The Shepherd, October 2008
RE-ADMISSION TO ORTHODOXY
ON SUNDAY 18th /31st AUGUST, the feast of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus, Nicolas Papanicolaou, the son of a priest, was received back into the Church having lapsed for many years. Nicolas, the husband of one of our Sunday School teachers, Nektaria, had come over a period of time for talks, and in the week before he was chrismated again came for confession, but the prayers were read before the whole congregation so that they might rejoice with him in his re-admission to the Church.
INTERMENT AT SAINT EDWARD’S
THROUGH the good offices of Prince Dmitri Galitzine, a friend of the deceased, Lydia Lewis was laid to rest in our cemetery after her funeral on 12th / 25th September. The celebrant was Archimandrite Augustine of the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II, and after the deceased had been laid to rest, Fr Augustine and the mourners were invited into the Old Mortuary for tea and biscuits, which gave us the opportunity to become acquainted with Fr Augustine.
VISITORS
THIS PAST MONTH, we seem to have had even more visitors than usual. On 31st August, Father Ioan Todor of the Romanian Church, with his family and some parishioners, came to serve a liti at the grave of the late Irina Bontea; they also visited and prayed in the church before coming in for refreshments. On 7th September, a large coach load of pilgrims from Sts Antony and John Greek Orthodox Church in Islington, London (Œc. Patr.) made a short pilgrimage here. In the morning they had attended the Liturgy at St Andrew’s, Englefield Green. They then visited Windsor Castle, before finishing their day at Saint Edward’s, where they prayed and chanted before the shrine of the sacred relics. The tour had been arranged and was led by Paraschos Anastassiades, and one of the participants, Despoina, donated a large icon of the Forerunner to our community. Two days later our ward councillor, Cllr Glynis Preshaw, visited the church and the Exhibition Room. On Sunday 13th September, John Clarke led two walks in the Cemetery and both visited the Brotherhood. The earlier group which came in the afternoon comprised about sixty people, and the later one, in the evening, twenty. During the Heritage Open Days this year, we had many more visitors than hitherto, and among them there was a group of Social Workers (!) led by Mark Henderson, and later four Franciscan Friars from the Friary at Chilworth. On the 19th, the 1st Brookwood Cub Pack came to see the Church and the exhibition. There were about fifty of them, - all exceedingly well-behaved - and they stayed about an hour and a half. After social workers, on the 23rd we had about a dozen people from the Woking Carers Support Group come to visit. On 24th September, Hieromonk Ghelasie from Würzburg, Germany, visited the church with two friends. Fr Ghelasie leads a parish under the Romanian Patriarchate.
GIFTS TO THE BROTHERHOOD
HIS GRACE, Bishop Sofronie of Suceava (Romanian traditionalist Hierarchy) sent us a beautiful set of priests’ vestments in blue, which arrived on the feast of the Mother of God’s Nativity.
Constantin and Alexandra Militaru and their in-laws in Romania have donated two large icons to the church, a beautiful one of St Gregory of Decapolis, and one of St George the Trophy-bearer in a gilded riza.
Ciprian Lam maintained the Romanian theme by giving us, at the Vigil for St Edward, two icons, one of St Callinicus of Cernica and one of the Saint’s elder, the Venerable George.
And John Worth of Sturminster Newton, a cousin of the late Mother Serafima, sent us a small icon of the Holy Apostle & Evangelist John the Theologian from her icon corner as a remembrance of her.
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