Today the Holy Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. As with any of the four Evangelists – writers of the Holy Gospels, this is a significant day in the life of the Holy Church. Below we include the life of St. Mark for the edification of our readers. We wish all celebrating their name's days on this day many years!

English:

http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/04/25/ ... elist-mark

Russian:

http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Life/life931.htm

We have a bit of business left to complete from our 2014 Annual Meeting (held on February 15, 2015) and thus we will have a special parish meeting on Sunday, June 14. Information in this regard will be sent out to all on our mailing list via email and via post (this is required by the Normal Parish Bylaws). At this meeting we will complete the election of the 2015 Parish Council, choose delegates to the 2015 Diocesan Assembly, hear the Brotherhood Report and the Church School Report (which were tabled at the Annual Meeting), get an updated on our building plans, get an update on our festival plans, and hear a proposal regarding membership criteria for our parish. Since this is a continuation of the 2014 annual meeting you must be a 2014 member of the parish to participate in this meeting. Please plan to join us on June 14!

During the night of May 2-3 our Sister in Christ Sally (Anna) DeRoo fell asleep in The Lord. She lay down to sleep on May and gave up her soul during the night. Please remember Sally (her baptismal name is Anna) in your prayers during these 40 days! The 40th day is June 11, 2015. Since Sally has chosen to be cremated there will be no memorial services until after that date. More information on those services will be forthcoming. I know I can say for our entire parish family that Sally will be truly missed by us all. She was a wonderful, hard working, and very faithful servant of our Lord.

May the memory of our Sister Anna be truly eternal!

Tomorrow the Holy Church marks the feast of Mid-Pentecost (half way between Pascha and Pentecost) as well as the feast of the Great Martyr St. George. May 6 is Fr. Gregory's ordination anniversary as a priest, and he asks the prayers of our parish family on this day for him. Since Fr. Gregory is in Russia on this day we will not have Divine Liturgy in the morning, but rather a Reader's Service at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Please join us as your personal schedule allows!

More on the feast of St. George below. Many years to our Georges and Alexandras on their name's days tomorrow!

English:

http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Life/life6523.htm

Russian:

http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/04/23/ ... ker-george

This article is by one of the great theologians of the twentieth century: Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky). It is hard to overstate his importance and we think, having read this relatively short but very rich article, you will agree.

http://www.pravmir.com/a-pascha-of-incorruption/

Below we present an important article by St. John of Kronstadt on the necessity to celebrate the feasts of the Holy Church in a pious way. Mostly we do this - but not always and not everyone. This is a call for us to struggle, to do better, and to repent if we have fallen. We highly recommend this article not in the abstract, but as a lesson for us to learn so that next time, if we haven't this time, we celebrate the Feast of Feasts and all the feasts as befits Christians.

http://www.pravmir.com/what-has-the-fea ... our-souls/

This is a rather "classic" article by Metropolitan Philaret of Eastern America and New York on the emotional development of children. REALLY worth the read and we strongly recommend it to our readers!

http://www.pravmir.com/the-emotional-de ... tian-hope/

This is a very interesting and not terribly long article by Sergey Khudiev, a rather prolific Orthodox writer and speaker in Russia today. How is it that the Myrrh-Bearing Women could be inconvenient to the Holy Church? They aren't - but the point is well made nonetheless. You'll have to read it to learn more. :)

http://www.pravmir.com/the-inconvenient ... ing-women/

Russian:

http://www.pravmir.ru/zheny-mironosicy- ... detelnicy/

Please find our weekly email at this link:

http://www.stvladimiraami.org/pamphlets/fridayemail.pdf

If you don't receive our weekly emails that means you are not on our email list. We can fix that! Please visit the link below (this is to a Google doc - it is safe) and fill out the short form. You will then never miss a Friday email again!

http://goo.gl/forms/ObMyc1OQfx

With Bishop Peter's blessing, this year summer courses will again be offered in the Pastoral School of the Diocese of Chicago & Mid-America. The following courses will be offered this year – dates for the courses are June 8-July 25, 2015 (Liturgics is slightly longer in duration):

Liturgics
Church Slavonic
Byzantine History
Parish Management and Operations
Thesis Writing Workshop

All Pastoral School summer courses are available to the general public without the need for a formal application to our complete Diploma program. To register please visit the following link:

http://www.orthodoxtheologicalschool.or ... iew/summer

To learn more about the summer courses and all the offerings of the Pastoral School please visit this link:

http://www.orthodoxtheologicalschool.or ... scriptions

Course numbers are:

111 Liturgics
112 Church Slavonic
113 Byzantine History
114 Non-Profit Small Business/Parish Management
115 Thesis Writing Workshop

For more information or with questions please contact the Dean of the Pastoral School, Archpriest Gregory Joyce

(fr.gregory.joyce@orthodoxtheologicalschool.org).