St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!
Truly He is Risen!

What a blessing it is to greet and communicate with you in the absolute joy of the Resurrection. I am so grateful for all of the leaders, volunteers, and brother clergy who worked so hard to bring dignity to our Lenten services, solemnity to our Holy Week experiences, and lavish elation to the commemoration and celebration of Pascha.

Now that things are beginning to normalize a bit, I’d like to call your attention to some important aspects of our worship. Our time together within the holy sanctuary that is our St. Anna church, is our introduction to, and experience of a heavenly eternity. As a people, we are as we worship. I’d like to share some reminders and introduce you to some directives that have come to us from His Eminence Metropolitan Constantine of Denver.

As for the reminders: as you see and experience each and every Sunday, we can get quite crowded. This is a good thing. And the reality is that we do have room for everyone. It just takes some patience and awareness on all our parts.

Whether you are a couple, or a family, please be courteous of fellow worshippers and use only one chair per person. Don’t spread out, save seats or not allow people to take seats around you. Please, move to the center of the church and keep the outside seats available to people who come in after you. It just takes a bit of perception and courtesy to make room for everyone.

Hey, remember that we are “congregational singing church?” We are! Please, I want to hear you all singing out and following along with the choir, especially in the common parts that repeat. We chose our specific hymnal because it makes it possible for people in the congregation to sing along with the choir. Don’t be shy. Sing your praises on high!

I ask this personally. I love the fact that we have so many children, especially babies and toddlers in church. You know I am an absolute advocate for our families worshipping together. Baby sounds and even upset-baby sounds are normal, and within reason, are quite acceptable. But especially during the reading of the Epistle and Gospel, and during the Sermon, please, if your child is getting really fussy and getting very loud, the considerate thing to do is to quietly go into the lobby for a while where you can still hear everything in the overflow space. Come back in when things have quieted down. It is very difficult to concentrate and speak when in competition with a little person who does not know any better and can’t control him or herself.

Hey, another reminder: the andidoro, or blessed bread that we receive, either following Communion or by the hand of the priest as we depart from Liturgy is blessed. There should be no crumbs on the ground following worship. Please, reverently cup it in your hands, consume the blessed bread, and try not to allow any portion of it to fall to the ground. It may be a small gift, but it is not an insignificant one.

More ushering stuff – and maybe I have already, sort of mentioned it. I am working with the ushers to be, and I have to admit, this has been my instruction, to be “pleasantly aggressive.” I know, that sounds worse than my intended desire. When an usher comes to a row with one or a couple of people that need to be seated, and there are seats available on that row, but you are already standing in those spaces, please move to the center of the church, rather than having people feel badly that they showed up and have to climb over you. It really is so much easier to just slide over. We all leave at around the same time anyway.

Please do not let young kids climb in, on or around the Baptismal Font. I am in the process of designing a cover that will go over the top of it, but still, those few stairs can be dangerous. And the adult Baptismal Font is a sacred church object, not a jungle gym. Please be mindful of its intended purpose.

Also, if you see anyone saving spaces, allowing their child to scream or jump off the Baptismal Font, please also refrain from nasty comments or dirty looks. We are all here together, for the glory of God and in celebration of His love for us. Let’s keep it chill. Love on another.

As we are crowded during Sunday worship, if for any reason you need to stand in the back row, please refrain from leaning back against the wall. In the very near future, all walls will be covered with iconography. And it’s not like they aren’t designed to be in an active space. The paint is durable and can stand up to a normal amount of co-existence with people. But leaning back on the sacred images is not normal wear and tear. Let’s be aware of the space around us.

Did I mention you are all invited to sing with the choir? I did? I did. So again, feel free to sing!

Once the Resurrection season has completed, we are accustomed to resume the practice of kneeling at the Epiklesis, or the time of the Liturgy when we call upon the Holy Spirt to descend and transform the bread and wine offering into the Body and Blood of Christ. I will get into the historic and theological reasons at another time. But, His Eminence has instructed us that we will be returning to a more ancient, and yes, the more correct practice of not kneeling in the church on Sundays. Again, I will take the time to educate us all on the practice later on. But for now, please be aware that this is coming. To people more new to the Faith, perhaps you have read about Sunday kneeling. If you are 90 years old and grew up in a Greek Orthodox parish in the United States, chances are, that is the only practice you have ever known. His Eminence desires to bring our Metropolis into unity with best practices and proper traditions.

He has also instructed us to have non-Orthodox worshippers and Catechumens receive blessings as we depart from the Liturgy rather than in lines for Communion. Again, best practices and commonality within the Church.

Please enter the church during worship at the appointed times and follow the instructions of the parish council and ushers in the narthex. Exiting the church sort of goes by the same guidelines, but I understand that needing to leave for a minute is not as predictable and scripted as when we enter. Please, just limit the movement as much as possible for the sake of the focus of fellow worshippers.

Please, my beloved in the Lord, take these requests as they are intended; to make our worship experience as smooth as possible. All to God’s glory. I remain,

With Love in our Risen Lord,

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter

Christ is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

Χριστός Ανέστη!

Αληθώς Ανέστη!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As Orthodox Christians, the Lord’s Prayer is more than a passage of Scripture. It literally amounts to the instructions of Christ, Himself, teaching us how to address God in prayer. It is recited in unison at nearly every Orthodox Divine Service or Sacrament. And also, while praying at home, as the nucleus of the Trisagion, the Lord’s Prayer is a common link between private prayers of devotion and prayers and worshipping with fellow Christians in church. 

At St. Anna, during the Sunday Divine Liturgy, we are accustomed to reciting the Lord’s Prayer now in six different languages. English, Greek, Spanish, Slavonic, Arabic and Portuguese are the languages commonly used to express the Lord’s Prayer during corporate worship. I invite everyone who knows any of these languages to join in. The person in front with the microphone is not lecturing or performing. They are not there to simply represent themselves. Please, join them in enthusiastically proclaiming the Lord’s Prayer. 

I also invite you to contact me if you are interested in adding a language that is representative of your cultural identity. It’s not an open mic session, and is part of our local worship experience, so I do need to know if a language is added beforehand. And primarily, if anyone is able to participate using American Sign Language (ASL) that would be greatly appreciated. Please get ahold of me if you are so compelled. 

Since the use of the Lord’s Prayer is so central to our personal and public spiritual lives, please read the following excerpt from the renowned Fr. Thomas Hopko. I trust that you will find a greater appreciation for the words of the Lord’s Prayer after his inspirational explanation.   

When teaching men to pray, Christ said,

Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil(Mt 6.9–13, cf. Lk 11.2–4).

This is the usual translation of the prayer used in the Orthodox Church. It begins with a petition to God as “our Father.” There was no such prayer before this teaching of Christ. The Old Testament people did not address God as “Abba: Father” (Rom 8.15, Gal 4.6). This name of “Father” for God is given by Christ, the divine Son of God. Men can dare, “with boldness and without condemnation” to call upon the “heavenly God” with the name of “Father” only when they are made worthy to do so by Christ (cf. Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom). In the early church the prayer “Our Father” was taught only to the baptized members of the church.

The statement that the Father is “in heaven,” or literally “in the heavens,” means that He is everywhere and over all things. The heavens are over all and encompass all. Wherever man goes on the earth or in the air, or even in space, the heavens are around him and over him. To say that the Father is “in the heavens” means that He is not tied down or limited to any one location—as were the gods of the heathens. The heavenly God is the “God of gods” (Deut 10.17, 2 Chron 2.5), the “Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4.5), the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28). To say that God is “in heaven” is not to place Him somewhere; it is rather to say that He transcends all things and yet is present to all.

“Hallowed be Thy name” means that God’s name is holy and should be treated with respect and devotion. In the old covenant it was the custom of the Jews never to say the sacred name of God: Yahweh, the I AM (cf. Ex 3.13–15). This was to guard against defilement of the divine name, and to safeguard against transgressing the commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Ex 20.7).

