Please keep our parishioners, friends, and those who have asked us in our unworthiness to pray for them in your prayers this coming week. Our parish prayer list can be found here:

http://www.stvladimiraami.org/SundayRea ... erlist.pdf

PLEASE NOTE! We have removed those from the list that we believe no longer should be present there. If you requested that someone be included in this list please review it carefully to make sure we have not removed someone erroneously. If we have, please contact Fr. Gregory to have your loved one again added to the list.

We will have an extraordinary parish meeting on Sunday, July 26, 2015. At this meeting we will discuss our new building project, progress, and financing options. Now that we have receive bids on the project it has become clear that in order to complete the entire project we will need to take out a small loan, but that can only be accomplished with a vote of the parish assembly. Please plan to join us for this meeting, to hear about our progress, and to discuss our financing options.

We need participants from St. Vladimir's for the Labor Day Cross Procession – the Walk of Life. Registration will be open soon! Please plan to join us for this really unique opportunity to reach out to those around us and bring our faith to them!

We need volunteers from St. Vladimir's to help with the Labor Day Cross Procession! We need medical staff, folks to help cook the food, folks to drive the chase vehicles, and much more! Please contact Subdeacon Methodius Chwastek to volunteer! See Methodius this Sunday!

The feast of St. Vladimir is the second Pascha of our parish. Just as on Pascha itself, we understand that everyone will want to partake of Holy Communion for the feast. This is good. And this is the right thing for us to do if at all possible. But we expect many visitors for the feast. The lines for confession are likely to be quite long at Vigil on Monday. Therefore, anyone who confesses beginning at the evening services for St. Olga may partake of Holy Communion this Saturday, Sunday, or on St. Vladimir's Day. The message is this: CONFESS EARLY FOR ST. VLADIMIR'S DAY! Please contact Fr. Gregory with questions in this regard.

This fall is shaping up to be quite busy at St. Vladimir's. For that reason we are going to move The Way to after Nativity. This will give us a bit more time to get this all together, advertise broadly, and make this a wonderful offering that is positive for our parish and for those who will join us from without. But we still NEED YOUR HELP. “The Way” is an introduction to Orthodox Christianity for those interested, and a great opportunity for those of us who are already Orthodox to learn more about our faith. People will be needed to help prepare meals, lead discussion groups at the Monday sessions, and help with logistics. First and foremost we need a leader – someone to oversee the whole thing and organize the volunteers. This will be a great opportunity for our parish to introduce many new people to our Orthodox Faith – if we do it right. And with God's help and our hard work we WILL do it right! Please contact Fr. Gregory if you can help and especially if you are willing to be the leader. Please join us as we run The Way! Learn more about the web site below:

http://www.iocs.cam.ac.uk/courses/courses_way.html

It is time now to volunteer for this September's Festival! The Festival will be here before you know it, and as our biggest missionary effort of the year we need all hands on deck to help make it a huge success! At the Festival we have many guests who learn about our parish and Orthodox Christianity for the first time. We are all missionaries in our community – sign up now to work at the festival! Is it hard work? You bet it is! Is it fun? You bet it is!!! Don't miss it! Sign up today!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LiLL9esKU3ZpsV8NZZXRPdIui7gu93Q-Kr1z5y6dGHg/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link

November 13 marks the annual feast of St. John Kochurov, the first priestly martyr of the Bolshevik Revolution. St. John was a priest in Chicago before he returned home and suffered as a martyr. For this reason our diocese has taken St. John as a patron for the St. John Kochurov Society – the diocesan fund for those in need of assistance. This fund focuses on three main diocesan endeavors: Youth, Missions, and Monasticism. Since the founding of this society our parish has had the largest number of members of any parish in the diocese and this is something to be thankful for – and to strive to continue! According to the decision of Bishop Peter, each of the deaneries in our diocese will establish a local St. John Society in 2015. As ours is the deanery parish (by default – since our Rector is the Dean of Michigan) the deanery St. John Kochurov Society will be located here. On the feast of St. John of St. we will hold Vespers & Matins on November 12 at 6:00 p.m. and Divine Liturgy on November 13 at 8:00 a.m. All members of the St. John Society are called upon to participate in the Divine Servcies this day to the greatest extent possible. At 6:00 p.m. on November 13 we will hold a reception at Fr. Gregory's home in honor of St. John and as a fundraiser for the St. John Society. ALL ST. VLADIMIR PARISH FAMILY MEMBERS ARE WELCOME AND ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND! This is true whether you are a member of the St. John Society or not. Of course - EVERYONE should be a member and you will be encouraged to join at the reception - but whether you join or not we welcome you to celebrate this great saint and to support the efforts of our diocese to fund our Youth activities, Mission parishes, and Monasteries! Please save the date now - more to come soon!

To learn more about the life of St. John please see the links below.

English:

http://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/10/31/ ... n-kochurov

Russian:

http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Life/life363.htm

We would like to offer a weekly "mini-bulletin" with translations of the scriptures read on the weekend into Russian, as well as a short sermon on the theme of the Sunday Gospel reading in Russian. These would be available for distribution at our kiosk for those who do not understand English well. This is not a large population in our parish (almost all of our native Russian speakers also speak English fluently), but there are a few people that this mini-bulletin will benefit. If you would like to help Fr. Gregory prepare this mini-bulletin please contact him. No translation will be necessary, but a working knowledge of Russian and of MS Word or other similar word processor will be needed. Thank you in advance for assisting with this important ministry!

We have received the bids back for phase 1 of our building project. We are calling a parish meeting for July 26 to provide an update to the parish as well as to discuss possible financing options. Bids were received that exceed (by a relatively modest amount) the cash we have on hand. We could reduce the scope of the project or we could take a loan to cover the full scope. But this is a decision that we can only make as a parish. Please plan to join us on July 26 immediately after the Liturgy for a brief parish meeting to discuss and resolve this situation so that we can have our new driveway and parking lots ready for our festival on September 19-20. The official correspondence in this regard is at this link and will be sent via post (this is a necessity based on the Normal Parish Bylaws) today:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/extrao ... -26-15.pdf

This Sunday we will have a live plant sale to support our flower fund – specifically to support the St. Vladimir's Day festivities coming up at the end of this month. Please plan to buy or plant or make a donation to support the flower fund. We thank you in advance!