9650 Johnnycake Ridge Road • Mentor, Ohio 44060 • 440-946-9571 • fandrew@saintnicholas-oca.org • saintnicholas-oca.org

Weekly BulletinSt. Nicholas Orthodox Church

A Community of the Orthodox Church in AmericaWitnessing to the Apostolic Faith in Lake County for over 45 Years

Father Andrew Clements, Pastor

ATTENDANCE / STEWARDSHIP / Jan 26Attendance: (Adults 120, Children 30) 150Operating $2,846.00OCA Assessments 593.00 Uganda Children 90.00Maintenance 108.00Charities 120.00Icons 28.00TUESDAY EVENING ADULT CLASSThe Class will meet this Tuesday, Feb 4 at 6:30 pm to continue our unit on Icons with Fr Dcn Brian Crivella.NEW BOOK STUDY FOR GREAT LENTThere is a new book out by Fr. Stravos called The Road Back to Christ, and the book club will be read-ing it at the start of lent due to it’s daily meditations. The books are in and can be purchased for $20.00PRAYER CORNER + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Perry (Capitan), Sbdcn Leonard, John (Adam’s neph-ew), Ted Geletka, Nina Stehnach (Fr’s frnds), Julian, John Clements, Sarah Crivella, Alexandria (Dzura), Linda Peterman (Gloria H’s cousin), Kristen Robin-son, suffering Christians in the Middle East.Anniversaries: Fr Andrew & Debbie (2/ 7).Birthdays: Jack LeMaster, Maya Alexander (2/3), Cari Furman (2/4), Emily Horabik (2/5), Amanda Wachenschwantz, Anna Chongris (2/6).Expecting: Wes & Sarah, Matt & Lea, Ryan & Vale-

Volume 34 2020 Number 5

ria, Cole & Sarah, Tom & Miranda, Mitch & Winnie, James & Lisa, Joe & Ashley, Vitaly & Luba.

Celebrating 50 Years of Autocephaly as The Orthodox Church in America

Sunday Feb 2 33rd Sunday after Pentecost / Tone 8 / Meeting of our Lord in the Temple 9:00 am Church School 10:00 am Divine Liturgy Coffee HourSaturday Feb 8 Prophet Zechariah 5:30 pm Great VespersSunday Feb 9 34th Sunday after Pentecost / Tone 1 / Publican & Pharisee Fast Free Week Readings: 2 Tim 3:10-15 Lk 18:10-14 9:00 am Church School 10:00 am Divine Liturgy Coffee Hour

Personal Recollections on our Autocephaleyby Fr Alexander Schmemann

Someday church historians will call the granting of auto-cephaly to the former Russian Metropolia in America a major event in the modern history of Orthodoxy, a starting point in the liberation of the Orthodox ecclesiastical con sciousness from those political, national and ethnic reduc-tions” of the Church which for centuries obscured and mu-tilated Orthodox ecclesiology. A full and dispassionate his-tory of the events which preceded and led to the Tomos of 1970 cannot as yet be written, especially by rhose who, like myself, were involved in some of them. All I can do then, is to record here, for the future historian, some personal recollections, my personal experience and understanding of “how all this happened.”

By the early 1960’s, the “temporary self-government” proclaimed in 1924 by the Russian Diocese in America at its Sobor in Detroit was approaching its fortieth anniver-sary. The sequence of events which brought about and, as the subsequent history of our Church shows, fully justified that Detroit decision — the Russian Revolution of 1917, the ensuing breakdown in communications between the Church here and the Moscow Patriarchate, and the rapid disintegration of church life, deprived of clearly estab-lished central authority—was rapidiy fading away from the memory of the faithful. Under the administrations of the

The Meeting of our LordToday the Church commemorates an important event in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 2:22-40). Forty days after His birth the God-Infant was taken to the Jerusalem Temple, the center of the nation’s religious life. According to the Law of Moses (Lev. 12:2-8), a woman who gave birth to a male child was forbidden to enter the Temple of God for forty days. At the end of this time the mother came to the Temple with the child, to offer a young lamb or pigeon to the Lord as a purification sacrifice. The Most Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, had no need of pu-rification, since she had given birth to the Source of purity and sanctity without defilement. However, she humbly ful-filled the requirements of the Law.

