INSIDE THIS ISSUE Fr. Nick s Net

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1 News & Events INSIDE THIS ISSUE Fr. Nick s Net Parish News & Events From the Inter-NET Around the World Pg. 2 Pg. 3 Pg. 5 Pg. 6 HOLY TRINITY GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH STEUBENVILLE, OHIO JANUARY 2017 VOLUME IX ISSUE 1 ALSO INCLUDED IN THIS ISSUE: January Calendar Philoptochos Gyro Sale Chicken Fest Flyer THE MISSION OF THE HOLY TRINITY PARISH IS TO SEEK AND ACHIEVE ONENESS WITH GOD IN HIS REVEALED SON, JESUS CHRIST THROUGH DAILY SACRAMENTAL AND SACRIFICIAL LIVING. WE WILL STRIVE FOR THE PEACEFUL AND LOVING UNITY WITH OUR NEIGHBORS IN CHRIST WHICH MAKES US HIS DISCIPLES. / 1 The Net July /August 2015

2 Fr. Nick s Net The Net is the Monthly Newsletter of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church PARISH INFORMATION PARISH PRIEST: FR. NICHOLAS M. HALKIAS PHONE: (740) HOME: (724) FRNICK@HOLYTRINITYSTB.ORG ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: KARIN EWING OFFICE@HOLYTRINITYSTB.ORG PARISH ADDRESS: 300 SOUTH FOURTH STREET P.O. BOX 788 STEUBENVILLE, OH PHONE: (740) FAX: (740) OFFICE@HOLYTRINITYSTB.ORG WEB: Holy Trinity Church is a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh (pittsburgh.goarch.org) and Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America ( under the Spiritual Jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( PARISH MINISTRIES Tony Mougianis Nick Riley Pete Caleodis Rikki Kamarados Don Kronstein Joanne McCraley Marianne Balakos George Berris John Josai PARISH COUNCIL President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Asst. Treasurer Asst. Treasurer Steve Pahides Connie Shea Tina Van Dijk Philoptochos... Rikki Kamarados Religious Education... Stewardship... GOYA... Rikki Kamarados JOY... Maria Matzorkis HOPE... Maria Matzorkis Choir... Pete Caleodis Library / Bookstore... Louise Kronstein Senior Citizens... Barbara Lee Maragos Chian Society... John Kamarados Pan-Icarian Brotherhood... Stacey Kotsanis AHEPA... Tommy Kotsanis 2 The Net January 2017 January, 2017 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be! As we begin this new year, filled with promise and joy, I am reminded of a Christ s calling to spread the Gospel to all nations. These were Jesus final words to the apostles as He was ascending into heaven: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20) This is a tall calling for Christ. After all, He had been with them for only three years. How could He expect these fishermen, with very little education, to carry out this immense responsibility? Could we do this after only three years with Christ? Yet they did it. And they did it so successfully that this small marginalized and hunted movement in Jerusalem, of about 150 followers, has become the largest religious presence in the world (an estimated 2.2 billion Christians or about 1/3 of the world s population). They endured persecution and death. They were locked up, put on trial, starved, exiled, tortured and many times completely executed. But throughout all of this, we grew in numbers and in strength. How did we do that? It was their great education, right? Nope. Most people were not educated at all. They possessed something stronger than a good education. They possessed the faith of Christ. And they passed it on to the people around them. You can t share what you don t have. As Christians, our first responsibility is to possess the faith of Christ. The reason that the spreading of the faith worked for the apostles and disciples was because they truly possessed the faith of their Master. Although they weren t the most educated and learned group of people, they were learned and educated in the only eternal education needed: devotion for and love of God. If we don t love God, we can t pass on that love to anyone. It seems simple enough, and yet we wonder why so many of our next generations are walking away from God. As a whole, we have forgotten to possess the faith of Christ; therefore, we can t share what we don t have. But the command to make disciples of all nations isn t a command that only applies to the original disciples and apostles. It applies to us-- and we have been in the faith much longer than any of them have been. So it is up to us. If we struggle with our faith, we do have a tool that will help. Our Theology on Tap and OPA groups will be meeting and starting a program called A Journey to Fullness, an educational journey of the faith of Christ. (Details are on Page 4) Come with us on this journey, so that we may fulfill Christ s call to make disciples of all nations by first becoming disciples ourselves! God bless you all!!!

