By Fr. Jason Vansuch, St. George Orthodox Church, Buffalo, NY.
“This is The Day that The Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
Over the weekend of April 25-26, our parish was filled with a wonderful celebration and blessed weekend within the life of our parish with The Archpastoral Visit of His Eminence Archbishop Michael for the 3rd Sunday of Holy Pascha - The Sunday of The Myrrhbearing Women.
The Archpastoral Visit began with the prayerful and beautiful Celebration of Great Vespers served by Archpriest Jason Vansuch and Dn. Mark Bohush. Following Great Vespers, Fr. Jason and Matushka Katia together with the Parish Council Members and their families joined His Eminence in the Parish Fellowship Hall for an informal dinner meeting discussing the Life and Mission of our beloved parish along with our projects of establishing a more permanent Parish Bookstore and Parish Library, and our goal and vision for expanding the Church with the increasingly growth of our parish and attendance at Divine Services.
The Archpastoral Visit continued on Sunday Morning with a wonderful Q&A Session with His Eminence, where the children prepared questions on the Holy Prophets ahead of time to ask, along with many other parishioners asking questions inquiring about The Life of The Church, Her Teachings, Her Doctrine, Orthodox Spirituality, and various aspects of Orthodox Christian Life. This was followed by the Vesting of His Eminence and the explanation of what each Vestment of a Hierarch means and represents. Following the Procession of the Children and Altar Servers leading His Eminence to the front of the Church where he was greeted with a full church and presented with the Traditional Flowers, Bread and Salt, and Blessing Cross, His Eminence led all of us in a beautiful, joyous, and prayerful Divine Liturgy, a delicious luncheon, a fruitful meeting of the Recent Converts to The Orthodox Faith, Current Inquirers and Catechumens with His Eminence, and wonderful Christian Fellowship with one another as a parish family, as brothers and sisters in Christ and with our beloved Diocesan Hierarch, Shepherd, and Father in Christ.
Truly, we witnessed the Fullness of the Church in our beloved parish of St. George - Glory to God for All Things! Lord, it is good to be here!
