His Eminence Metropolitan Jonah will visit St. Vladimir's Saturday and Sunday February 27 and 28 with the blessing of His Grace Bishop Peter, Administrator of our Diocese. Vigil on February 27 will begin at 5:00 p.m. with Divine Liturgy on February 28 at 9:00 a.m. Please make plans now to join us for the Divine Services and please stay after the Liturgy on Sunday for a banquet in the Metropolitan's honor at which he will give the inaugural lecture for our 2016 Great Lenten Lecture Series. We look forward in your participation in what is sure to be a great weekend at St. Vladimir's!

Flier about the Metropolitan's visit to share:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/bishopvisitsflyer.pdf

As we prepare for our annual meeting on March 6 is it important that those who have not yet paid their 2015 membership dues in fact do this to participate in the meeting. And given our membership dues are not too much ($55/year for a working adult and $27.50 for non working adults) why not just take care of 2016 now too? By joining St. Vladimir's you show your visible support of the parish which nourishes you and your family spiritually. We all hope the parish will be there when we need it (for marriages, funerals, baptisms, etc.). By joining the parish we support it both spiritually and financially. To renew your membership or to become a new member, please contact one of our membership coordinators: Vasiliy Krivtsov (vasiliy.krivtsov@gmail.com or 734-669-8712) or Dmitry Knysh (dmitriknysh@hotmail.com or 734-358-5996) or Konstantin Poplavsky (734-944-4087 or 419-344-2071). We cordially invite you to join our parish family!

Please find our membership form here – you can just fill this out and return to one of the membership coordinators:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/membershipform.pdf

Getting ready for camp! Seems too early right? HARDLY! We want our kids to be REALLY ready - to prepare themselves well so they can pass the tests and receive awards at camp. By preparing now we hope to have our kids in the best position to shine this summer! And these meetings give some of our senior campers the opportunity to exhibit leadership by organizing these educational meetings. Please join us!

More information/RSVP:

http://goo.gl/forms/d25xqIFDdg

We would like to keep the parish church open daily at certain set hours. Perhaps something like 4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. daily. This would allow everyone to know for certain that at least during that time they could come and pray, light candles, and otherwise seek the solace that can only be found in God's house. But we need volunteers to help us with this project. Could you help? Would you be willing to commit to being at the church at a set time weekly? Most certainly the volunteers will also benefit from this service to their fellow believers and a little more time spent in church each week. Please contact Fr. Gregory if you can help, and with suggestions about the best time for the church to be open. This is an important missionary activity - please help if you can!

Each year following the feast of the Theophany (the Lord’s Baptism – January 19) it is a traditional and pious custom to have one’s home blessed by the priest. Homes are blessed at St. Vladimir’s until the beginning of Great Lent. Please consult the link below to see the times available for house blessings. Please contact Fr. Gregory to schedule a house blessing or if the times listed do not work for you. If you live far from St. Vladimir’s please consult with those other parishioners of St. Vladimir’s who live near you so that you can all have your homes blessed on the same evening. Congratulations to all with the feast of our Lord’s Baptism!

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/houseblessing2016.pdf

All St. Vladimir's adult parishioners are cordially invited to participate in “Bible Basics for the Orthodox Christian” - an adult retreat at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Ann Arbor on February 27, 2016. There is no cost for the retreat, but in order to plan the folks at St. Nicholas ask that those who will participate register on their web site. You can find more information about the retreat and register at this link:

http://www.stnickaa.org/homepage-elemen ... us-retreat

The date of the 2015 Annual Parish Assembly has been set for March 6, 2016. To participate in the meeting via voting or running for parish office one must be a member of the parish. To become a member of our parish please contact one of our membership coordinators: Vasiliy Krivtsov (vasiliy.krivtsov@gmail.com or 734-669-8712) or Dmitry Knysh (dmitriknysh@hotmail.com or 734-358-5996). We cordially invite you to join our parish family!

The letter calling the meeting, the agenda, and the addendum to the agenda can be found at the link below:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/annualmeeting2016.pdf

We ask all to review this information before the meeting. We look forward to seeing you on March 6!

P.S. Please note - our Sisterhood's annual Blini Dinner will also be on March 6. Please join us for blini and our annual meeting!

John Hill has done a great job coordinating our parish recycling, but he has asked that this opportunity be open to others. And that is fair. None of our parish volunteer opportunities are lifetime appointments. :) It is important that the Orthodox Church exhibit appropriate use of the limited resources that the Lord has blessed us with. Recycling is one of those things that we need to model well. And we need someone (or maybe two folks) to help make sure that we are recycling and reusing the resources we can at St. Vladimir's. Please see Fr. Gregory if you can help!

Last year we had a small committee help Fr. Gregory and Nathan plan our St. Vladimir's day festivities. That worked very well! This year is our 35th anniversary as a parish and we'd like to form another smallish committee to help plan. We will have a lot of guests this year, including at least one bishop visiting from Russia with Bishop Peter's blessing (of course Vladyka Peter will be here too!). Please contact Fr. Gregory or Nathan if you can help. We would like to form the committee before Great Lent, which begins on March 14.

Please join us for Divine Services for the feast of the Three Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom. As a parish with many people engaged in intellectual pursuits these three saints - the most brilliant thinkers of their times who used their education for the glory of God - are important examples for us! Vigil is February 11 at 6:00 p.m. with Divine Liturgy at 8:00 a.m. on February 12. Please join us as your personal schedule allows!