the Archangel Orthodox Church 146 Third Avenue, Rankin, PA 15104 Pastor: Very Reverend Nicholas Ferencz, PhD Cantor: Professor Jerry Jumba Parish President : Carole Bushak

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever! Slava Isusu Christu! Slava vo v’iki!

Rectory Phone: 412 271-2725. E-mail: [email protected] Hall Phone: 412-294-7952 WEB: www.stmichaelsrankin.org

AUGUST 9, 2020 9TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Sun., Aug. 9 9th Sunday after Pentecost. Great- and Unmercenary Healer Panteleimon. Archbishop Clement of Ochrid and companions. 9:00 AM Divine Liturgy – Tone 8, pp 117–119 Panachida: Michael Sovic (15 years), and Sovic and Skerly families

Sun., Aug. 16 10th Sunday after Pentecost. Myrrh-bearer Salome. Monks , Dalmatus & Faustus 9:00 AM Divine Liturgy – Tone 1, pp 95–99 2nd Special Collection to support the Monastic Community of in Saxonburg, PA. Panachida: Edward Phillips by wife Millie and family. Also Ingelido – 40 Day Memorial. Also, George Costianes (23 years) by daughter Paòi Joanna

Holy Mystery of Confession: I will be available for Confessions after the Divine Liturgy, when the church is more private. Or, you can make an appointment and we will arrange an appropriate time. Please just contact me. PEOPLE STUFF Prayer List: Deceased: Michael Kondolian. Jacob Ingelido. Patty Watson. George Nedelkov. Living: Father George Livanos. Father Patrick. Dana Andrade. Gloria Andrade. Gregory Michael Aurilio. Georgia B. Chastity and Jeff Bache. Brandon. Walter Bolbat. Donald Bodnar. Jaime Budesa. Barbara Chappie. Barbara and Steve Bournius. Nicholas Burkhart. Rebecca, & Bradley Cozad. Mary Ann Crouse. Martha Danchak. Nicholas Duranko. George & Margaret Dorogy. Breanne Glass. Dorothy Glass. Eddie Gombos. Jennifer Hartrick. Hlavac. George Hrabchak. Raymond Hrabchak. Shirley Hrubic. Zhensan Huang. Kevin and Karen Ianni. Gary Ingelido. Andrea Kerkentzes. Jeanne Lesko. Bobby Malackany. Marina. Joan Martell. Sharon Mascilak. Bill and Barbara McCauley. Ed McCreanor. Jake McLaughlin. Helen Mihalik. Teresa Onuska. Frank Palmieri. Diane Phillips. Millie Phillips. Robert Petro. Anna Senich. Bernice Siudak. Terry Slezak. Milton and Thelma Supak. Diana Terezis. Bobby and Dee Triffanoff. Josh Walendziewicz. Paul & Valerie Yednak. Edward Yoon. Jim Zajac. Prosphora Bakers: Trudy Trifanoff. Delores Cubakovic and their intentions. Also: Chase Vlad, Gianna Vlad, Laura, Sharita, all First-Responders, and all who are working in the Health and Medical Fields during this time of crisis. May God bless all those born in August! Patty Novotnak 8/1. Ken Sutton 8/11. Tina Mazza 8/12. Dee Triffanoff 8/20. Na mnohaja i blahaja l’ita!