At this time the righteous Elder Simeon (February 3) was living in Jerusalem. It had been revealed to him that he would not die until he should behold the promised Mes-siah. By inspiration from above, Saint Simeon went to the Temple at the very moment when the Most Holy Theoto-kos and Saint Joseph had brought the Infant Jesus to fulfill the Law.

The God-Receiver Simeon took the divine Child in his arms, and giving thanks to God, he spoke the words repeated by the Church each evening at Vespers: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32). Saint Simeon said to the Most Holy Vir-gin: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against.

Yea, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

At the Temple was the 84-year-old widow Anna the Prophetess, daughter of Phanuel (February 3), “who did not leave the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day. She arrived just when Saint Simeon met the divine Child. She also gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of Him to all those who were looking for redemp-tion in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:37-38). In the icon of the Feast

she holds a scroll which reads: “This Child has established Heaven and earth.”

Before Christ was born, righteous men and women lived by faith in the promised Messiah, and awaited His coming. The Righteous Simeon and the Prophetess Anna, the last righteous people of the Old Testament, were deemed worthy to meet the Savior in the Temple.

The Feast of the Meeting of the Lord is among the most ancient feasts of the Christian Church. We have sermons on the Feast by the holy bishops Methodius of Patara (+ 312), Cyril of Jerusalem (+ 360), Gregory the Theologian (+ 389), Amphilocius of Iconium (+ 394), Gregory of Nys-sa (+ 400), and John Chrysostom (+ 407). Despite its early origin, this Feast was not celebrated so splendidly until the sixth century.

In 528, during the reign of Justinian, an earthquake killed many people in Antioch. Other misfortunes followed this one. In 541 a terrible plague broke out in Constanti-nople, carrying off several thousand people each day. Dur-ing this time of widespread suffering, a solemn prayer ser-vice (Litia) for deliverence from evils was celebrated on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, and the plague ceased. In thanksgiving to God, the Church established a more sol-emn celebration of this Feast.

Church hymnographers have adorned this Feast with their hymns: Saint Andrew of Crete in the seventh century; Saint Cosmas Bishop of Maium, Saint John of Damascus, and Saint Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople in the eighth century; and Saint Joseph, Archbishop of Thessa-lonica in the ninth century.

On this day we also commemorate the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos known as “the Softening of Evil Hearts” or “Simeon’s Prophecy.” The Mother of God is depicted without Her Child, with seven swords piercing her breast: three from the left side, three from the right, and one from below.

A similar icon, “Of the Seven Swords” (August 13) shows three swords on the left side and four from the right.

The icon “Simeon’s Prophecy” symbolizes the fulfillment of the prophecy of the righteous Elder Simeon: “a sword shall pierce through your own soul” (Luke 2:35).

Metropoiitans Platon (1924-1934) and Theophilus (1934-1950), the Diocese had healed her wounds and achieved a significant degree of stability. What is even more impor-tant, she not only became accustomed to her “self-govern-ment” but more and more experienced it as the only pos-sible way for her orderly existence and growth in the New World. In fact, she experienced the meaning of the historic decisions of the All-Russian Church Sobor, which in 1917-1918, at the darkest moment of the Old World’s collapse, in the words of Professor A. V. Kartashoff “restored the sobornost (i.e. the responsible participation of the entire

people of God, clergy as well as laity, in the life of the Church) from the top to the bottom . . .” It was those deci-sions—the election of the bishop by each Church, the res-roration of the laity from a passive to an active status, the recovery of the conciliar form of government that saved the Metropolia after 1924, and it was that directly experienced and tested spirit of sobornost which became the most cher-ished foundation of her life in the new and unprecedented conditions.

To be continued