This Week’s Events:
Due to COVID-19 there will be no coffee until further notice. Please visit the St. Elia Facebook Page for notifications of services or contact us.
Our “Zoom” at-home Bible Study will continue this week on Wednesday, July 8, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. We will continue with our study and discussion of the Gospel of John.
To join the Zoom Meeting, go to https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84874233013?pwd=dGlVa1A2NjVlbmZCZ2xqTTJIWjRQZz09
Meeting ID: 848 7423 3013
Password: 204331
We look forward to sharing an evening filled with Scripture!
We have been given the blessing from our Diocese to begin the process of the gradual reopening for the faithful to attend liturgical services. Please read completely as there are important procedures and guidelines we all must follow.
All services will continue to be streamed online. We encourage those who cannot or should not be with us in person to join us via online streaming. Saturday Evening Vespers will begin via streaming at 5 p.m. and Sunday Divine Liturgy at 9:30 a.m.
In accordance with the State of Ohio, CDC, and Diocesan guidelines we all must follow these simple steps when attending:
1) If you or your family member is sick please stay home.
2) Only enter and exit through the front church door.
3) Please… there will be no gathering in the vestibule/office/and in the parish hall.
4) All side and hall doors will be locked (in keeping with AFD and codes all of our church doors can be exited from the inside).
5) Sanitize your hands before entering the church (sanitizer is located in the vestibule).
6) All must wear masks in church (disposable masks are provided in the vestibule).
7) Sanitize your hands before exiting the church building.
In church: it is required to keep 6 feet social distancing. Therefore, pews will be marked for available and not available seating. There will be assigned ushers to assist you and/or your family to be seated (it may not be in your ‘usual’ place).
So sorry to say but we cannot kiss the icons, cross, chalice, gospel book, and/or father’s hand.
Lastly, due to limited seating to ensure safe distancing and Diocesan guidelines, parishioners must pre-register to attend liturgical services. Please call Fr. Don at (330) 724-7009 or (330) 472-6456 by Saturday morning before 12 noon to attend.
“…where two or three are gathered together there am I,” says our Lord according to St. Matthew’s Gospel.
Love in Christ our Lord,
Fr. Don
The Twelve Passion Gospels read by Fr. Don, Deacon James and members of the St. Elia Parish.
Beloved in the Lord,
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
It has been said that life under the restrictions of the COIV-19 pandemic is a “new normal.” For us, however, this is far from “normal.” Normally, clergy and faithful, tired yet edified by the forty-day Great Fast, would now be gathering in temples for the services of Holy Week. We would stand together, in the company of that “great cloud of witnesses” represented in the holy icons, and take the final steps of a liturgical journey that began with Forgiveness Sunday Vespers.
This year, we still grow weary, but it is weary of “stay-at-home” orders and the anxieties of not knowing how much longer our nation will be occupied by the coronavirus. We still anxiously await joyous liturgical celebrations in our churches, but this year we are unsure when they will come. This year has been far from normal and I am sure we all share the sentiment that doing this once in a lifetime is quite enough.
However, in the face of these unexpected challenges, let us be assured that God’s providence is at work in these times, as it is at all times. This year, we are closer than ever to the countless faithful who came before us that celebrated our Lord’s resurrection in even more adverse situations. Let us remember our brethren behind the iron curtain, who sat at home singing the Paschal hymns in hushed voices lest their neighbors give them up to the authorities. Let us remember the Christians under the Ottomans and the Romans whose public celebration of the Risen Lord would cost them their lives, and then only after horrific tortures. Think of the joy in our forebears’ hearts the first time they could cry out for all to hear, “Christ is Risen!” When we are again able to gather for the divine services, we will not have to imagine what that felt like; we will have had a small taste of it ourselves.
This year, we have a choice. We can look at the journey we’ve been on with bitterness and remorse, or we can be grateful for an opportunity to stand with those who came before us, whose devotion and faith in the face of great adversity made it possible for us today to “glorify Christ, Risen from the dead.” Patience, my children. “Those who endure will gain their lives,” as the Risen Lord fills their hearts with his life-giving presence. Wherever Christ is, be it in church or at home behind closed doors, there is “eternal life and his great mercy.”
With love in the risen Christ,
+ Alexander
Archbishop of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese – Orthodox Church in America