Page 1 of 4 May God bless all who are celebrating their wedding anniversary in August! Dennis and Janet Baran 8/11. Fr. Our Gifts to God and our Church Nik and Paòi Joanna 8/18. Bill and Patty Novotnak 8/26. Na August 2, 2020 mnohaja i blahaja l’ita! Attendance 21 Communions 7 Collections F(E)ASTING Monthly 55.00 Upcoming Fast: The Dormition Fast begins Friday, August Sunday 1362.00 14 and goes through Thursday, August 27. Given the Feast of St. Elias 95.00 circumstances of today, as we all continue to cope with All Votive Candles 154.00 everything the Covid pandemic has brought us, this may be Building Maintenance 73.00 an especially timely opportunity to re-connect with our Diocesan Membership 160.00 spiritual life. Major Building Repairs 60.00 Total Offerings: 1959.00 The traditional fast requires a Strict Fast (no meat, dairy, wine or oil) for those fourteen days, with these exceptions: Update: Building and Repairs Donations the fast is mitigated (lessened) on Saturdays. There is no fast which are available for upcoming repairs to on Sundays or on the Feast of the Transfiguration (Aug. date are $4262! God bless your generosity! 6/19). Diocesan rules require only the usual fast from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. New! Schedule Change: This fall we will be celebrating weekday Divine Liturgies at 8:30 AM instead of 9:00 AM. See you sooner rather than later! Upcoming Feast Days: Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord on Mount Tabor on Wed., August 19/6. Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 8:30 AM. Blessing of the First-Fruits of the Harvest: All are encouraged to bring a basket of 1st Fruits (and Veggies) from your garden (even if your garden is ‘The Market District’). We will bless baskets at the end of the Divine Liturgy in the church. We will also bless grapes that day, the “fruit of the vine” from which we make the wine that becomes Our Lord’s own most precious offering - his Holy Blood. FRI., AUGUST 28 – FEAST OF THE DORMITION OF HOLY MARY . On this day we celebrate the death of our most holy Mother. After her death, her Son took her both body and soul into heaven to dwell with Him forever. This is a preview of our own bodily resurrection at the end of the world. Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 8:30 AM. Blessing of Herbs and Flowers: On this day, we bless flowers and herbs, in remembrance of the events which gave witness to Her miraculous assumption. All are encouraged to bring a bouquet or herbs to church to be blessed on this day.

PARISH STUFF New Update! Building and Repairs Donations which are available for upcoming repairs to date are $4262! God bless your generosity! New! Summary of The Semi-Annual Parish Meeting held last week. ! Fr. Nik, President Carole Bushak and all of the parish officers thanked and praised all of our parishioners for your ongoing concern for and support of our parish. Our parish income for the first 6 months of this year is almost the same as it was for 2019, even though many (maybe most) of us have not been able to attend Church services because of the pandemic. God bless us and our parish!

Page 2 of 4 ! Carole especially acknowledged the contributions of Jim Zajac, who has single-handedly been taking care of the grass and hedge-trimming; Anna Zamule, Christina Duranko and Valerie Gaydos, who have worked very hard to beautify the gardens in the front of the church. What an outstanding these folks have done! Many years! ! The Altar Society and the Sunday School Association each gave a brief report on their current financial balances. At the present time, of course, both groups are in hiatus, prepared to start up again when needed. Meanwhile, each group’s bank accounts have no activity because the groups do not have any activity. You probably know that when a bank account goes dormant, the bank begins to charge the account for upkeep. All we need to keep the accounts active is to show a deposit about every month-ish. The deposit does not have to be large: $5 does the trick. If anyone would be willing to occasionally donate a little to either bank account, please put your donation in an envelope, marking it clearly as to its purpose, and drop it in the Sunday basket. Thanks! ! Gutter and flashing repairs! We have finally received two bids for the gutter work on the church. The job was awarded to Likar Roofing for a total cost of $11,760. Some questions were raised during the discussion, and we were able to get answers quickly, so here they are: " The job will not be scheduled until Spring 2021. There was a possibility that they could begin after Thanksgiving, but we asked them to just wait until Spring. " We approached Bob Likar, owner of Likar Roofing, about the work he proposes to seal the flashing problems we are having. We wanted to make sure that his work on the flashing would do the job needed, even if it would cost a little more. Bob assures us that he is satisfied with the work as proposed, and feels confident that it will fix our flashing problems. " We are again going to approach Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation for a grant to help cover the cost of the work. We now should have all the requirements for the application (the big hold-up last year was the lack of bids), and plan to submit our application some time after September 1. The awards are made in the first week of December. At the parish meeting, some folks wondered if it was worth our while to do this, or if we were going to be only one of a thousand applicants, chasing after only a few grants. We spoke with Dave Farkas who directs this grant program, and he assures us that the Foundation does everything it can to make as many awards as possible. He told us that last year the Foundation was able to cover every grant request they received, and the previous year virtually all requests were awarded at least a major portion of their request. While he cannot guarantee that this will be the case this year, considering the effects of the pandemic, he highly encourages us to apply for the grant, so we will. ! Kitchen Cleaning, Scraping and Painting. Anyone who has walked into the hall kitchen over the past how many years knows that it really needs a paint job. The prep for the job will be more work than the actual painting, as we have to scrub the grease off the paint, and scrape and clean what is peeling. Knowing how much fun such work is going to be, we are asking for help getting this job done. If you are willing to help out, please contact Christina Duranko, who is coordinating the project. ! Hall Lighting. Many folks in our parish know that Irv Lieberman has been working for a number of years to keep our hall lighting fixtures (most of which are older than dirt) in repair and functioning. Now he has discovered a new way to fix the lighting without having to replace the fixtures. The short version is that he is now able to rewire the fixtures to accept a type of halogen lamp instead of the old flourescent bulbs, and there are no ballasts to go bad. This repair should hold us for the forseeable future. While Irv and Lois donated the first ten bulbs already installed (besides the work Irv is doint), we needed to cover the cost of the rest of them, at about $15 each. Janet Alm and Elsie Ingelido decided to donate the rest of the bulbs for the hall lighting. God bless!

