February 21, 2014
Howell, NJ: Two Hierarchal Visits to St. George’s Church

On Tuesday the 11th and Wednesday the 12th of February, the feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs, His Grace George, Bishop of Mayfield, visiting Howell, NJ to take part in a regular session of the Diocesan Council, led the divine services in St. George’s Church. The Eastern American Diocesan vicar was co-served by parish rector Archpriest Serge Lukianov, Hieromonk Alexander (Frizzell; dean of Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, WV and member of the Diocesan Council), and parish clerics: Archpriest Boris Slootsky and Deacon Michael Wengrin.

Upon completion of the Liturgy, Bishop George addressed the faithful with a sermon on the Three Hierarchs and the talents for the development of ones service to the Church:

"St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, the Golden-Lipped: what really set these men apart from everyone throughout the ages of all mankind is how they combined their particular gifts with the gift of grace, and how it was God Who developed these gifts in each of these great saints. Now, many of us leave our talents undeveloped because we do not have and acquire this grace to help us. There are so many people throughout the ages who have been very intelligent, great inventors, many people have been gifted speakers in politics, but they come and they go, and they’re not remembered as St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom for the precise reason that these men were enlightened by the Holy Spirit. This is what set these great men, these great fathers, apart from the rest of mankind.

"Let us also try to develop whatever gifts we may have and ask God to help us with His grace to not just to be good Christians, but to be Christians who use the talents that God has given us; to not bury our talents in the ground and hope that we still have them later at the Last Judgment. And let us use all of our effort, all of our work, all of our strength, all of our talents for the good of the Church. Whatever it is that we can do for the Church, whatever fields in which we are talented, let us devote all of it, all of our strength to helping the Church and helping the Body of the Church, not just going to the church ourselves and praying. Let us see what we can do to help our parish, let us see what we can do to help our Diocese, let us see what we can do to help our Church at large, so that we are not called foolish servants at the Last Judgment, so that we are considered to be wise and faithful servants who have used our talents for the good of the Church and for the good of all mankind. Let us ask God to help us, because it is only with God’s grace that we can really and truly use our talent. Let God give us today all the strength and the knowledge and the wisdom that our great saints had, for His glory and to help one another. Amen.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning, the clergy and parishioners joyfully celebrated the great feast of the Meeting of the Lord, followed by resurrection Vigil on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, His Grace, Bishop Jerome, came to the church and celebrated Divine Liturgy. His Grace was co-served by parish clergy: Fr. Serge, Fr. Boris, Protodeacon Leonid Roschko, and Fr. Michael, as well as Deacon Anatoliy Revitskyy (cleric of Joy of All Who Sorrow Church in Philadelphia, PA).

Bishop Jerome delivered a sermon in English on the second day of the great feast of the Meeting of the Lord:

"Today we celebrate two feasts: on the one hand, we celebrate the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, which is several weeks before the beginning of Great Lent, and on the other hand, today is the second day of the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, as some call it, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, and on the second day of any of the great feasts, usually the Church celebrates that person who was involved or for whom it took place. That way, on the second day of Nativity, we celebrate the Synaxis of the Theotokos; on the second day of the Lord’s Baptism, we celebrate the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist; and today we celebrate the Synaxis, you might say, of St. Symeon the God-bearer, or the God-receiver, because it was his honor that the Christ Child was placed for a moment in his arms on the day that Christ was brought into the Temple. And the meaning of his name, also, ‘St. Symeon,’ tells us a great deal, because this is a Hebrew name (most of the names of saints are either Greek or Hebrew), and in the Hebrew language, ‘Symeon’ or ‘Simon’ (it’s the same name) is based on the verb ‘to hear’ – Shama (שָׁמַע). In the Old Testament, Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad (:שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יהוה אֶחָ), ‘Hear Israel, the Lord is One God,’ which reveals to us the secret of the Trinity. And so, ‘to hear’ means that Simeon, or Shimon (שמעון) as he was known in his language, was ‘he that heard/harkened;’ and to harken is much more than to hear, because to harken means that we hear something and take it to heart.

"He was one of the 70 translators, according to Church Tradition, of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek (the Septuagint), and when he came to the point where it says in the Prophecy of Isaiah: ‘And a virgin shall give birth to a child’ (Isaiah 7:14), he was confused by that. How could he understand it? Some interpret it as meaning simply ‘a young woman will give birth to a child,’ which is in no way miraculous – almost all mothers are young women when they give birth. But he received a warning from Heaven that this was a revelation of the Truth and that he would live to see that day. He was in the Temple of Jerusalem when the Christ Child was brought there, and it was a revelation to him that this is the Savior of Israel. And he is called Simeon the God-bearer because he bore God, or the Christ Child, in his arms. This tells us that we, too, should harken: we so often are at church services, we hear the words of the Scriptures, we hear the divinely-inspired words of the Holy Fathers, and the chants that are sung in church, but so often we let it slide over us without getting any benefit from it.

"But to the extent that we take to heart what we hear, to the extent that we harken, then we, too, gain not only physical benefit from events like this in church, but also spiritual benefits; and the sooner that we begin to listen, the sooner we begin to take to heart what is revealed to us in the Scriptures, what is told to us in church, the sooner we, like the Prodigal Son, will return to our spiritual home and the sooner we will receive consolation and the reward that awaits those who love and serve God in this life. Amen."

After the service, Bishop Jerome joined parishioners in the neighboring Cossack hall for the parish’s blini luncheon.

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