

FORTY-EIGHT DAYS TO THE “GREAT DAY”

V. Rev. Protopresbyter Frank Miloro, Diocesan Chancellor

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TRIUMPH OF ORTHODOXY

The Feast of Orthodoxy (also known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy or the Triumph of Orthodoxy) is celebrated on the frst Sunday of the in the liturgical calendar of the and of the Eastern . The Feast is kept I memory of the fnal defeat of and the restoration of the icons to the churches.

Christian worship by the sixth century had developed a clear belief in the intercession saints. This belief was also infuenced by a concept of hierarchy of sanctity, with the at its pinnacle, followed by the Virgin Mary, referred to in Greek as the (“birth-giver of God” or Meter Theou (Mother of God”), the saints, living holy men, women, and spiritual elders, followed the rest of humanity. Thus, in order to obtain blessings or divine favour, early Christians, like Christians today, would often pray or ask an intermediary, such as the saints or the Theotokos, or living fellow Christians believed to be holy, to intercede on their behalf with Christ. A strong sacramentality and belief in the importance of physical presence also joined the belief in intercession of saints with the use of and holy images (or icons) in early Christian practices.

Believers would, therefore, make pilgrimages to places sanctifed by the physical presence of Christ or prominent saints and martyrs, such as the site of the Holy Sepulcher in . Relics, or holy objects (rather than places), which were a part of the claimed remains of, or had supposedly come into contact with, Christ, the Virgin or a saint, were also widely utilized in Christian practices at this time. Relics, a frmly embedded part of by this period, provided physical presence of the divine but were infnitely reproducible (an original was required), and still usually required believers to undertake pilgrimage or have contact with somebody who had,

The use and abuse of images had greatly increased during this period, and had generated a growing opposition among many in the church, although the progress and extent of these views is now unclear. Images in the form of and paintings were widely used in churches, homes and other places such as over city gates, and had since the reign of Justinian I been increasingly taking a spiritual signifcance of their own, and regarded at least in the popular mind as capable of possessing capacities in their own right, so that “the image acts or behaves as the subject itself is expected to act or behave. It makes known its wishes…It enacts evangelical teachings,…When attacked it bleeds,..(and) In some cases it defends itself against infdels with physical force.. . Key artifacts to blur this boundary emerged in c. 570 in the form of miraculously created acheiropoicta or “images not made by human hands”. These sacred images were a form of contact relic, which additionally were taken to prove divine approval of the use of icons. The two most famous were the Mandolin of (where it still remained) and the Image of from Cappadocia, by then in . The latter was already regarded as a palladium that had won battles and saved Constantinople from the Persian-Avar siege of 626, when the Patriarch paraded it around the walls of the city. Both were images of Christ, and at least in some versions of their stories supposedly made when Christ pressed a cloth to his face (compare with the later, wester and shroud). In other versions of the Mandylion’s story it joined a number of other images that were believed to have been painted from the life in the New Testament period by Saint Luke or other human painters, again demonstrating the support of Christ and the Virgin for icons, and the continuity of

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TRIUMPH OF ORTHODOXY

their use in since its start. G. E. Von Grunebaum has said “The iconoclasm of the eight and ninth centuries must be viewed as the climax of a movement that had its roots in the spirituality of the Christian concept of the divinity.

The events of the seventh century, which was a period of major crisis for the , formed a catalyst for the expansion of the use of images of the holy and caused a dramatic shift in responses to them. Whether the acheiropoieta was a symptom or cause, the late sixth to eighth centuries witnessed the increasing thinning of the boundary between images not made by human hands, and images made by human hands. Images of Christ, the Theotokos and saints increasingly came to be regarded, as relics, contact relics and acheiropoieta already there, as points of access to the divine. By praying before an image of a holy fgure, the believer’s prayers were magnifed by proximity of the holy. This change in practice seems to have been a major and organic development in Christian worship, which responded to the the needs of believers to have access to divine support during the insecurities of the seventh century. It was not a change orchestrated or controlled by the Church. Although the did not explicitly stat that images should be prayed too, it was a legitimate source of Church authority that stated images of Christ were acceptable as a consequence of his human incarnation. Because Jesus manifested himself as human it was acceptable to make images of him just like it was acceptable to make images of the saints and other humans. The events which have traditionally been labelled ‘’ many be seen as the eforts of the organized Church and the imperial authorities to respond to these changes and to try to reassert some institutional control over popular practice.

The goal of the iconoclasts was to restore the church to the strict opposition to images in worship that they believed characterized at the least some parts of the early church. Theologically, one aspect of the debate, as with most in Christian theology at the time, revolved around the natures of Jesus. Iconoclasts believed that icons could not represent both the divine and the human natures of the Messiah at the same time, but only separately. Because an icon which depicted Jesus as purely physical would be , and one which showed Him as both human and divine would not be able to do so without confusing the natures into one mixed nature, which was , all icons were thus heretical. Leo III did preach a series of sermons in which he drew attention to the excessive behavior of the iconodules, which Leo III stated was in direct opposition to Law as shown in the Second Commandment. However, no detailed writings setting out iconoclast arguments have survived, we have only brief quotations and references in the writings of the iconodules and the nature of Biblical law in Christianity has always been in dispute.

Excerpts taken from Wikipedia

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