PRESENTATION OF CHRIST GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH CURRENT JANUARY 2021 Dear Parish Family, The past month was an eventful one for our community. We saw the continuation of our usual outreach programs. We decorated our Church grounds for Christmas so that we could shine the Light of Christ even more brightly. We moved our Church School and Adult Education programs to an on-line format so that we could continue to grow in our faith. We held our second annual gift-drive for “Beverly’s Birthdays.” Finally, we expanded our outreach efforts to include an Angel Tree for the children who live on Electric Avenue. I list these events not to boast, although, by the Grace of God, our community has accomplished much in the last year. Rather, I do so to illustrate how much God can do through us when we choose to prioritize using our time, talent, and treasure for His Church. As we enter the calendar year 2021, there will be much talk of resolutions. Some of us will join a gym. Others will resolve to reassess our finances. It is a good thing to put our lives in order. But let us not forget the momentum we have built as a church community. In 2021, I invite all of us to prioritize using our time to safely be together at Church. Then, let us pray that God will continue to use our worship, ministries, and other gatherings unto His Glory and the building up of the Body of Christ. See you at Church! Fr. Dean A Note from President and Stewardship Chairman Steve Markantone Let It Go!! To Grow!! Happy New Year! 2020 brought challenges to each of us and as we start the New Year, it is important that we reflect on how far we have come. Reflecting allows us to acknowledge the struggles and hardships that the year has given us and provides us with the opportunity to let go of what no longer serves us. It is important that we learn from the past, but not get trapped in the past; reflecting on how as a community we were able to come together to still put on an amazing food festival and by how many sandwiches our parish was able to provide for the homeless. It was also a year with challenges of staying home and being more separate. We have become creative in ways to stay together as a community. I am so humbled by how many people attend church on Sundays in person or via online. This has demonstrated yet again the strength of Ypapanti. This is a new year with new opportunities and experiences awaiting us. We cannot change the past only the future. Throughout our lives everyone experiences setbacks and conflict. How we choose to deal with these setbacks and conflicts is up to us. It is important that we do not let our anger and desire to settle the score consume our lives. Most of the time when we are plotting to even the score the negativity only affects us. When we are focused on someone else we are not focusing on ourselves and what we can do to improve ourselves. I read this interesting fable which really hits home. I do not know the author but wanted to share it. There was a snake that crawled over a saw and was cut. In anger the snake wrapped the saw with its thick body and proceeded to squeeze the life out of the saw. With each angry squeeze it felt more pain but continued because it was not going to let this saw get away with the pain it caused. The snake, refusing to let go of the saw, eventually died; not knowing the whole time, it needed to let go of the initial pain and focus on the future and where it was going. Instead the snake unfortunately, lost its life and did not even see it coming. Control your anger, forgive those that hurt you, and do not give people or things power over you. It will ultimately kill you. I am excited to see what the New Year will bring with the lessons of this year being patience and understanding. Best wishes for the new year and may we continue to learn together. Photos! Thank you to all who donated to our Angel Tree! Beverly’s Birthdays was a success! Thank you to everyone who decorated the church! Join us for the Services for The Feast of Theophany Tuesday, January 5 9:00 AM Royal Hours of Theophany Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil with Great Blessing of Water 5:30 PM Wednesday, January 6 Feast of Theophany 8:30 AM Matins 9:30 AM Divine Liturgy with Great Blessing of Water ALL SERVICES ARE AVAILABLE TO WATCH ON It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3! No Facebook account necessary! Visit www.facebook.com/ PresentationOfChrist If you do not already have a FB account, select “Decline” when prompted to create a new account Scroll down the page to the live video feed A Good Word—Λόγον Αγαθόν Monthly Newsletter of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh Volume 4 No. 1 (Issue 31) — January 2021 Longing for Christ and for One Another Archpastoral Message for Christmas 2020 It seems appropriate that, maybe more than ever before, we are longing for celebrations – Christmas and New Year’s among them. We are longing for the feast as we know it (or have romanticized it in our minds) and not the version that we seem to have received in 2020. We are longing for family and friends, coworkers and customers, safety and health and goodness. The world was longing for its Savior, suffering under the consequences of humanity's sin, when the Lord chose to become human. His response to our longing was to enter the world, taking on our nature, loving us intimately, suffering for us, and liberating us. For He, too, longs for us - to throw off the shackles of our corruption and slavery to sin, and to find the promised life with Him in eternity. At Christmas we celebrated the initiation of the plan to fulfill our longing with His presence, His grace, and His transformative love. While following His Nativity there were still years of difficulty, work, and suffering, it was all bearable because of the ultimate purpose - our Salvation, which was assured by His Incarnation. His acts of self-sacrificial love gave true satisfaction to our longing and showed us a path beyond the suffering of this life to the place for which we truly yearned. We are called, in imitation, to see the longing in our fellow human beings - longing for joy in place of fear or sorrow or distress, longing for love in place of indifference or hatred - and to meet that longing with His love and our faith. While the days of difficulty are not over, and we still have a period of physical separation and work and sacrifice ahead, we must take the strongest lesson of the pandemic - that we desperately long for Christ and for one another - and find a way to meet that longing with His compassionate grace. Like He did, we must show mercy, reach out, excel in charity, and put others before ourselves. And when we're met with their fear, distress, sorrow, or anger, to respond with the love that is longed for at the deepest level - a love that counts not the wrongs, but sees the inherent dignity in each person. The dignity that Christ came to redeem and restore through His Nativity. Christ is Born! Support His Eminence and the Metropolis Ministries It costs approximately $1,000 per day to operate our Metropolis—including Metropolitan Savas’s pastoral visitations, preparations for Summer Camp and GOYA retreats, our vital registry (tracking marriages, baptisms, chrismations, and deaths), and more. Please consider sponsoring a day in the life of the Metropolis. To contribute, visit https://pittsburgh.goarch.org/support Serving the Least Among Us The Gospel commands us to “…feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit the imprisoned…” (Matt. 25:35-36). Below is a sample of the Outreach work done in the parishes of our Metropolis (to account for all such good works would require far more space than is available here): St. John the Divine, Wheeling, WV – Its “Open Door” food- Annunciation, Akron, OH - Timely and compelling medical kitchen remains a staple in the Centre-Wheeling neighborhood information about COVID-19 was shared by Holy where visitors receive a hot meal, drink, and dessert and a two to Unmercenaries Medical Society (HUMS) – which includes three day supply of groceries experts in infectious disease. They presented necessary information, vaccine news, and actionable steps. Holy Cross, Pittsburgh PA – The parish’s Agape Fund recently donated $50,000 to the “Neighborhood Resilience St. Nicholas, Bethlehem, PA - The #FeastDayRundown is the Project” (NRP) in the “Hill District” to help furnish the free work of the parish GOYAns. They research a saint or feast and clinic being constructed at its new headquarters with Fr. Alexey and parishioner help, create one-minute video about the day. See them all at www.instagram.org/ Kimissis Tis Theotokou, Alliquipa, PA – The parish held its 4th feastdayrundown annual Thanksgiving food drive to provide turkeys and complete dinner boxes filled with non-parishable goods to 250 families (or Transfiguration Mission, Lititz, PA – The parish supports the more than 760+ individuals). residents of the Gatehouse Recovery for Men with stockings and gift bags (with cards for Christmas) containing personal care St.