We wish all our parish family and friends a wonderful 2016! May this year find you drawing nearer and nearer to the Lord for your salvation!

Thank you to all for a simply wonderful 2015 at St. Vladimir's! We are very much looking forward to 2016 with our parish family – both present and future members! All are always welcome here! Please find a short letter from Fr. Gregory & Nathan regarding the upcoming year here:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/newyearletter2016.pdf

See you soon at St. Vladimir's!

We congratulate all our parish family with the beginning of the yearly Lenten period preceding the feast of our Lord’s Nativity! This Lenten period begins November 28 each year and runs until January 7 – the feast of our Lord’s Nativity. This Lenten period is much less stringent than Great Lent. During this fast, as usual, we abstain from meat and dairy products. But fish is allowed on many days. Please consult our parish schedule (linked below) for more details on the culinary aspects of fasting. Of course, the culinary fast is a tool to aid us spiritually to prepare for our Lord’s Nativity – it is not an end unto itself. If you have not fasted in the past please consult Fr. Gregory or Fr. Michael for practical advice on how to be successful in fasting. Fasting a very important way that we place ourselves in obedience to the Church, the Ark of our salvation, and extraordinarily helpful in our spiritual struggle to draw nearer to our Lord at this special time of year.

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

Please join us for our annual New Year moleben at 6:00 p.m. this evening. The new year SHOULD NOT be celebrated with gluttony in food and drink, but rather with thanks to God for the past year and with entreaty to Him that the coming year be filled with those things which are best for our salvation. Likely everyone will celebrate a bit tonight and that is reasonable. But before any celebrations begin let us first turn to God with thanks and Christian hope. Please join us!

Dear St. Vladimir’s Parishioners! We would like to urge you to consider whether making a donation to the parish before December 31, 2015 would be helpful for you as you consider your tax liability for the year 2015. Donations to St. Vladimir Church are deductible to the greatest extent allowable by law. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions in this regard. It is also very important that your address be up to date in our parish database. If you have moved this year please contact our parish Secretary, Alexandre Alexandrov, with your new address.

-Nathan (Nathaniel) Longan, Starosta (starosta@stvladimiraami.org)

It is a pious tradition at St. Vladimir Church for virtually everyone to partake of the Holy Mysteries on the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity. Please confess early for the feast! The full schedule of available confession times connected with the Nativity of the Lord can be found at the link below.

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/nativi ... arly15.pdf

We are pleased to publish our full schedule of Divine Services for the great feast of the Nativity of the Lord. Please find the schedule in both English and Russian at the link below and please plan to join us for as many of the Divine Services as your schedule allows!

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/nativi ... eflyer.pdf

Please note an addition to the published calendar. On Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. we will hold a moleben for the New Year. Please join us as your schedule allows!

Dear St. Vladimir’s Parishioners! We would like to urge you to consider whether making a donation to the parish before December 31, 2015 would be helpful for you as you consider your tax liability for the year 2015. Donations to St. Vladimir Church are deductible to the greatest extent allowable by law. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions in this regard. It is also very important that your address be up to date in our parish database. If you have moved this year please contact our parish Secretary, Alexandre Alexandrov, with your new address.

-Nathan (Nathaniel) Longan, Starosta (starosta@stvladimiraami.org)

We congratulate all our parish friends and family who are celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ today. Although we will not celebrate for 13 days as a parish we understand that most of our society is celebrating today - and whether you celebrate today or in 13 days it is still remarkable and noteworthy that more than 2000 years after the birth of the Savior the world notes His Incarnation on this day. May this be the year that the hymn of the angels heard all those centuries ago over Bethlehem be actualized in our world: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, goodwill and peace.”

Full Schedule of Nativity Services at St. Vladimir's:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/nativi ... eflyer.pdf

It is important for us as a parish family to welcoming. To be family friendly. To be child friendly. I think we are all of those things, although this is something we have to work on continually. So we can always be better than we are with God's help. And we need to ask His help too. So please do pray that the Lord will keep on sending us more and more families to join our parish family – and that we will find a balance between prayerfulness, good order at the Divine Services, and being family friendly.

These things are not mutually exclusive, but if any one of them gets out of balance the whole thing can come crashing down. Friday night at Vigil it was a little crazy. The kids were a bit out of control. And that means that things were out of balance. And thus there was not prayerfulness and good order.

This is not to say we don't love children and that we don't want families to come to church. Of course we do! It would be a complete misreading of this note to understand this in any other way. But it is up to the parents to make sure that things don't get out of control. A few squawks or squeaks are not a problem of course. A little moving around is just fine. Screaming and running around during the services, though, is clearly not what we are shooting far as regards balance.

I am a father. My kids were young once. So they made some noise. We don't want someone with a child that is a little fussy to feel that they must flee. That is silly and counter productive to our mission of spreading the Orthodox Faith! The voice of children is in effect the voice of the choir warming up for our funerals. But screaming or even constant talking by the older kids really can't be considered OK. If infants or toddlers – a little break to allow some energy to be worked out is fine. For older kids – the parents have to step in. We really do love kids. But kids need guidance. And that guidance can't really come from someone else. It has to come from parents.

So – as we have just celebrated the feast of one of the great favorites of God – the patron saint of children – let's tall take some time to reflect a little bit. To consider what our role as parents is as regards having our kids in church. First and foremost: we must have our kids in church! Not in the kitchen. Not outside. Not in the nursery (which is for nursing mothers and toddlers). Secondly: we must help them to behave appropriately. And it would not be a bad idea at all to ask the prayers of St. Nicholas in this regard.

Let's all work together so that we can find the balance between prayerfulness, good order at the Divine Services, and being family friendly. I know we can do it with our sincere effort, the intercessions of St. Nicholas, and the merciful Lord's Grace. It is good that we have this problem. Many parishes wish they had the problem of having many kids in church. But I think we can do it right – so we strike the right balance. May the Lord grant it!

Fr. Gregory