Bishop BASIL writes:

Please join me for the annual Our Lady of Walsingham Pilgrimage on Saturday, October 17th, at the Church of Our Lady/Mesquite, TX.  Questions?  Contact Fr. Daniel Keller, proistamenos.

Bishop BASIL wites:

As is my practice at the start of each Church Year, I have attached hereto IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS which you are asked to download, share with your appropriate parish officers, members and employees, and then file for future reference.  These document are available at www.antiochian.org/DOWAMA/Policies. Included are:

        a - Archdiocesan Guidelines & Procedures Concerning Clergy Sexual Misconduct

        b - Rules & Procedures Concerning the Archdiocesan Spiritual Court

        c - The Archpastoral Directive Concerning the Time of Church School

        d - Guidelines Concerning a Visitation by a Bishop

Come Receive the Light - The Nationally Syndicated Land Based Radio Program - On this week's CRTL podcast: Fr. Chris speaks with Fr. Joseph Huneycutt of St. George Church in Houston, Texas on his book Defeating Sin: Overcoming Our Passions and Changing Forever. The Fathers describe this essential effort as the path to godliness--"theosis" in the Orthodox faith. You won't want to miss this powerful message! In a short segment, Gigi Shadid talks about her music, faith and teaching. Gigi Shadid is an educator, a Khouria, and a musician with two CDs of Orthodox children's music.

Fr. Joseph Huneycutt may also be heard regularly on Ancient Faith Radio's Orthodixie podcast. He is also the author of the Orthodixie blog.

June 25, 2009

Beloved and Christ-loving priests, deacons, monastics and lay folk of DOWAMA:

I embrace and greet you with a holy kiss in the Name of the Lord Christ.

In the Biblical account of the feast of Pentecost (Acts 2) we read of people from a multitude of nations who heard for the very first time and “everyone in his own language” (2:6) the proclamation by the Holy Apostles of the Good News. Among those people were “Arabians” (2:11) which meant people from Rome’s frontier province of Arabia Petraea (the area of modern Syria south of Damascus, the Nabataean kingdom in modern Jordan, the Sinai peninsula and the northwestern tip of modern Saudi Arabia).

Much of Decapolis (Matthew 4:25), an area frequently visited by Christ and His disciples, is situated in this Arabia, as is Caesarea Philippi (modern Banyas in Syria) where the Holy Apostle Peter confessed Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-20). It was to this Arabia that, following his baptism in Damascus by St Ananias (9:17 & 18) and his escape over the city’s wall (9:25) that the Holy Apostle Paul fled and spent three years (Galatians 1:15-18). And it was to this Arabia that St. Timon, one of the Seventy Apostles appointed by the Lord Christ (Luke 10:1) and one of the Seven Deacons chosen by the Twelve (Acts 6:5), was sent to preach and later served as first bishop of the province’s capital city of Nova Trajana Bostra (modern Bosra in Syria).