Diocese of New England, OCA

Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen!

https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/paschal-greetings

In Memoriam: Bishop Matthias (Moriak) Bishop Matthias (Moriak), retired Bishop of the Diocese of Chicago and the Midwest, fell asleep in the Lord on May 4, 2023 (Holy Saturday) after a…

Bishop Benedict Pascha message

April 30, 2024

Fr. John Kreta & Fr. Justin Griffing

At the confection of Chrism.
At St Tikhon's Orthodox
Monastery PA

This is the special oil with which the newly baptized are anointed for the "seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit." Mixed into this will be drops from a previous batch of Chrism, the process of that going back centuries. The mixing of the oil began three weeks ago and it is cooked from the Monday of Holy Week until the Divine Liturgy on Thursday of Holy Week. During the continuous stirring by priests and deacons, the Gospel is read constantly.

Handbook for Orthodox Catechism

Handbook for Orthodox Catechism This book is written with two purposes in mind. The first is as a guide that can be used to introduce those seeking to learn about the Orthodox Church through her Traditions and practices. Thus, it can be used by both catechumens preparing for entry into the Orthodox Church or those simply seekin...

On Sunday evening April 28th His Grace Bishop Benedict arrived in Hartford Connecticut for Deanery Bridegroom Matins.
Priest Constantine Bodien rector of the parish welcomed his Grace Bishop Benedict, Chancellor Archpriest John Kreta, Dean Archpriest Steven Voytovich and 7 priests from the Connecticut Deanery for Bridegroom Matins.
Many parishioners and laity from deanery churches filled the church with prayer.
The choir sang beautifully and after the service Bishop Benedict, clergy and laity enjoyed a delicious meal prepared with love by parishioners and fellowship!

Holy Synod - Encyclicals - The Resurrection of Christ 2024 Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon Pascha 2024 To the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the…

Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

Visible triumphs are few in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He preached a kingdom “not of this world.” At His nativity in the flesh there was “no room at the inn.” For nearly thirty years, while He grew “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52), He lived in obscurity as “the son of Mary.” When He appeared from Nazareth to begin His public ministry, one of the first to hear of Him asked: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). In the end He was crucified between two thieves and laid to rest in the tomb of another man.

Two brief days stand out as sharp exceptions to the above—days of clearly observable triumph. These days are known in the Church today as Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. Together they form a unified liturgical cycle which serves as the passage from the forty days of Great Lent to Holy Week. They are the unique and paradoxical days before the Lord’s Passion. They are days of visible, earthly triumph, of resurrectional and messianic joy in which Christ Himself is a deliberate and active participant. At the same time they are days which point beyond themselves to an ultimate victory and final kingship which Christ will attain not by raising one dead man or entering a particular city, but by His own imminent suffering, death and resurrection.

By raising Lazarus from the dead before Thy Passion,
Thou didst confirm the universal resurrection, 0 Christ God!
Like the children with the palms of victory,
we cry out to Thee, 0 Vanquisher of Death:
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!
(Troparion of the Feast, sung on both Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday)

Lazarus Saturday

In a carefully detailed narrative the Gospel relates how Christ, six days before His own death, and with particular mindfulness of the people “standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me” (John 11:42), went to His dead friend Lazarus at Bethany outside of Jerusalem. He was aware of the approaching death of Lazarus but deliberately delayed His coming, saying to His disciples at the news of His friend’s death: “For your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe” (John 11:14).

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Lazarus was already dead four days. This fact is repeatedly emphasized by the Gospel narrative and the liturgical hymns of the feast. The four-day burial underscores the horrible reality of death. Man, created by God in His own image and likeness, is a spiritual-material being, a unity of soul and body. Death is destruction; it is the separation of soul and body. The soul without the body is a ghost, as one Orthodox theologian puts it, and the body without the soul is a decaying co**se. “I weep and I wail, when I think upon death, and behold our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying in the tomb dishonored, disfigured, bereft of form.” This is a hymn of Saint John of Damascus sung at the Church’s burial services. This “mystery” of death is the inevitable fate of man fallen from God and blinded by his own prideful pursuits.

With epic simplicity the Gospel records that, on coming to the scene of the horrible end of His friend, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). At this moment Lazarus, the friend of Christ, stands for all men, and Bethany is the mystical center of the world. Jesus wept as He saw the “very good” creation and its king, man, “made through Him” (John 1:3) to be filled with joy, life and light, now a burial ground in which man is sealed up in a tomb outside the city, removed from the fullness of life for which he was created, and decomposing in darkness, despair and death. Again as the Gospel says, the people were hesitant to open the tomb, for “by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days” (John 11:39).

When the stone was removed from the tomb, Jesus prayed to His Father and then cried with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out.” The icon of the feast shows the particular moment when Lazarus appears at the entrance to the tomb. He is still wrapped in his grave clothes and his friends, who are holding their noses because of the stench of his decaying body, must unwrap him. In everything stress is laid on the audible, the visible and the tangible. Christ presents the world with this observable fact: on the eve of His own suffering and death He raises a man dead four days! The people were astonished. Many immediately believed on Jesus and a great crowd began to assemble around Him as the news of the raising of Lazarus spread. The regal entry into Jerusalem followed.

Lazarus Saturday is a unique day: on a Saturday a Matins and Divine Liturgy bearing the basic marks of festal, resurrectional services, normally proper to Sundays, are celebrated. Even the baptismal hymn is sung at the Liturgy instead of Holy God: “As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.”

Very Rev. Paul Lazor

Apr 21, 2024

5th Sunday of Great Lent: St Mary of Egypt

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/02/18-5th-sunday-of-great-lent-st-mary-of-egypt

Orthodox Christian Attorney Network Launches New Stage of Ministry The Orthodox Christian Attorney Network (OCAN) is pleased to announce its establishment as a formal nonprofit corporation, marking a significant milestone in its journey to minister to…

On Sunday evening around 4pm many priests from the Connecticut Deanery and laity gathered for Mission Vespers at Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church
His Grace Bishop Benedict prayed in the altar during Vespers
After Vespers a delicious Lenten meal was served in the hall downstairs where laity and clergy had wonderful opportunity to engage in conversation with our beloved Vladika especially the youth!
Glory be to God!

On Sunday morning
April 14th is Grace Benedict Bishop of Hartford and the Diocese of New England paid an arch pastoral visit to Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church in New Haven Connecticut.
Serving with His Grace was Archpriest Steven Voitovich parish rector and Dean of Connecticut
Mitered Archpriest Joseph retired and Protodeacon Paul Nimcheck
Many of the faithful communed of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ!
The laity and clergy enjoyed a delicious Lenten coffee hour.
Then the laity had a wonderful opportunity to ask His Grace questions and receive answers regarding church life, fasting and other spiritual life questions.

Apr 14, 2024

4th Sunday of Great Lent: St John Climacus (of the Ladder)

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2007/03/18/16-4th-sunday-of-great-lent-st-john-climacus-of-the-ladder

Metropolitan Tikhon issues letter on recent updates to the Pension Plan Today, April 12, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon sent the following letter to the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America. He also sent copies to the members…

Confection Schedule of Holy Chrism Announced As has been previously announced, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon will be presiding at the Rite of Consecration of Preparation of Holy Chrism during the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Great and…

At 5 pm Deanery Vespers was served with a full church of laity choir and clergy.
His Grace Bishop Benedict prayed in the altar which was full of priests from the Connecticut and Massachusetts Deanery.
Archpriests:
John Kreta Chancellor
Steven Voytovich Dean
John Hopko
Michael Korolev
Priest Emanuel Mantzouris from Saint Basil Greek Orthodox Church in Troy NY and
Parish rector Priest Justin Griffing served and prayed at Vespers with His Grace!
Glory be to God!

On Sunday April 7th Sunday of the Cross and the repose of Saint Tikhon Patriarch of Moscow
His Grace Bishop Benedict officiated the Divine Liturgy at Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in Pittsfield Massachusetts
Serving with His Grace was parish rector Priest Justin Griffing and Archpriest Igor Burdikoff
Many of the faithful received Holy Communion and enjoyed fellowship at coffee hour in the rectory after liturgy

Apr 7, 2024

3rd Sunday of Great Lent: Veneration of the Cross

The Third Sunday of Lent is that of the Veneration of the Cross. The cross stands in the midst of the church in the middle of the lenten season not merely to remind men of Christ’s redemption and to keep before them the goal of their efforts, but also to be venerated as that reality by which man must live to be saved. “He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Mt.10:38). For in the Cross of Christ Crucified lies both “the power of God and the wisdom of God” for those being saved (1 Cor.1:24).

Mar 31, 2024

2nd Sunday of Great Lent: St Gregory Palamas

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/03/20/12-2nd-sunday-of-great-lent-st-gregory-palamas

On Monday March 25th His Grace Bishop Benedict officiated the Patronal Feast of Holy Annunciation church in Maynard Massachusetts.
Serving with His Grace was parish rector Archpriest Robert Dick, 8 priests and 2 Deacons from the Boston Deanery.
Many communed of the Holy Mysteries of Christ!
An abundant meal was served in the parish hall where clergy and laity enjoyed fellowship!
Joyous Feast!

To Day Sunday 24, 2024
Is Sunday of Orthodoxy

As the Prophets saw, as the Apostles taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers express in dogma, as the inhabited world understands together with them, as grace illumines, as the truth makes clear, as error has been banished, as wisdom makes bold to declare, as Christ has assured, so we think, so we speak, so we preach, honouring Christ our true God, and his Saints, in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in churches, in icons, worshipping and revering the One as God and Lord, and honouring them because of their common Lord as those who are close to him and serve him, and making to them relative veneration.

This is the faith of the Apostles; this is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the Orthodox; this faith makes fast the inhabited world.

An American Destiny

An American Destiny

Purchase Agreement Reached for the Westwood Property The Orthodox Church in America has entered into a purchase agreement for the Westwood Property, the location that has housed the Chancery of the OCA over the last several decades. The…

lenten messag from Bishop Benedict