We present here a short educational offering for both children and adults. Parents are asked to review the children’s portion with their children. It is very important for us to attend the Divine Services on Sundays and whenever else we are able, but in addition it is our spiritual responsibility to educate ourselves and our families in the faith. It is our hope that this mid-week offering will be an aid in this regard. Please contact Fr. Gregory with questions or suggestions.

For Adults: an explanation of the Sunday's gospel reading by Blessed Theophylact:

http://chrysostompress.org/c_first_lent.html

For children, from the Antiochian Archdiocese (various age groups):

http://www.antiochian.org/sites/default ... 3-05-b.pdf

We present here a short educational offering for both children and adults. Parents are asked to review the children’s portion with their children. It is very important for us to attend the Divine Services on Sundays and whenever else we are able, but in addition it is our spiritual responsibility to educate ourselves and our families in the faith. It is our hope that this mid-week offering will be an aid in this regard. Please contact Fr. Gregory with questions or suggestions.

For Adults: an explanation of the Sunday's gospel reading by Blessed Theophylact:

http://chrysostompress.org/c_forgiveness_sunday.html

For children, from the Antiochian Archdiocese (various age groups):

http://www.antiochian.org/sites/default ... 2-26-b.pdf

The schedule of Divine Services for March can be found at this link:

http://www.stvladimiraami.org/calendars ... lendar.pdf

Please join us as your personal schedule allows!

Please join us for our monthly cycle of all English Divine Services this Friday at 6:00 p.m. and Saturday at 8:00 a.m. All are welcome! Invite friends, loved ones, neighbors, co-workers, everyone! This is a missionary effort to bring new people to the faith - please help us by spreading the word!

Flyer to share:

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

On Sunday, February 19, 2017 we held our parish annual assembly. Thank you to all who made the meeting informative, interesting, and positive! Minutes of the meeting will be available on our web site once they have been completed by the editing committee – sometime during the first week of Great Lent. We can say that the folks listed were elected to parish offices at yesterday's meeting and, once they have been ratified by Archbishop Peter, will officially take on their duties. All parish elected offices have a term of one year, except Starosta, which has a three year term.

Thank you to all who served last year and to those who are willing to serve this year! We will have a parish special meeting shortly after Pascha to elect two more trustees to the Parish Council, one more member of the Auditing Committee, and to hear the Church School report.

Starosta (term runs through 2019): Jack (Alexey) Mitchell

Treasurer: Marina Edwards

Secretary: Alexandre Alexandrov

Parish Council Trustees:

Mikhail Fisenkov
Nathan (Nathaniel) Longan
Natalia Veniaminova

Auditing Committee:

Gleb Obertas
Donald Skalitzky

Russia with Love Representatives:

Alexandre Alexandrov
Ken (Peter) Doll

Editing Committee:

Alexander Kulikov
Nicholas McLarnen

Festival Sign Up Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yh4aUfPECd7q0JW41W2Rp4__WRyZeCrtDZrZrod5rEI/edit?usp=sharing

The Great Lenten Lecture Series is coming again this year! More details will be available soon, but we don’t want anyone to be concerned – WE WILL have a lecture each Sunday (and perhaps more often!) of Great Lent following the Divine Liturgy (during coffee hour). More information soon to come!

This year, with the blessing of His Grace Bishop Peter, we will celebrate the beautiful Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts throughout Great Lent on Wednesday evenings. Matins begins at 3:00 p.m. Liturgy will begin at approximately 6:30 p.m. Following each of these services our St. Xenia Sisterhood will organize a light Lenten dinner. Please contact our Head Sister, Leta Nikulshia (headsister@stvladimiraami.org or see her in church) if you would like to help with the dinner. We have excellent Lenten recipes to share if you’d like to try something new! Please join us for these remarkably beautiful and meaningful Lenten evening services and for mid-week fellowship with your parish family at the meal afterwards!

Wednesday, March 15
Wednesday, March 22
Thursday, March 30 – NOTE THIS IS A THURSDAY
Wednesday, April 5

The Liturgical Fast for those communing begins after breakfast for the 6:30 p.m. services. In other words, you may eat breakfast, but eat or drink nothing further after that. Parents should use their best judgment regarding their children, as always. Those who confessed on the weekend prior to the Wednesday Presanctified need not confess again on/before Wednesday.

PLEASE NOTE! There are other Presanctified Liturgies throughout Great Lent that begin with Matins at 8:00 a.m. and Liturgy about 11:30 a.m. - mostly on Fridays. Please consult the schedule of services on our web site for more details.

As is our tradition at St. Vladimir’s (a pious tradition found throughout the Russian Orthodox Church) we urge all our family and friends to attend as many of the services as possible during the first week of Great Lent (beginning with the very important Forgiveness Sunday Vespers), with the goal of confessing and partaking of the Holy Mysteries on either Saturday, March 4 (Theodore Saturday) or Sunday, March 5 (The Sunday of Orthodoxy). Let us begin our Great Lenten journey of repentance and preparation for the feast of feasts, our Lord’s Glorious Resurrection, by forgiving each other and partaking of the Cup of Life together as a parish family!

Please note that Great Lent begins this year on February 27. The week previous to this is a week where all foods are allowed except for meat. During Great Lent we abstain from meat and dairy products including fish (although fish is allowed on the Annunciation – April 7, and Palm Sunday – April 9). Let us recall that fasting is a tool given to us by God to aid us spiritually. For some it is easy to fast, for others it is difficult. However, what is most important is that we make a sincere effort to follow the fast. Why? Simply because the fast helps us to see our sins by helping us to focus spiritually. Eating “light” foods, or perhaps rather, abstaining from “heavy” foods such as meats and cheeses, allows us to be less focused on our stomachs and more focused on our souls, and of course, in this season when we undergo our journey to the Resurrection of our Lord we dearly wish to improve ourselves spiritually that we might meet the risen Christ better than we were when we began Great Lent. St. John Chrysostom writes that we abstain from meats that we might abstain from our sins. This nicely sums up the reason the Holy Church, as a loving mother, gives us the gift of fasting. Pascha is April 16 – may God grant us all a spiritually profitable Great Lent!

Great Lent begins Monday, February 27. It is important that we prepare for Great Lent even before it begins, and the Holy Church has been helping us in this regard for seveal weeks already, principally via the content of the Divine Services. But the first week is really quite important as well – especially attending the Divine Services, which are extraordinarily educational at this time of year. Thus, with God's help, we try to serve as much as we can the first week. Here is the schedule for that special time of year – please join us to the greatest extent you are able as we begin our journey of repentance which leads us to Pascha together as a parish family:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/firstw ... tflyer.pdf

Please note: all are called upon to prepare for and to partake of the Holy Mysteries on Saturday March 4 and/or Sunday March 5. Please make every effort in this regard.