Christ is risen!
On this day of the first Sunday after Pascha on the Sunday of St. Thomas, with great joy our Parish of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, celebrated our 108th Slava.
This year we were saddened because His Grace, our Father and Bishop Kyr Irinej was not able to be in our midst since he had to attend the Annual Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade. However we all felt that he was in our midst spiritually and we all felt his compassionate prayers for all the faithful in our Parish. Our Parish priest presbyter Borjan Vitanov, in his homily extended the heartfelt greetings of our Bishop to the faithful and his fervent prayers on his behalf, even though we were separated temporarily by ocean distance.
We had the blessing to have Fr. Ilija Balach who co-celebrated the Divine Liturgy with our parish priest and our dear father deacon Mattheew Keeil, and together to bless the Slavski Kolach and Koljivo at the end of the service. Our Kuma for this year's Slava was our sister in Christ Angelina Maslenko, to whom we are immensely grateful for being with us on this day.
After the Divine Liturgy we all gathered together in our church hall and upon singing the Paschal troparion and the blessing of the food we all enjoyed the prepared feastal meal accompanied by the great violinist Nikita Burakovski who made this day even more exciting for all of our brothers and sisters and all the guests who came to share the joy of Resurrection with us.
We hope and pray that soon we will again see His Grace, our beloved Father and Bishop Kyr Irinej, and be able to listen to his profound words of spiritual uplifting, much needed for the many new young parishioners who have joined our parish in recent days.
May it be for many years! Na mnogaja leta!
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