Prayer for Peace in Ukraine

O God our Saviour, we pray for mercy, life, peace, health, and salvation for those who are suffering, wounded, grieving, or displaced. We pray for reconciliation, peace, and the end of the war in Ukraine, and for those who have lost their lives because of the war: that the Lord our God may look upon them with mercy, giving them rest where there is neither sickness or sorrow, but life everlasting. To Thee do we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Christ is Risen!

Great & Holy Pascha

🎵 Parish Sings English Paschal Tropar (May 5/24)  [1:17]

🎵 Youth Choir Mini Concert Before Paschal Meal (May 5/24) [4:29]

🎵 Youth Choir Sing Psalm 148 (Apr. 21/24) [3:21]

For our Orthodox Pascha is not just a festival, but the Festival of all festivals, an event for exceeding all the events of this world. Pascha shakes the whole cosmos: the sun, by our faith, dances and becomes iridescent with every colour of the rainbow, and all of creation rejoices. Some observe a magnificent silence, lacking the strength to express the inexpressible feeling of Paschal joy which fills their souls. Others hasten to share their feeling of the Paschal triumph. All people and all things begin to move, the tedious vanities of this world are cast aside, and all are transfigured. Pascha is, first of all, in us ourselves, in our hearts. God’s gift of the feeling of love penetrates our whole being, and we love each person and all things. This relates not just to the animal kingdom, but to the whole of creation, extending to the smallest blade of grass and the smallest flower. Nothing escapes our loving attention. May the Lord help us all to keep ourselves like this, for as such did the Lord create us… ~Paschal Epistle excerpt of Metropolitan Vitaly – May, 2000; The Two Thousandth Pascha of Christ.

2024 Paschal Epistle of His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad

…In recent years, the world has become very dark, and people, it seems to me, are languishing under the weight of this darkness. Observing the events in the world, one feels incredible sorrow for a person who suffers from the sin and evil that surrounds him. However, this is nothing new, as Ecclesiastes testifies: “there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). And the Lord says: “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). In another place the Saviour says: “Believe in the light, that ye may be children of light” (John 12:36). In other words, we must hold fast to Christ! He is always there! We must humbly accept the present difficult times as a cross entrusted to us by the Lord, and in the conditions of this cross follow Him, i.e. to be and remain a Christian, striving with all our might to fulfill the Gospel covenants in our lives. It is incredibly difficult, but we have no other way but the way of the Cross. It is only through Golgotha that we are vouchsafed the never-ending light and the peace of Christ. After all, we sing at Easter: “Behold, joy will come to the whole world through the cross,” and Fyodor Dostoevsky reminds us: “Where the Cross is, there is the Resurrection.” ~ Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York