Department, Institution, and Financial Reports
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Delegate Handbook Volume 3 Ver October 6th, 2020 Department, Institution, and Financial Reports Diocese of the West Orthodox Church in America 2020 Diocesan Assembly October 14th, 2020 Meeting Courtesy of Zoom Conferencing 2020 DOW Assembly 1 Delegate Book 3 Version October 6th, 2020 This is the FINAL version of this document 2020 DOW Assembly 2 Delegate Book 3 Table of Contents Volume 3 DEPARTMENT REPORTS Charity Department ..............................................................................................................4 Communications Department ..............................................................................................5 Education .............................................................................................................................* Diaconal Vocations ..............................................................................................................* Liturgical Music Department ...............................................................................................* Metropolitan Council ...........................................................................................................6 Youth Ministry .....................................................................................................................* NOTE: * There Will Be No Education, Diaconal Vocations, Liturgical Music, or Youth Ministry Reports This Year INSTITUTION REPORTS Monastery of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco ......................................................12 Protection of the Holy Virgin Monastery ..........................................................................14 Our Lady of Kazan Skete ...................................................................................................15 St. Barbara Monastery .......................................................................................................16 Holy Assumption Monastery .............................................................................................18 St Peter Monastery .............................................................................................................23 The Church of the Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos ............................................................25 St Peter the Aleut (Lake Havasu City Property) ................................................................28 Parish Growth Over Past Five Years .................................................................................30 Parish Financial Life Reports.............................................................................................35 2020 DOW Assembly 3 Delegate Book 3 2020/21 Diocesan Assembly Department of Charities Report Archpriest Lawrence Russell August 20, 2020 The allocations that were authorized in the Charities line item within our Diocesan Budget during 2019/20 were presented to the Diocesan Finance Committee, reviewed by the Diocesan Council and adopted as part of our 2019/20 Diocesan Budget at last year’s Diocesan Assembly. Three charitable institutions are currently being supported by the diocesan funds on an annual basis. The three we propose to continue supporting in our 2020/21 Diocesan Budget are all providing services that are a matter of life and death for those who receive them: • Project Mexico (San Diego) assists homeless families and orphans. • The Gobezie-Goshu Home (Adwa, Ethiopia) is a dormitory that houses and feeds up to 60 destitute elderly on site, enrolls around 1,000 kindergarteners in private schools and feeds and cares for around 250 invalids living in the Tigray region of Ethiopia • St. Petersburg Children’s Hospice serves Russian children through providing medically staffed housing, and both urgent and palliative care to sick and terminal children. The funding for the budget of this department comes through the Stewards of the West. The department's approach has been to offer allocated diocesan funds to Orthodox institutions that have been historically related to our diocese, directly or indirectly. There is an additional $4,000.00 designated for discretionary use and made available after consideration of formal request. So far, to date, we have allocated 3k of the discretionary funds. They were used to help a priest with his wife’s funeral costs and to give back to a local hotel suffering loss of profits during the pandemic. The hotel has been a constant help to the diocese by providing very reasonable rates for those needing to stay over in S.F. for diocesan business. In addition to the yearly budget, we sponsor a diocese-wide, Lenten Appeal. This past Lent, His Grace, instructed us to raise additional funds for the St. Petersburg Hospice. The 2021 Lenten Appeal will support Project Mexico. The department has received requests for continued funding and proposes the following budget: Project Mexico $1,000.00 Gobezie-Goshu Home $1,000.00 St. Petersburg Hospice for children $500.00 Discretionary Fund $4,000.00 Budget Total $6,500.00 Respectfully Submitted by, Archpriest Lawrence Russell, Department Chair 2020 DOW Assembly 4 Delegate Book 3 REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS 2020 Diocesan Assembly of the West Archpriest John Dresko, Director of Communications Priest Stephen Osburn, Webmaster Diocesan Website: www.dowoca.org Diocesan Facebook Page Your Eminence, Your Grace, beloved brothers and sisters: Since the last assembly, Father Stephen Osburn has taken over as Diocesan Webmaster. Fr. Stephen, a talented web designer and IT tech, redesigned and maintains the diocesan website, ensuring that it is “responsive,” (i.e., looks good on all platforms) and has maintained and developed other social media platforms for the diocese. All content now goes to Fr. Stephen, who coordinates postings with the Director of Communications, Archpriest John Dresko, who remains in oversight as Web Content Editor. All content on all platforms will be reviewed and, if necessary, edited, before approval for posting. The changes have been dramatic and well received. The redesign of the website has brought a fresh, interactive look and feel to the site. It is easy to navigate and frequently updated. The pandemic has squelched some plans for more videos, etc., but we hope that with normalization of life, we can once again move ahead with plans. Of course, we still have the annual appeal: although we understand that activities are greatly curtailed in most of the diocese, please send articles, pictures, videos, anything that is going on in your parishes and deaneries. Send them to Fr. Stephen at: [email protected] Respectfully submitted, Archpriest John Dresko 2020 DOW Assembly 5 Delegate Book 3 FALL 2020 METROPOLITAN COUNCIL REPORT Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Metropolitan Council’s fall meeting was held in virtual meetings through the Zoom application over several days. The first meeting was on August 27, 2020. In attendance from the DOW were lay member David Lane and members at-large Fr. Kirill Sokolov and Lynnell Brunswig. His Beatitude in his opening remarks discussed the effects that the pandemic was having on the institutions and parishes. He had returned to the Chancery and had recently been able to make some visits for some events. He expressed that God will look after us and we will prevail from the effects of the pandemic. The treasurer, Andrew Smith, reported that the income basically come in as scheduled with only two Dioceses taking advantage of the deferral program previously approved by the MC. Some of the expenses were reduced primarily due to reduction in travel expenses. The current financial situation is positive. Mr. Smith then reported that an application had been made for the Payroll Protection Program funds and $194,720 had been received. An extensive discussion was started about whether to apply for forgiveness under that program but was tabled to the continued sessions, scheduled for September 16 and 17. The vacancy in the internal audit committee was filled by the appointment of Maha Adranly. The next report was from the property committee. They presented a proposal in accordance with the prior MC resolution regarding the chancery to list the property for sale with a specified realtor for $6,500,000 for a period of nine months. The resolution to do so was approved. There was a discussion about the possible ramifications of receiving an offer, how it was to be addressed, what would need to be done, etc. It was reported that the archives committee was involved and considering the various problems and possible solutions. The final report for this portion of the meeting was from Deacon Peter Ilchuk, the chair of the committee for the AAC. Due to the pandemic and situations in Baltimore the AAC next July was not considered to be viable and efforts had been made to find out what could be done if it was determined to be necessary to postpone it. If so they were trying to find out if it could be set for the latter part of July, 2022. However, earlier that day he had received a phone call from the hotel advising him that those dates were not available since they had been filled with conventions/meeting which had been cancelled from 2020. The committee is considering attempting to find another place, possibly in the DOW, to hold the AAC in July, 2022. However, there is a cancellation fee in excess of $160,000 which they are attempting to negotiate. A problem with this is that the hotel is owned by the City of Baltimore and operated by a Hilton franchisee so the cancellation fee will not be avoided by simply