The Shepherd, March 2009
MY FRIENDS, if we truly believe that outside the Orthodox Church a man has no salvation, then when her truth is perverted we cannot remain her indifferent worshippers in the dark, but we must confess before everyone the truth of the Church. And if others, even in an innumerable multitude, even chief hierarchs, remain indifferent and can even use their interdictions against us, there is nothing surprising in this. After all, this has happened not infrequently in the past, and thus it was four years ago that those who had fallen away from the truth [i.e. the Sergianists - ed.] composed councils and called themselves the Church of God and, pretending to be concerned over canons, made interdictions against those who did not submit to their senselessness; but they did all this to their shame and to their eternal perdition. “But the Lord is faithful, Who shall stablish you, and keep you from the evil one.… And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thess. 3:3, 5).
Holy New Hieromartyr Victor of Glazov, +1934 A.D.
NEWS SECTION
DEATH OF PROTOPRESBYTER ALBAN BARTER
A FRIEND of long standing of our community, Father Alban Barter, reposed on 2nd February this year. We had known him since the 1970s, before he became Orthodox. Then Roy Barter, he and his wife, Barbara, were received into the Greek Archdiocese of Thyateira by Archimandrite Barnabas of Saint Elias Monastery in New Mills. Roy took the name Alban, after the Protomartyr of Britain. When he was subsequently ordained to the diaconate, his name was changed to Aristobulus, something which he did not feel happy about, and so on his ordination to the priesthood, he requested to revert to Alban. He was the founder and first pastor of the Greek Orthodox Parish of St Barbara in Chester. As his presbytera had close relatives in nearby Odiham, Fr Alban and she often visited us at Brookwood. Presbytera predeceased him by several years, and for some time, due to failing health, Fr Alban whose secular vocation was being a coroner, had lived in retirement. We remember a good and respected friend of our community. May his rest now be with the saints and his Memory Eternal.
BECAUSE OF THE URGENCY OF THE “APPEAL FROM AMERICA” ABOVE
WE HAVE HAD TO CURTAIL OTHER NEWS IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE.
WE ASK YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THIS.
GREAT LENT IS A TIME FOR ESPECIALLY GIVING ALMS,
& HERE IS AN URGENT AND DIRE NEED FROM THOSE
WHO SHARE OUR FAITH AND CONVICTIONS.
PLEASE HELP THEM AS GENEROUSLY AS YOU CAN.
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