Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On Monday the government of Ontario announced that starting Saturday, the 26th of December, the maximum number of people allowed to attend a church service will be 10 people. Therefore, our parish will take the following measures:
– All the church services will be conducted as usual, at the usual times. At all the services I, as the only priest at our parish, and our choir director, who is more than capable of reading and singing the services by herself, will be present. (To conduct the Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Church it is necessary to have a priest and at least one singer.) Along with us, 8 other people will be invited to attend each service. If you wish to attend a service, please contact our church warden and she in turn will inform you when it will be your turn to come. If we consider all of the Liturgies and evening services that we usually serve in January, many, if not all of those wishing to come will have a chance to attend one of the services throughout the following month.

– For those who won’t be able to attend Liturgy, the church will be open from noon until six p.m. every Sunday and major feastday. Thus anyone can at least come to church, pray, put up a candle and take their prosphora home. I will not be in church Sunday afternoons; therefore, if you want a service of need to be served or you wish to go to confession, please come on a Wednesday.

– As usual the church will be open on Wednesdays.

– As was the case in the spring, we will be e-mailing the texts of the Sunday and festive services to you, so that you can read them at home. Please take note that it is preferable to read them standing before your icons at home, as opposed to watching a video of a service on the internet.

God-willing, these restrictions will soon pass and we will once again be able to pray together in our church. Glory to God we have one more chance to come to a service and receive Communion on the day of the memory of St. Herman. The majority of you commune regularly and many of you weekly, and therefore these restrictions are difficult to accept. You have become accustomed to living with the support of the Divine Mysteries. On the other hand, since you commune often, we can say that you should be ready for anything. You have that provision or deposit of Grace that will give you the strength to come through any difficulty.

priest Alexis