3 News & Events WORSHIP SCHEDULE Sunday Worship... January Our regular schedule for Sunday Worship is that Orthros will begin at 9:00 A.M. and Divine Liturgy will begin at 10:00 A.M. Wednesday Paraklesis Services... January Paraklesis Services will be offered every Wednesday evening at 6:00 P.M. unless otherwise stated. For the month of January the services will be held on January 4, 11, 18, and 25. JANUARY These are the services for the month of January. Please check your schedules and plan to attend. Thursday, January 5... Eve of Theophany 9:00 A.M. Royal Hours 6:00 P.M. Vesperal Liturgy w/blessing of Water Friday, January 6... Holy Theophany 8:30 A.M. Orthros 9:30 A.M. Liturgy w/ Blessing of Water 6:00 P.M. Great Vespers Saturday, January 7... St. John the Baptist 8:30 A.M. Orthros 9:30 A.M. Liturgy Tuesday, January 10 4:00 P.M. Confession Tuesday, January St. Anthony the Great 8:30 A.M. Orthros 9:30 A.M. Liturgy Tuesday, January 19 11:00 A.M. Confession Wednesday, January St. Gregory the Theologian 8:30 A.M. Orthros 9:30 A.M. Liturgy HAPPY BIRTHDAY The following people will be celebrating their birthday in the month of January: Christine Joyce January 07 Carmen Alexander January 10 Stephanie Kamarados January 12 Kim Paluch January 14 Angie Kirsch January 16 Kay Bellas January 17 Maria Calfa January 20 Nina Xidis January 22 Mary Markis January 25 Angie Mahfood January 28 Hope Halkias January 28 Eurydice Kamarados January 28 Angie Mahfood January 28 Nick Cheruvathoor January 29 If your name was not listed and you had a birthday during this month, please contact the office and we will be happy to place it on our roster for next year. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION BIBLE STUDY... January 4 and 11 The Bible Study group normally holds it meetings on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month at 10:00 A.M. Please check the monthly calendar and weekly bulletins for times and changes. THEOLOGY ON TAP & OPA... January 19 Theology on Tap is our Men s and Women s study group. For the month of January, Theology on Tap & OPA will meet at 6:30 on Thursday, January 19 at Apollo in Wintersville (1626 Cadiz Rd). We will be starting a new study series, and the details are on the next page. You don t need to be Orthodox to come. See you there! AHEPA... TBA The AHEPA Society will now have their meetings scheduled through our Notify-Now system. CHOIR... TBA Rehearsals are held whenever possible and the times vary. Anyone who would be interested in joining the Choir is welcome to do so. Please contact Pete Caleodis if you are interested in joining. Thank You. PARISH COUNCIL... January 10 Parish Council meetings are held the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 P.M. at the church unless otherwise stated. PHILOPTOCHOS... January 5 The Philoptochos Ladies will have their monthly meeting on Thursday, January 5, at 12 Noon at Murray s in Wintersville. GYRO SALE Once again the Ladies Philoptochos Society will be having their famous Gyro sale once a month through February, The month of January the sale will be 3 The Net January 2017

4 News & Events on Tuesday the 10 from 10:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M. Please help support these ladies in this endeavor. Also on this day there will be Koulourakia, (twist cookies) for sale. 4 The Net January 2017 CHICKEN FEST We will be having another Chicken Fest on Thursday, January 12 from 3:30 P.M. until 6:30 P.M. The cost of $10 includes festival or lemon chicken, rice pilaf, and green beans. Eat in or carry out. Drinks & pastries sold separately. GOYA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT Our Parish GOYA along with the entire Holy Saints GOYA is once again going to basketball tournaments this year! In January, the weekends are January 13-15, at Holy Trinity North Hills. Please contact Rikki Kamarados if you are planning on coming to either of these weekend tournaments. HOLY SAINTS TOURNEY - HELP NEEDED The youth groups of our churches, known as the Holy Saints, will be holding a Basketball Tournament from Friday, February 3 through Sunday, February 5, There will be between 400 and 500 participants, advisors, coaches, clergy, and chaperones attending this event in our cities. We invite all parishioners to come and enjoy the festivities of the tournament. Help is still needed for our tournament. If you have the ability to help on Friday for the welcome event at our parish, please contact John Scavdis. If you have the time to give during our games on Saturday or Sunday as a time keeper or a score keeper, please contact Nick Demitras. For general help, contact Rikki Kamarados. ROOF UPDATE