Honors
Michael Falzon

On the occasion of his retirement
And many years of dedicated service

Saturday, February 25, 2012

American Serbian Memorial Hall
19940 Van Dyke
Detroit, Mi. 48234

$35.00 Per Person

Dinner, Dancing and Program

Advance tickets ONLY

Cash Bar

Doors Open 6:30 Dinner 7:30

Commemorative Booklet

$20.00 Per Message

Text only, no logo or ad space available

For more information contact

St. Lazarus office at
313-893-6025 or
churchoffice@ravanica.org

Make checks payable to
St. Lazarus Serbian Orthodox Cathedral

Banquet R.S.V.P

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Sunday,
February 12, 2012

at 1:00 pm in the Church Hall

An old story from 4 years ago, and becoming more and more true every day!

Greg Mencotti worried he would never find a spiritual home.

The Sunday school teacher grew up Roman Catholic, lost his faith and became an atheist. Eventually, he returned to Christianity, this time as a born-again Christian, spending years worshipping in a Methodist congregation. Still, he felt his search wasn’t over.

That led him to the Holy Spirit Antiochian Orthodox Church in Huntington, W. Va., a denomination with Mideast roots that, like all Orthodox groups, traces its origins to the earliest days of Christianity.

Today, Mencotti is one of about 250 million Orthodox believers worldwide — and among a significant number of newcomers attracted to this ancient way of worship. The trend is especially notable since so few in the United States know about the Orthodox churches here.

“I was like most Americans,”

said Mencotti, who was urged by his wife to explore Orthodox worship.

“I didn’t understand anything about Orthodoxy.”

Orthodoxy was born from the Great Schism of 1054, when feuds over papal authority and differences in the liturgy split Christianity into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox halves.

In the United States, Orthodox Christians are a fraction of religious believers, numbering about 1.2 million, according to estimates by Orthodox researchers.

In the past, their growth had been largely fueled by immigration, with churches forming mainly along ethnic lines. Some converts came to Orthodoxy through marriage to a church member.

But now about one-third of all U.S. Orthodox priests are converts — and that number is likely to grow, according to Alexei D. Krindatch, research director at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, Calif.

A 2006 survey of the four Orthodox seminaries in the country found that about 43% of seminarians are converts,

Krindatch said.

There are no exact figures on the rate of conversion across the 22 separate U.S. Orthodox jurisdictions. But when Mencotti began attending Orthodox worship, the church was packed with converts, including the church’s pastor, the Rev. John Dixon.

The Rev. John Matusiak, pastor of St. Joseph Church in Wheaton, Ill., part of the Orthodox Church in America, said his parish has grown from 20 people in the early 1990s to more than 600 today, with the overwhelming majority of new members younger than 40.

Krindatch’s research found that one-third of the more than 200 U.S. parishes in the Antiochian Orthodox Church were founded after 1990.

Matusiak said growth is especially apparent in suburbs and commuter towns.

“People in Wheaton weren’t flocking to Orthodoxy, because there was never a church here,” Matusiak said.

Many converts credit the beauty of the liturgy and the durability of the theology, which can be a comfort to those seeking shelter from divisive battles over biblical interpretation in other Christian traditions.

Dixon, who was raised an Old Regular Baptist, an austere faith of the Southern Appalachians, said his conversion grew from his studies about the origins of Christianity as an undergraduate at Marshall University. The turning point came when he first attended services at an Orthodox church.

“As soon as I came in that day,” he says, “I knew I was home.”

Convert-fueled growth, though, has its challenges.

Like converts in all faiths, the newly Orthodox bring a zeal that can be unsettling for those born into the church, who tend to be more easygoing in their religious observance. Parishes run the risk of dividing between new and lifelong parishioners,

Krindatch says.

“Converts to Orthodoxy form their own little quasi-seminary and it’s almost a closed group,”

says the Rev. Joseph Huneycutt, associate pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston, who was raised Southern Baptist then became Orthodox.

And some worry about converts’ impact on the churches. They are entering the parishes at a time when many lay activists across Orthodox denominations are pushing church leaders to let go of ethnic divisions and pool resources so they can better evangelize in the United States.

Huneycutt, author of One Flew Over the Onion Dome, a book about conversion, and the editor of OrthoDixie, a blog about Orthodoxy in the South, said he was drawn to the faith by the beauty of its rituals and its teachings.