In the New Testament, God gives Jesus the “name which is above every name” (Phil 2.9) and in making the name of the Father holy, Christians do so in the name of His Son.

“Thy Kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer is first of all the prayer for the end of the ages. Christians want the world to end so that God’s Kingdom would fill all creation with divine glory and life. “Come Lord Jesus; Marantha!” is the prayer of the faithful, the last prayer of the Scriptures (Rev 22.20, cf. 1 Cor 16.22). It is the calling for the final appearance of the Lord.

In the spiritual tradition of the Church, the prayer “Thy Kingdom come” has also been understood as an invocation of the Holy Spirit to dwell in God’s people. In his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, Saint Gregory of Nyssa says that there was another reading for this petition which said “Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.” Thus he says, following the scriptures, that the presence of the Holy Spirit in man is the presence of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

For the Kingdom of God is . . . righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit(Rom 14.17).

. . . it is God who establishes us with you in Christ . . . He has put His seal upon us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee(2 Cor 1.22).

In Him . . . you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.

. . . do not grieve the Holy Spirit in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption(Eph 1.13–14, 4.30).

The seal of the Holy Spirit on men’s hearts is the pledge and guarantee of the Kingdom of God still to come in all power and glory. In the prayer “Thy Kingdom come,” believers in Jesus ask that the Kingdom of God “not coming in external signs of observation” for the faithless to behold, might dwell powerfully and secretly within the faithful (cf. Lk 17.20–21).

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is the center of the Lord’s Prayer, the central desire of Christians. The whole purpose of prayer, the very purpose of man’s life, is to do the will of God. This is what Jesus prayed and did (cf. Mt 26.42). And this is what His followers must pray and do. There is but one purpose of prayer, say the spiritual teachers, to keep God’s commandments so as not to sin, thus leading to deification and divine sonship with Christ.

The only thing that God demands of us mortals is that we do not sin. But this . . . is merely keeping inviolate the image and rank we possess by nature. Clothed thus in the radiant garment of the Spirit, we abide in God and He in us; through grace we become gods and sons of God and are illumined by the light of His knowledge . . .(Saint Simeon the New Theologian, 10th c.,Practical and Theological Precepts).

To pray “Thy will be done” according to the spiritual teachers, is a daring and dangerous act. This is so, first of all, because when one makes this prayer, he must be ready, like Christ, to follow where it leads. God will answer this prayer, and make known His will. The person who prays must be ready to obey, whatever the consequences. When asked why many Christians are frustrated and irritated, grouchy and mean, and sometimes even somewhat “unbalanced,” one spiritual teacher responded that the reason is clear. They pray “Thy will be done,” and continue daily to do so, while at the same time they resist God’s will in their lives and so are always ill at ease. Then they begin to justify their attitudes and actions, to explain and to rationalize their behavior, before their own consciences and others. A person in such as state can never be at peace, for “it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God” (Heb 10.31).

The second reason why it is said that the prayer “Thy will be done”—and prayer generally—is daring and dangerous is because the devil ferociously attacks the person who prays. Indeed one of the greatest proofs of demonic temptation, and the reality and power of the devil, is to be fervent in prayer. For the devil wants nothing so much as for man to fail to accomplish the will of God which is the purpose of all prayer.

If you strive after prayer, prepare yourself for diabolical suggestions and bear patiently their onslaughts; for they will attack you like wild beasts . . . Try as much as possible to be humble and courageous . . . He who endures will be granted great joy(Saint Nilus of Sinai, 5th c.,Texts on Prayer).

The prayer for our “daily bread” is normally understood to signify generally all of our bodily needs and whatever we require to sustain our lives in this world. In the spiritual tradition however, this petition, because it literally says our “essential” or “super-essential” bread, is often understood in the spiritual sense to mean the nourishment of our souls by the Word of God, Jesus Christ who is the “Bread of Life;” the “Bread of God which has come down from heaven and given life to the world” (Jn 6.33–36); the bread which “a man may eat of it and not die,” but “live forever” (Jn 6.50–51). Thus the prayer for “daily bread” becomes the petition for daily spiritual nourishment through abiding communion with Christ so that one might live perpetually with God.

