ARE YOU A MEMBER OF ST. VLADIMIR'S? JOIN OUR PARISH FAMILY!
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 and ensure it is there for us in our time of need, whether that be every day or a few times per year.
To renew your membership or to become a new member, please contact our membership coordinators: Dmitry Knysh (dmitriknysh@hotmail.com or 734-358-5996) or our parish Secretary: Marina Edwards (mpsomsk@yahoo.com or 734-358-9458). We cordially invite you to join our parish family!
We ask a membership donation of $55/year for working adults or $27.50 for non-working adults. That is sybolic, of course ($1 or 50 cents for 52 weeks of the year, Nativity of the Lord, Pascha, and St. Valdimir Day's).
The definition of a member (from the Normal Parish Bylaws of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) is:
All Orthodox Christians of both sexes, regardless of their nationality, who have reached the age of 21 years, who pay the established membership dues, who make their confession and take Holy Communion not less than once a year, and who take care of the moral and economic welfare of the parish may become parish members.
The "moral welfare" part of this definition means we participate in the Divine Services regularly, we support the Church's moral teachings, and we live a sacramental and traditional Orthodox Christian life - even when no one is looking.
The "economic welfare" part of this definition means that we establish a tithe of our income and give regularly to the parish in this regard. Not giving or not giving regularly is not fulfilling our membership obligation. If your economic situation is dire you should give little. If it is great you should give much more. This is the beauty of the tithe: the Lord asks you to give 10% of whatever He gives you. More information in this regard can be found below. Please see a Stewardship Education Team member (Fr. Gregory, Jack Mitchell, Leta Nikulshina) or a Finance Ambassador (Marina Edwards, Mikhail Fisenkov, Dmitri Knysh) with questions.
We ask everyone to fill out this Member Stewardship Information Form and hand it to a Membership Coordinator with your membership dues for the year:
To pay your membership you may go to this link:
To learn more about Stewardship, please read this one-page document (English & Russian):
How to establish your tithe? Check out our Treasurer's Corner - all things financial at St. Valdimir's can be found there:
Or - just go right to our parish page established for donations:
It is understood and expected that each member of our parish would have at least one duty that they participate in IN ADDITION to attending the Divine Services. This ranges from baking prosphora, to picking sticks in the cemetery, to shoveling snow, and more! If we all do our little part we will equitably care for the parish the Lord has entrusted to us, and we will not kill off those who do these things if no one else does. It is wise for us to preserve the leadership of our parish, but it is also moral for each parish member to do their part. So please pitch in, and if you have not chosen your duty yet please contact our parish Secretary, Marina Edwards. If she doesn’t hear from you she will reach out to you soon. You can email her at info@stvladimiraami.org or see her in church. Thank you diligently following through on this program. More involvement in the parish promotes persistence in being part of the parish family – and it keeps a few people from doing everything. With God’s help we will make our metaphor of “family” even more real in our parish by working together for God’s glory in this way!