Thanks to the many people who have pledged and contributed to the recent roof project, we have reached our goal of $250,000 in pledges! We still need people to fulfill their pledges to our roof. Please consider your taxdeductible donation to fulfill your pledge to our roof project and pay this off completely. We could not have gotten this far without your dedication, and we will not finish this without your loving contribution. THEOLOGY ON TAP / OPA NIGHT The Theology on Tap and OPA (Men s and Women s) Groups will meet yet again on January , at 6:30 P.M. to begin a wonderful new discussion about Orthodoxy! The new and just released study program entitled A Journey to Fullness has been released by Ancient Faith Radio and by Faith Encouraged Ministries! This program has been developed and produced by Fr. Barnabas Powell of St. Raphael, Nicholas & Irene Greek Orthodox Parish in Cumming, GA, and is a wonderful tool for guiding the faithful to a deeper understanding of their faith in Christ. From their website: A Journey to Fullness is an Orthodox Christian series developed to introduce people to the Orthodox Christian faith. It was developed as a tool for use within Orthodox parishes to: help prepare inquirers to become catechumens introduce inquirers to the depth and beauty of the Christian faith serve as a point-of-entry for people searching for a safe, unchanging spiritual home provide an educational resource which is highquality, easy to use, and theologically sound help Orthodox better explain the faith to their nonorthodox spouses help grow and strengthen Orthodox parishes. We will be meeting to begin this journey on Thursday, January 19, 2017, at Apollo in Wintersville (1626 Cadiz Rd). at 6:30 P.M. Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to deepen our faith in Christ! NOVEMBER MONTHLY FINANCIALS November weekly income $ November weekly expense $

5 HOW I MADE MY PEACE WITH ETHNIC ORTHODOXY By: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick That nationalism exists among Orthodox Christians, both in their historic lands and also here in America, is now so selfevident that you d have to be living under a rock to miss it. That Orthodoxy is associated with ethnicity, both in the minds of many of the Orthodox and the relatively few Americans who have heard of us, is also rather self-evident, especially to those of us clergy who have ever received that phone call asking if it is required to be Greek in order to join your church. Yes, I ve gotten that phone call. Americans (and here I use the word to mean everyone who is not the ethnicity at the parish in question ) feel out of place at parishes where they don t speak the language and don t share the cultural background. Ethnics (forgive me the shorthand, but I hope you know what I mean) feel out of place at parishes composed mainly of converts or composed mainly of ethnics other than their own sort. Sometimes, it goes beyond feeling out of place. People often leave parishes or never join parishes because they don t fit in or because their spouse doesn t fit in. There can be conflict between parishioners. I know of one parish where the lone other on the parish council was told that his opinion wasn t welcome because he wasn t one of our kind. Why is this more devastating in a parish? It is because, especially if a parish makes an ethnic identification their primary sense of themselves, people who don t feel that same identification are less likely to associate themselves with the parish. The immigrants and their immediate children may say, We are this, but some generation not too far down is likely to say, I just don t feel like I m this, not like you do. So the conflict may not express itself as anger, but it expresses itself as attrition. These are all issues that we are likely familiar with ourselves. And some of my initial experiences with Orthodox Christianity in my early twenties were very much tinted with these issues not so much because they were a big problem in my own parish, but because I encountered the ideas often in my discussions. Sure, we had ethnics in our parish, but there wasn t an ethnic problem there, at least none that I was aware of. And so I formed a certain opinion about these things, an opinion that could roughly be summarized this way: People can be ethnic if they want, but ethnicity is bad for Orthodoxy and has no place in the Church. Shortly after I went to seminary, that opinion began to erode. Why? Because I began to have actual interactions with ethnic parishes. I discovered, for instance, that ethnic parishes were populated with actual human persons. Some of them were From the Inter-NET wonderful, generous people. Some were stand-offish and selfish. Some were holy. Some were nominally Christian. Some were educated. Some were ignorant. They were people. When I was growing up, I was actually interested in many cultures. My father had been in the Navy, and being the son of missionaries, I had done some traveling myself and had even lived in another culture at a young age. But Middle Eastern culture was never one I had imagined connecting with at all. Nor almost any of the cultures connected with the Orthodox Church here in America. They just weren t on the radar for me. Of all the ethnic traditions present in Orthodoxy in America, my life brings me most often into contact with Middle Eastern people. But I love Greeks, too, and Russians and Serbs and Ukrainians and Carpatho-Russians and Georgians and Albanians and Romanians and Bulgarians and so on and on. I will admit that I think that the Arabs make the coffee the best. And it helps that I have it readily available to me. I will also admit that I like Byzantine chant the best. But there is much that I love about the other musical traditions of Orthodoxy, as well. And while English is the language of worship at my church, I do what I can to try to learn something from the other languages I encounter, as well, even if it is just to say Good morning. I have taken as my watchword the famous saying of St. Raphael of Brooklyn, who served here in America from 1895 to his untimely death at the age of 55 in 1915: I am an Arab by birth, a Greek by primary education, an American by residence, a Russian at heart, and a Slav in soul. He did not merely tolerate all those different kinds of people, and he certainly wasn t hostile to them. He identified himself with them. He of course never became a Greek or Slav, etc. But he still could say I am about those people. He had space in his heart for all of them and met them where they were and made their lives his own life. Christ s universal call to humanity means that we love every single person. And we begin with those whom God has brought to us not just the ones he s brought to us in our families or in our parishes, but the ones he has brought to us in our neighborhoods and our towns. If we do that, then while there will surely always be ethnicity in one way or another within Orthodoxy, we won t have an ethnic problem in Orthodoxy. We will simply have people, the people of God. -Excerpted from /10/12/how-i-made-my-peace-with-ethnic-orthodoxy/ 5 The Net January 2017

6 Around the World CROSS TAKES ITS PLACE, TEMPORARILY, ATOP SHRINE AT WORLD TRADE CENTER By: David W. Dunlap - Nov. 29, 2016 (NY Times) Visiting the National September 11 Memorial on Monday, Lori Siders stopped and stared wordlessly. Ahead was something she never expected to see at the World Trade Center. A cross. Ms. Siders, a Long Islander transplanted to Florence, S.C., had been walking with her husband and their two daughters beside the south memorial pool when she caught sight of the 6-foot-3-inch Justinian cross atop the St. Nicholas National Shrine, over the crowns of the tawny oak trees along Liberty Street, silhouetted against the skyscrapers of Wall Street. It s breathtaking, she said at last. It is more than that. The topping out of the shrine with the cross was a milestone in the tortuous effort to rebuild St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a little parish outpost at 155 Cedar Street in Lower Manhattan that was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, when the south trade center tower fell on it. And it is more than that. The cross is the first overtly religious symbol to appear in the public realm at the World Trade Center, where officials have often contorted themselves to maintain a secular air. (What almost everyone knows as the World Trade Center cross, for instance, is officially referred to as the intersecting steel beam. ) Less than an hour before Ms. Siders sighted the cross, it stood waiting in front of the shrine, within the elevated Liberty Park, opposite the memorial. As we are here and we look around, we see the triumph of human mind and human spirit and human, really, disposition of overcoming any tragedy, said Archbishop Demetrios, the primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, who has been a constant visitor to ground zero since the earliest days after the attack. But St. Nicholas will give an additional message, he said. St. Nicholas will also offer the opening towards a nonmaterial reality: the presence of God. So this small chapel here will say the story that there is a God beyond what we see, what we feel and what we could statistically verify. And that s the very great mission of this new St. Nicholas Church. After joining with Archdeacon Panteleimon Papadopoulos and Deacon Eleftherios Constantine in chanting the Feast of the Cross The cross is the glory of the angels, and the defeat of the demons Archbishop Demetrios sanctified the steel cross with water from a golden rantistirion, or sprinkler. He blessed the small crowd of people around him, as well. Among them was Patrick J. Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which struggled with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America over the redevelopment plans. The authority was obliged to accommodate the church, since it needed the site at 155 Cedar Street for a high-security underground garage. Mr. Foye said there was nothing inappropriate about the presence of the cross in a public park, because St. Nicholas was destroyed in the attack, because construction costs were being met privately and because the shrine would include contemplative space for the general public. A house of worship is going to have its own shape, style and iconography, he said. It took 11 minutes for the cross to reach the summit of the 50-foot-diameter dome, made of 40 sensuously curved ribs fabricated by the E & H Steel Corporation in Midland City, Ala., where the cross was also made. Ornamental lobes on each arm distinguish it as a Justinian cross. The newly installed cross is intended as an interim measure. It will be replaced with a permanent cross when the shrine opens in the first half of 2018, Jerry Dimitriou, the executive director of the archdiocese, said. He estimated the development budget at $40 million, most of it in construction costs. He said $38 million had already been pledged. Paradoxically, the trade center s most spiritual landmark was designed by Santiago Calatrava, the architect of its most materialistic landmark: the Westfield World Trade Center shopping mall, part of the greater $4 billion transportation hub. On the shrine, Mr. Calatrava is associated with Koutsomitis Architects. Skanska is the construction manager. St. Nicholas is intended to be a simplified, miniaturized, modern evocation of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which has served over its long life both as a church and as a mosque. Steven Plate, the chief of capital projects at the Port Authority, sounded an inclusive note in his remarks before the cross was hoisted aloft. We welcome on this site all denominations, all creeds, all walks of life and all religions, he said. The message did not take long to reach Ms. Siders. -Taken from 6 The Net January

7 The NET-Minders The Parish of Holy Trinity would like to thank the following benefactors for making this Monthly Newsletter possible: Place your AD Here Place your AD Here In Loving Memory Of Nicholas Mougianis Place your AD Here 7 The Net January 2017

8 Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church P.O. Box South Fourth Street Steubenville, OH NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE P A I D STEUBENVILLE, OH PERMIT NO. 83 Submissions for THE NET are to be submitted by the 20 th of each month About the Icon on the Cover ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST St. John was the son of the Prophet Zacharias and Elizabeth, who was a kinswoman of the Virgin Mary. St. John is known as the Forerunner and Baptist. He is known as the Forerunner because he preceded Christ and taught repentance, which prepared men for Jesus teaching and His ministry. He even recognized Christ as the Messiah as early as when they were both still in their mothers wombs. According to Holy Tradition, the Virgin Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth and when they embraced John leapt in his mother s womb, which is considered his first acknowledgment of Christ as Messiah. After his birth, St. John s father Zacharias was murdered in the temple. He and his mother fled to the desert and he was raised there. Thus he lived as an ascetic from the earliest part of his life. He ate plants and roots and wore rough clothing. When he grew, he baptized people in the Jordan, teaching repentance, but also saying that someone greater would come after him and baptize with the Holy Spirit. St. John always spoke the Truth and because Herod did not appreciate his criticism, he was imprisoned. Later he was beheaded, as the result of a promise Herod gave to his step-daughter to give her anything she asked. The daughter was convinced by her mother to ask for John s head on a platter. [Although his beheading is celebrated by the Church on August 29, his synaxis is celebrated on January 7 in conjunction with Theophany]. -Taken from: