Feasts
Pascha 2026 Photographs
In the early moments of Sunday, April 12, 2026, the cathedral clergy and faithful celebrated the bright and saving day of the Lord’s Resurrection – Pascha – Easter. Christ is risen! Photographs courtesy of our wonderful parishioners.
The Paschal Message of His Grace, Bishop Vasily 2026
To the Clergy, Monastics, and the Faithful of the Diocese of the West, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in Christ: Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! “Let us go with lamps in hand to meet Christ who comes from the tomb like a Bridegroom! And with the festive ranks of angels let us celebrate the saving Pascha of God!” (Paschal canon of St John of Damascus, ode 5). Today, on the sacred day of Pascha, we gather as the Church,…
Bishop Vasily’s Lenten Message
Great Lent 2026 To the clergy, monastics, and the faithful of the Diocese of the West: Dear fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters – Christ is in our midst! I greet you all at the beginning of the blessed and saving Lent, the holy forty days, that the Church has set aside and consecrated in her wisdom for our salvation and renewal. It is the time for the strengthening of our piety, for the confirmation of our faith, and for the…
Nativity Message of Bishop Vasily
May the brightness of the Child come into the world this day to dispel its darkness enlighten all of you, my beloved flock. May the hope given to us this day never fade away no matter the difficulties facing us. May the Gift that is placed in our hands this day always be received as the only gift that matters.
Let Us Celebrate, O People!
Let us celebrate, O people! Let us go up in spirit! Let us raise our minds on high! These are not simply exclamations of enthusiastic piety and emotional devotion for the few strange people who like that sort of thing. They are exhortations and commands which are essential to the spiritual life of all human beings who must hear and obey as if their life depended upon it. Because, in a real sense, it does…
The Paschal Message of His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin 2025
To the Reverend Clergy and Faithful of the Diocese of the West: Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! To the Reverend Clergy and Faithful of the Diocese of the West, Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! The journey of Great Lent to Pascha is long and arduous by design. Our spiritual lives are revealed at the beginning of that journey as weak and fragile. Our prayer is often perfunctory, mumbled with inattention. Our hearts are shown to be…
Looking Ahead to Holy Week & Pascha
Looking Ahead to Holy Week & Pascha April 13 – 20, 2025 On Lazarus Saturday (April 12), we enter into the special and sacred time of Holy Week and Pascha. Each and every one of us is called to truly “lay aside all earthly cares,” i.e., all activities and concerns that distract from the great mystery which is happening for us and to us. It must be an experience that transcends the fulfilling of an annual religious obligation or custom.…
Fifth Week of Lent: March April 2-4, 2025
During this week, the Fifth Week of Great Lent, we celebrate additional church services that are a little longer. This is by design, and helps us intensify our Lenten efforts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. If a believer is accustomed to attending only the Sunday Liturgy during Great Lent, then the opportunity for a deeper Lenten experience will, alas, be missed. What should one expect this week? On Wednesday evening, at the Presanctified Liturgy, the usual antiphonally sung Psalms will…
Archbishop Benjamin’s Lenten Message
2025 Lenten Message of His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Diocese of the West, Dearly beloved, Once again, we have arrived at the threshold of the Holy Tithe of the year — Great Lent. We are called by the Lord and the Church to set aside these weeks, gird ourselves and begin the journey to the Resurrection. We have spent five Sundays with the Church giving us lessons of preparation for this holy…
Meeting of the Lord
On February 2nd, 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…
The Blessing of Water
In the Book of Genesis, we read that creation began when the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:2) Throughout the Bible, water plays an important and a ‘mystical role’ in human existence and in man’s relationship with God the Creator. Water has the capacity to produce death, as recounted in the story of Noah and the ark (Gen. 6); or to produce life, as noted in the story of Moses’ striking the rock in…
Metropolitan’s Message for Thanksgiving 2024
Thanksgiving Day 2024 To the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, My Beloved Children in the Lord, First of all, to my flock in the United States of America, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving! The world around us believes—and always has believed—that happiness comes through power, through control, through wealth. The world teaches us that happiness is born of the ability to satisfy one’s own desires. In the Church, however, we know a greater happiness,…