The Shepherd, October 2007
BROOKWOOD NEWS
SAINT EDWARD’S DAY
HAVING received the blessing of Bishop Ambrose’s visit the previous weekend, we had anticipated that the celebration of the feast of St Edward on Sunday 3rd/16th September this year might have been more muted than usual, with fewer people attending. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact at the Vigil service on the Saturday evening, though not, of course, at the Liturgy itself, we had more people than the previous week. The congregation then was boosted by such a contingent of people from the Russian Patriarchal Church at Ennismore Gardens, such that we even read the Mattins Gospel in Slavonic to express Christ’s love for them, and as a response to the Christian love they have shown us. The celebration was also enhanced by the fact that we had a new service to the saint. The original service was composed in Church Slavonic by Valeria Hoecke and translated into English by Reader Isaac Lambertsen. As Edouard is now a popular name in post-Soviet Russia, numerous copies of the original service have been distributed there, and several correspondents have remarked how beautiful and how like the ancient services to the saints this service is. However, that service was composed for the martyrdom of the saint which is celebrated on 18th / 31st March. Some of our parishioners will remember the chanter Panagiotes Somalis, who often used to visit us when he lived in England. For many years now, he has been back in his homeland, Greece, living at Korydallos, but he has kept in tuch with us. This year, he composed the new service to the Saint for the September feast: the inauguration of his shrine at Brookwood and the deposition, in 1984, of his sacred relics here. The new service mentions some of the miracles that have been recorded and attributed to the Martyr since the 1984 enshrinement. Panagiotes’ service has been approved, with minor changes, by the hierarchs of the Synod in Resistance, and Archbishop Chrysostomos and the fathers of the Monastery of Saint Gregory Palamas in Etna, California, generously volunteered to translate it from Greek into English. This obedience was undertaken by Hieromonk Patapios, one of the fathers of the Etna monastery and an English convert to Orthodoxy, now living in exile. Their translation reached us days before this year’s feast, and so we were blessed to chant the new service on this occasion. After the Divine Liturgy, we had the Lesser Blessing of Waters and then the usual buffet breakfast for all who attended, when, for a second time in eight days, the women of the parish provided a wonderful spread. Our thanks are due to them, and to all who joined us in prayer on that day, and to the many people who sent greetings and assurances of their prayers by post and email. Through the prayers of the Holy King and Martyr Edward, may the Lord God bless you all.
VISITORS
MERCIFULLY, bearing in mind we have been in the middle of moving and had the two celebrations we have already mentioned in this magazine, September was otherwise a rather quiet month with regard to organized visits. We did have a group who visited on Wednesday 26th September (n.s.) from the Loseley Fields Primary School at Godalming, led by their headmaster Mr Chris Nourse. And on Saturday 29th (n.s.), a small group of people led by the local historian John Clarke came to visit St Edward’s.
CHRISTMAS ARRANGEMENTS
EVEN THOUGH we should have the Old Mortuary Chapel refurbished by Christmas and the parish hall there in good condition again, we have decided that, because of the way numbers have increased over the years, it probably will not be big enough for our Christmas Parish Breakfast ad Carol Singing after the Liturgy on the day of the festival. So, for the coming Christmas we have again booked the Lord Pirbright Hall on Pirbright Green for the event. On the day we will have sketch maps prepared to show you how to get there, and we will ask parishioners to give lifts to those of you who will need help getting to the hall, which is about a mile from our church.
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 
|