On his first visit, he said the church was filled with the smell of incense and the sound of the chanted Divine Liturgy. The altar was largely concealed by the iconostasis, a large screen or wall hung with icons of Christ, Mary, angels and Apostles. And worshippers received Communion from a chalice and spoon.

“I had become convinced that the Eucharist was the center of Christian worship — ancient Christian worship,”

Huneycutt says.

“Once I had reached that point in my personal walk with Christ, there was no going back.”

Source

© 2011, Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian ‘Welcome Home’ Network for Converts. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post. Thank you and may God richly bless you.

Read more: More Americans Join the Orthodox Christian Church : Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian ‘Welcome Home’ Network for Converts

Our Church is in great need of professional cleaning.  We have quoted several companies for the job and have a good idea of the cost.  Over the next few months, the Serbian Sisters of Ravanica will be sponsoring fundraisers and collecting donations to fund the cleaning of our church.  The first fundraiser will be a fashion show scheduled for April 29, 2012.  Please support us in our effort to restore our Cathedral to its original pristine beauty.

Ravanica Valentine’s Day Youth Dance:  The Serbian Sisters will be hosting another dance Friday, February 10, 2012.

Donation envelopes for 2012 are available in the Church Office.  Please pick yours up when you come to Church on Sunday.  New numbers were assigned so be sure to look for your name and address on the box.  We have envelopes for everyone who has completed a Stewardship Commitment Form for 2012.  If you will not be submitting a Commitment form for 2012 but would like donation envelopes, please call Sheryl in the office at
313-893-6025.

Thank you for your support of our Church.

Sunday January 8 at 10am is Church School as usual. This week all classrooms are learning about who St. Sava was and the importance of this holiday. We will be doing art work to be displayed at the Sveti Sava Program. After lunch we will be handing out Deklamacija/Poems to all grades. Please attend, we will start rehearsing the poems during cultural time.  We will be also rehearsing the 4 new songs we are learning for Sveti Sava & kolo dancing.

Letter reassigning Fr Rade

The Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America has posted a news briefing about our conversion to Stewardship on their website. You can see it at www.serborth.org/12212011a.html.

You will be receiving your 2012 donation envelopes near the end of January. The Church will be updating our record keeping system and new numbers will be assigned. Parishioners in good standing who have submitted their 2012 Stewardship Commitment Forms will automatically receive new envelopes. If you will not be submitting a Commitment Form, but would like to receive your 2012 envelopes, please contact Sheryl in the Church office. The phone number is 313-893-6025.

There will be blank envelopes available at the candle stand and in the pews for you to use until your new printed envelopes arrive. Simply print your name on the envelope and it will be credited towards your 2012 Stewardship Commitment. Thank you for your generosity and support of our Church.

Also, thanks to everyone who helped plan and execute our Sveti Nikola program…it was great and the kids had a wonderful time!

As we near our Christmas, the day we celebrate the nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. In this event God the Father fulfilled his promise that He would send His only begotten son to save the world from sin and certain death. Of this the Apostle Paul wrote in his epistle,” But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba’ Father. (Gal4:46)

Through nativity of Christ the savior, the Son of God, God Himself satisfied His promise to bring peace between heaven and earth. Peace was now established with
mankind and their Father and Creator. In order for this to be accomplished a pure and blessed virgin became a mediatrix in that the birth of the Son of God would be in itself pure and without sin. This was done so as to cleanse the sin and impurity of the first women the ancestral mother Eve, through whom sin was wrought. Furthermore through the blessed Birthgiver of God a bridge was established between heaven and earth and between God and man. We Orthodox Serbians are a nation of saints and martyrs of the Church of Christ. This has been our eternal calling. It is with this faith that we await and anticipate our holy Christian Orthodox Feast of the Nativity glorifying God by singing the victorious Christmas Tropar (theme): Your birth, O Christ our God Has shed upon the world the light of knowledge; For through it, those who worship the stars Have learned from a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice
And to recognize You as the Orient From On High. Glory be to You, O Lord

DIVINE PEACE – CHRIST IS BORN
A JOYFULL AND BLESSED NEW YEAR IN
2012
YOUR PRIESTS
FR. ZIVAN UROSEV
FR. RADOMIR OBSENICA

Divine Liturgy at 9:00 a.m.
COMPLINE with the blessing of the five breads at 6. pm
procession with the Badnjak followed by the
Lenten supper at 7:3O pm