Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord as well as that of the holy myrrh-bearing women!

Today’s reading from the Epistle wonderfully meshes with the day of the myrrh-bearing women. Let’s remember that these women didn’t just appear our of thin air to anoint the dead and buried body of the Saviour, but were, like the apostles, His faithful disciples. They not only listened to Christ’s preaching, but also did all of those things that women have always done – they cooked, laundered, and tried to make things as homey and comfortable as possible while always being on the move. Today in the Acts of the Apostles we read how seven pious and wise men were chosen to administer the giving out of food to the poor widows, members of the Christian community in Jerusalem. We could say that the ministries of both the myrrh-bearing women and these men were in some ways similar, since they both served to the physical or bodily needs of their neighbours.

Although Holy Scripture does not name them as such, Church tradition has given these men the title of deacons, since the greek word deacon means ‘servant.’ Thus we see that the original deacons were quite different from our present ones. Then, they were preoccupied only with service to the needy and had no liturgical function, whereas today perhaps the main, if not the only, responsibility of the deacon is to help at the altar table, read the Holy Scriptures during the church services and say the litanies.

Let’s take note that today’s excerpt is relevant to our present church parish life. Among the faithful in Jerusalem were Grecians as well as Hebrews. The Grecians were Jews who usually spoke Greek and who spent a significant part, if not the majority, of their time outside of Palestine. They spoke Hebrew poorly, but were well-acquainted with the Greek and pagan world and culture. The Hebrews were Jews from Palestine. They, on the contrary, were not well-acquainted with the outside gentile world. Perhaps they were somewhat puffed up by their pious life, as they were careful to fulfill all of the Jewish laws and therefore considered themselves to be the ‘real’ Jews. Among these two groups a disagreement arose, because it seemed that the Jews were not serving the Grecian widows with enough attention. The apostles, when they heard about this problem, did not themselves appoint people to address this issue, but provided the members of the Church, the parishioners, the right to elect such men. They gave instructions that these men should be “full of the Holy Spirit” (saintly, morally without blame, and pious) and wise (capable and smart in a worldly sense). After such men were elected, the apostles ordained them and a new hierarchical rank appeared in the Church – the deacons. Thus the apostles could continue to pray and diligently preach the risen Christ, while the deacons concentrated on the provision of alms to the needy.

Probably everyone sees that our church parish life is similar to that of the first Christians. We, as they were, are joined one to another by our faith in Christ, but we are also divided into small groups. We have Russian-speaking and English-speaking people, those who were baptized as infants and the newly-baptized, those who recently moved to our city and those who have been here for decades, and so on. Sometimes there are disagreements among us. Our parish by-laws give each member of the parish the right to voice his or her concerns and to elect people to address the problems troubling the community (the annual parish meeting and the parish council). Always it is expected that the members of our local Church, and especially the members of the parish council, will live a blameless Christian life. Everyone is called to help in the parish and to use their God-given talents for the good of the community so that the priest can concentrate on that which is more important – prayer (especially the serving of the Liturgy) and preaching.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, God willing we will be able to return to a more normal life soon. The church will open for all and we will once again be able to pray together. Let’s think about the need to intensify our parish life and strive to live like the first Christians, about whom we read in today’s Epistle reading.

priest Alexis

P.S. This week the church will not be open on Wednesday.