Page 3 of 4 ! Calendar of Events. Because of the pandemic, we had to talk seriously about our fall calendar of events. " Deanery Events: At a Deanery meeting of the clergy this past week, we determined the following: - The September Deanery Picnic is canceled. - The St. Nicholas Charity Dinner is probably canceled, although we are holding on for a little while, hoping against hope to hold it. - Most of the deanery parishes are either canceling their fund-raising events this fall, or seriously cutting back on them. We will publish the events as they happen (or don’t happen) here in the bulletin. " St. Michael’s Feast Day Dinner. After a lively discussion, the parish voted with great reluctance to cancel the Feast Day Celebration this year. " Bazaar. Again after a long discussion, the parish voted to cancel the Bazaar this year also. At issue were not only the possible difficulty of getting anyone to come, but also preparing the food in close quarters, and serving and working the Bazaar without any realistic ability to conform to anti-Covid protocols. The risk to the health of our parishioners and to anyone else was deemed too great to take the chance. " However! We also discussed ways that we may be able to make up for the lost income from the Bazaar, which has been contributing between $4000 and $5000 towards parish expenses for the past few years. Here are a couple of ideas that we are going to pursue: - The Lottery Lottery, which is the biggest money maker of the Bazaar, will be held again this fall. - Sub Sale. Jeanne Zajac has initiated a Sub Sale Fundraiser, using the Triangle Bar and Grill in Swissvale as the supplier. They are conforming to all the known anti-Covid protocols to ensure that their food is safe. We are going to see how this first sale works out, and take it from there. - The No-Bazaar Bazaar. Brought up at the meeting was the fact that to make the Bazaar a success, we as a parish have donated the stuff we sell, especially the food, baked goods, baskets, etc., as well as donating funds to help cover the cost of the Bazaar. Then, our parishioners donate their time, making the food, baskets, baked goods, etc. Then, on the day of the Bazaar, we all go and buy the food, the basket tickets, baked goods, etc. # SO, we thought that this year, maybe we all can just add up all of those donations and donate the money directly to our New (temporary, hopefully one-time shot) No-Bazaar Bazaar Fund Raiser. We will have more on this later, including envelopes to make your donation. " Finally, we thank everyone for participating in the meeting, offering new ideas and thoughts about taking care of our parish. Also we thank all of our parishioners who have given so much to our Church and our Community! - May the Lord God bless us and keep us. May He cause his countenance to shine upon us, and may He give us peace! A Covid Reminder! Be safe! Take care of yourselves and others around you! Pray for all of us who are affected, whether a lot or a little, by this pandemic. May the Lord God deliver us soon! Reminder! Hospital and home visits: Call me if you have questions. DIOCESE, DEANERY AND ADDITIONAL STUFF Reminder! Diocesan Orthodox Charity Initiative: We will have a 2nd, Special Collection, on Sunday, August 16 to support the Monastic Community of Nuns in Saxonburg, PA.. There will be another basket in the vestibule which will be labeled for the Monastery. (I know, the vestibule is starting to get crowded with the baskets, but they do seem to work well). Our Dean, Fr. Joe Fester, has contacted the nuns there and will be purchasing the supplies they requested using all of the Deanery donations. Thanks again for your support for our monastic communities!

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