The prayer “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” has been especially emphasized by the Lord.

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Mt 6.14–15).

This is the point of Christ’s parable about the unforgiving servant (Mt 18.23–35). All men need the forgiveness of God and must pray for it. All men are indebted to God for everything, and fail to offer the thanksgiving and praise and righteousness that are due. The only way that God will overlook and forgive the sins and debts of His servants is if they themselves forgive their brothers, not merely in words and formal gestures, but genuinely and truly “from their hearts” (cf. Mt 18.35). In the prayer taught by Christ this is clearly acknowledged.

“Lead us not into temptation” should not be understood as if God puts His people to the test or brings them in to the occasion of evil.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God;” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death(Jas 1.13–15).

“Lead us not into temptation” means that we ask God not to allow us to be found in situations in which we will be overcome by sin. It is a prayer that we be kept from those people and places where wickedness reigns and where we in our weakness will certainly succumb. It is a prayer that we will be liberated from the deceit and vanity of our minds and hearts, from the carnal lusts that dwell in our bodies. It is a prayer that God Himself would be man’s shelter and refuge (cf. Ps 91).

“Deliver us from evil” says literally “rescue us from the evil one,” that is, the devil. The meaning is clear. There are but two ways for man: God and life or the devil and death. Deliverance from the devil means salvation and redemption from every falsehood, foolishness, deceit, wickedness and iniquity that leads to destruction and death.

Thus, as Metropolitan Anthony of Sorouzh has explained, the Lord’s Prayer shows the whole meaning of the life of man (cf. Anthony Bloom, Living Prayer). Delivered from evil, man is saved from temptation, in so doing he is merciful to all and receives the forgiveness of his own sins. Being forgiven his sins, by his mercy to others, he has all that he needs for life—his “daily bread”; and being nourished by God, he accomplishes His will. Having accomplished His will, God’s Kingdom is present, His name is sanctified and He becomes the Father of the one who shows himself to be in truth the child of God who can say, “Our Father.”

As we pray the Lord’s Prayer together, let us always have our hands and hearts extended wide, open to receive the Blessings from above. I remain,

With Love in Christ,

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Tomorrow, we come to the 4th Sunday of Lent, as we commemorate the writings of St. John Climacus, or also known as St. John of the Ladder. 

In the gospel passage from tomorrow’s Divine Liturgy, the Lord again is seeking faith. Today, even the best things erode the faith. Let us look at what challenged souls we have, and what evil is found within us! We hide it, disregard it and we accommodate things by having a simply external, false-belief. It is essential that you recognize your unbelief, so that you might confess it, but as much as depends on you, to also confess your faith: “I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief”. If we run in this way to the Lord, he will give us that which we need: he will heal our souls, will purify them, and we will feel this purification, this resurrection and revitalization of our souls which the grace of God brings.

Can we honestly and rightly say that whatever our soul most deeply yearns for – repentance, healing, purification, sanctification – happened and is happening? For us not to have this, means that we do not want to believe. Man is confused here. Asking forgiveness from God presupposes repentance; Repentance presupposes being conscious that you erred and are guilty, being conscious that you have responsibility. Put yourself down, judge yourself; somewhere you were deceitful. However, you don’t want to do this. You feel resistance, difficulty, as the spooks that exist within you wake up, all of the sinfulness, and they go to throw you into hell.

We need to enlist all of our strengths and to give them to this work, to this movement: to confess our unbelief, but as much as depends on us, to also confess our faith. And oh the miracle! From this initial moment, we will begin to feel the therapy of our souls, and everyday this will increase more and more However much life God gives to us – a little or a lot – it will suffice, in order for our souls to become sanctified, to be saved eternally.  – From the Holy Hesychasterion 

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter