september 2014 monthly newsletter

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church! ! !! ! !! !

608 SOUTH COLLEGE ROAD • WILMINGTON, NC 28403 • (910) 392-4444 • FAX (910) 392-4905

www.stnicholaswilmington.org

September 2014

Feast of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross

September 14, 2014

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church September 2014

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Fr. Jon Emanuelson Parish Priest

Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.Office Phone: 910-392-4444 Office Fax: 910-392-4905

Fr. Jon’s mobile number: 910-685-0080

Office Email: [email protected] Fr. Jon’s Email: [email protected]

Church Website: www.stnicholaswilmington.orgFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/StNicholasWilmington

2014 PARISH COUNCILOfficers MembersEmanuel Miliotis (President) Kim Dandulakis Maria StasiosEvangelos Fragos (Vice President) Peter Malahias Tina BosticIrene Sotiriou Vogiatzis (Secretary) Debbie Rallis John BurgeeBarbara Reynolds (Treasurer) Nick Saffo

CHURCH STAFFAngelique Skandalakis, Parish Office Administrator

PARISH MINISTRY TEAM

Religious Education...Richard Reynolds, Ministry ChairAdult Education...Richard ReynoldsYouth Catechism...Courtney Malahias, DirectorBookstore/Library...Mary Ann WallOratorical Festival...Courtney Malahias

Hellenic Culture...Kitsa Wiersteiner, Ministry ChairHellenic School...Anetis Logothetis, Acting DirectorRomiosini Dance Group...Zaharoula KatsikisZoyra Dance Group...Kitsa WiersteinerChoral...Dr. Michael RallisSpecial Activities...Kitsa Wiersteiner

Youth Diakonia...Koula Katsikis, Ministry ChairGOYA...Dr. David Snow, Irene Sotiriou Vogiatzis,Mary Beth Miliotis, Tina Bostic, AdvisorsHOPE/JOY...Sophia Brewer, Jaime Saffo, Connie Ronner, Joyce Patsalos, Renee Karonis Psilos

Liturgical Life...Dr. Michael Rallis, Ministry ChairLiturgical Music...Dr. Michael RallisAcolytes (Altar Boys)...Doug BrownNeokoros/Sexton...T. Keith Anderson

Communications - Technology Ministries...Alexandros Theodoropoulos, Ministry Group LeaderWebmaster...Alexandros TheodoropoulosPublications.. Stella McTaggart & Angelique SkandalakisTechnology...Alexandros TheodoropoulosMedia/Community Relations...Beth Burgee, Debbie Rallis, Alexandros Theodoropoulos

Parish Family Life...**Volunteer Needed**Parish Life Night...**Volunteer Needed**Men’s Group...Rick ReynoldsWomen’s Group...**Volunteer Needed**Forever Young...Stella VallianosLOVE...Stella McTaggart

Outreach & Evangelism...Diane McGowanOCF...Fr. Jon & Alexandros Theodoropoulos Hospitality...Ed & Kathleen MayorgaCommunity Service...Sia Mayorga Parish Care...**Volunteer Needed**Philoptochos...Thalia Kefalas, Chapter PresidentStewardship...Debbie Rallis

From The Desk of Father JonTheme for the New Year: Let us lift up our Church!

Dear Sunday Church School Parents & Friends,

Religious education begins at home through the experience of prayer at the icon corner, prayer around the dinner table, prayers at morning and at night. This experience of our Orthodox Christian Faith is then carried into the world and also to church. Upon our arrival at God’s Holy Church, we experience and facilitate a liturgical life in Christ. With our entire being we worship the one, true and living God in Trinity. We smell the incense rising to the heavens as do our prayers. We do bows & prostrations, we reverence the icons, we do the sign of the cross and lift up our hearts and hands unto God almighty in worship. We taste the Holy Communion as we are blessed with forgiveness. We chant the hymns to the glory of God!

In the fullness of our Orthodox Faith our youth learn from all these experiences long before they enter into catechism at our beloved Sunday Church School. Thus, our blessed children, godchildren and grandchildren need, not only the blessed mysteries of baptism, chrismation and communion, but additional instruction and hands on Orthodox practices to enrich and grow their faith in Christ. This precious gift of God to all that have come after Jesus has been preserved and transmitted through the lives of the saints for over two thousand years all the way down to our present generation. Let us do everything in our power to put God and our Orthodox Faith first in our lives.

Our Sunday Church School Catechism program strives to keep our Orthodox Faith alive and well in our youth through many hands on activities that lead to a more complete understanding. Our Director, Courtney Malahias, has helped develop along with many committed teachers, a program that helps our youth become educated in all aspects of our faith. The curriculum is multifaceted and encompasses Scripture, Holy Tradition, Liturgy, Hymnology and Discipleship.

What we need most is YOU, the parents, to have a deep and abiding faith in Christ Jesus in our Orthodox Church. Please bring your children to worship the one true God for the entire Divine Liturgy starting at 10am. We are trying something new this year! The first Sunday of each month, certain SCS classes along with their teachers will come up to the solea for the Sunday Youth Sermon. I will prepare a special sermon directed to the classes there!

I am very excited about the new Ecclesiastical / SCS year, and I am personally inviting all of you to join us for our blessing of the waters for ministries and SCS on Sunday, September 7, 2014, right after the gospel reading. Thus, with all our hearts and all our love let us lift up our Church unto the Lord!

Love in Christ,

Fr. Jon Emanuelson


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From Emanuel Miliotis,Parish Council President

Hope everyone had a great summer and it is good to see families returning from vacation. As is normal in our community the church calendar really begins to ramp up with many activities that will be made available. I would like to highlight just a few things upcoming in our calendar. Please consult your web calendar for more dates.

• 9/4 Choir Practice: Anyone interested in joining the choir practices will begin on Thursday at 6:00pm. We know there are many great voices in our community.

• 9/4 Adult Education: For anyone looking to grow spiritually, we are offering adult education classes. They will be held on Thursday nights at 7:15pm, if you haven’t come to them in the past, I think you will find them very uplifting.

• 9/7 Sunday School kick-off. Thank you both new & returning teachers. See Courtney Malahias if you need to sign up your children.

• 9/12 Greek School begins: For all those children and adults who like to learn Greek our Greek school begins again. Friday nights at 5:00pm.

As fall is gearing up more of ministries will be needing support. We are trying to connect with our all parishioners to see how they can help our ministries grow. Please look for Ministry involvement cards in your Sunday bulletin or via our listserv. Take a minute to fill one out and return to our office. The information will be very helpful for us to help fill vacancies that we have as well as prepare for the future.

In Christ’s service


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Save the Date - October 2014

October 11 – Yard Sale Fundraiser for Romiosini and Zoyra Dancers

October 26 - OXI Day and Luncheon


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Outreach and EvangelismDiane McGowan

First, I would like to say: Happy New Ecclesiastical Year, Sept 1, 2014 Xpovia Polla!

To kick off a great year, we all need to examine ourselves, and say, “here is what I am going to do in order to improve my spiritual life, my relationship with God and with my fellow man! The Ministry leaders met on August 9th, and the results were very inspirational ! In fact, we collectively arrived at a theme for our parish, meant to inspire all, “ LIFTING UP THE CHURCH”

As for me, and my Ministry, as a direct result of the meeting, I feel renewed in my mission to embrace the growth of our church community, and our spiritual presence in the community at large. Thank you to all those who have done their best to encourage others, both newcomers and those who have been here for many years ! We all could use some “lifting up!”

Finally, please SAVE the following DATES:

Sunday, Sept. 28th, 2014: OUTREACH & EVANGELISM Kick Off Meeting after Divine Liturgy ( a light lunch will be served ) We will be planning our activities for the year, and strategies for successful growth in our community. Please plan to attend.

STOP HUNGER NOW— this year, SAT. DEC. 13TH 9AM TO 12 PM—at St. Nicholas Parish Hall this year.

Youth CatechismCourtney Malahias

Welcome back!

Our teachers are so excited for this year. Our first day of class is September 7th! Please register your child so we have all their information to better serve you.

Thank you to Alexia Porzio for hosting the teacher’s meeting. We had a very productive session and delicious food provided by Taste of Italy. We would like to welcome Presbytera Barbera, Lucy Pekatos, Alex Pathenos and Eleni Carros to our teaching team! So excited to have you all on board!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

This is our teacher mantra. I for one, try hard not to enter any situation without asking for the lords strength and guidance. When I do this with intention, my communication is very different. I feel so grateful to be a part of this ministry and our children are always my main focus. It is so important that we are all good role models for our youth. Let’s make it our mission to have our children feel a big part of our church family. Our teachers are ready to embrace your child and get to know them. Your children are in for a real treat this year!

Please let me know if you need anything at all. Thank you for all you do.Grateful to be in His service

Communications/TechnologyAlexandros Theodoropoulos

We hope that all of you had a great summer! Following up on further inquiries we have been receiving, please find below the information about using our new special hearing aid system as well as live streaming service:

Please be reminded of the special hearing aid system we recently acquired that is now connected to the sound system in the sanctuary and our hope is that this will allow our older especially parishioners with hearing issues to better listen and follow our services. The system has, at this point, four receivers available that are simple in their use, feature volume controls and are carried by each parishioner


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individually. These receivers are located at the Pangari (candle stand) in the Narthex area so, in case you feel you would like to try one of these, please see one of the pangari attendants on duty. We would be glad to receive any feedback you might have. In case we see a great demand, we will proceed with expanding the system with more receivers so that more of our parishioners will be able to use them.

Moreover, please do not forget about the live streaming of our services at St. Nicholas that our Technology ministry has implemented following requests from parishioners of ours that travel or are sick or homebound. The live streaming has been set up and can be seen on our website directly at www.stnicholaswilmington.org/LiveStreaming.html . In case you would like to view our services on your mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, iPads etc.), you could still use the afore-mentioned link however there is also an app available that is more suitable for this purpose. For information on how to set your device up with this app, you can contact Alexandros Theodoropoulos at [email protected] . Please check our calendar for a schedule of services and feel free to try it and offer us feedback when you have the chance. Also, please stay tuned for more updates on this project.

In addition, please be reminded that our church has a pretty active facebook page that can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/StNicholasWilmington . We would appreciate very much any of your efforts to help us further promote our FB page now that such social networking media have been becoming more popular. Also, our church’s email list has been growing as well. If you know of any parishioners or others that are not in our list and would like to receive our church’s email communications, like our weekly email bulletin and so on, please have them forward their email addresses to our church office.

Finally, on a personal note, I too would like to welcome Angelique Skandalakis, as our new parish office administrator as well as a new member of our Communications ministries since she handles several of our publications among other things!

In case you have any suggestions or feedback that could help us in our continuous effort communications publications/media please contact our church office at (910) 392-4444 or [email protected] or our Communications Chair, at [email protected] .

We would like to extend our best wishes to all of our parishioners for the 2014-15 ecclesiastical year! We further wish Δύναµη (Strength), Wisdom and Enlightenment to all of our students for the 2014-15 academic year!

Philoptochos

Philoptochos has had a great summer and is ready for a wonderful ecclesiastical year. This summer Philoptochos contributed to the Good Shepherd pantry. We donated 56 large vegetable and fruit cans and pull-ups for the residences.

We look forward to more outreach opportunities. If you would like to help us with these opportunities please contact a Philoptochos Board Member. We need you on board so we can do more fabulous things!

Thank you for supporting our Panayeri and for all the beautiful baskets! The evening was quite a success because of all of you! A big shout out to Basile Katsikas for MC-ing our night!

Liturgical LifeDr. Michael Rallis

"Who can describe in words thy divinely resplendent beauty, O Virgin Mother of God? Thoughts and words are inadequate to define thine attributes, since they

http://www.stnicholaswilmington.org/LiveStreaming.html




mailto:[email protected]


https://www.facebook.com/StNicholasWilmington









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surpass mind and speech. Yet it is meet to chant hymns of praise to thee, for thou art a vessel containing every grace, the fulness of all things good and beautiful, the tablet and living icon of every good and all uprightness, since thou alone hast been deemed worthy to receive the fulness of every gift of the Spirit. Thou alone didst bear in thy womb Him in Whom are found the treasuries of all these gifts and didst become a wondrous tabernacle for Him; hence thou didst depart by way of death to immortality and art translated from earth to Heaven, as is proper, so that thou mightest dwell with Him eternally in a super-celestial abode. From thence thou ever carest diligently for thine inheritance and by thine unsleeping intercessions with Him, thou showest mercy to all."

from Homily on the Falling asleep of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, by Saint Gregory Palama

Hope/JoyJoyce Patsalos, Renee Psilos, Sophia Brewer, Connie

Ronner, Jamie Saffo

I would like to first start out by introducing our new Hope/Joy leaders for this 2014-2015 year. From now on Hope/Joy will be conducted by Joyce Patsalos, Renee Psilos, Sophia Brewer, Connie Ronner, and Jamie Saffo. We are very excited to take on this organization and look forward to sharing fellowship along with fun and rewarding activities with all Hope/Joy families! As a reminder, Hope/Joy is for students who are in K-5th grades. If your child falls into this category, please make an attempt to bring your child to as many HOPE/JOY events possible. We really have a lot of fun activities that we are planning for the upcoming year, and would like to see as many kids participate as possible.

We had a fabulous kick off event on August 24 with a inflatable water slide and snacks which Sophia Brewer hosted at her house! Fun was had by all! Our next event will be September 28th as we host a fundraiser coffee hour after Divine Liturgy in the church hall. We are asking that HOPE/JOY families participate by donating a food/dessert to share with the fellow parishioners. We look forward to a fun filled year with you all.

In Christ's Service, Jamie Saffo


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Hellenic SchoolAnestis Logothetis

Dear Parents,

The Hellenic school is scheduled to begin on Friday, September 12. Classes will be held every Friday starting at 5pm sharp.

There will be a class for children 5-7 yrs old to be taught by Eugenia Karonis and Renee Psilos, a class for 8-11 yr. olds to be taught by Anastasia Katris and class for adults to be taught by Kitsa Wiersteiner.

We also would like to see if there is interest for a 12-14 year old youth class. Please let us know if you are interested so that we could try to explore and make proper arrangements

Registration forms are available at the Church Office.

Please register by September 10. A donation of $60 per child to cover books and supplies will be greatly appreciated.

Romiosini & Zoyra

Our dancers will start their weekly Sunday practices as of Sept 14, immediately following coffee hour. A parent/ dancer meeting will also take place for those who are interested in participating in the Hellenic Dance Festival (HDF) in Charlotte this year. More information to follow.

Save the date: October 11 yard sale fundraiser. Please save any gently used clothing, and furnishings.

GOYAKoula Katsikis - Mary Beth Miliotis - Tina Bostic -

David Snow - Irene Vogiatzis

Welcome back Goyans and welcome to our new members! Goya welcomes all youth in middle and high school grades. If you aren’t on our mailing list

or email list, please contact one of our advisors: Koula Katsikis, Tina Bostic, Mary Beth Miliotis, David Snow or Irene Sotiriou Vogiatzis.

• Our first get-together of the new school year will be on August 30 at the Snow’s. See flyers posted on the bulletin board and on our website. Parents please plan to attend this event with your goyans.

• The Goyans will resume their Wednesday night discussion group meetings with Fr. Jon. They meet at 7:00pm.

• On September 6, those that can attend please support our Raleigh community and attend their movie premiere, “Christmas with the Karountzoses”. See Holy Trinity’s website for ticket information.

LOVEStella McTaggart

Happy Ecclesiastical New Year! This month I hope that everyone can join us not only for the celebration of the New Year but a significant birthday for all of us that live in and around Wilmington, NC. Our city is turning 275 years old on Saturday, September 27, 2014. I thought it would be fun if our little ones can come out to participate in the celebrations. Wouldn’t it be fun for them to all “sign” their names on the City’s Anniversary Card and enjoy the local entertainment the city will provide? This will be taking place in Historic Downtown from 10am-3pm at the US Coast Guard Parking Lot on Water Street between Market & Chestnut Streets. Please RSVP to Stella McTaggart by Friday, September 19th so we can all coordinate where and when to specifically meet. Would LOVE to see you there!! If you would like more information about this event or have any questions about LOVE please contact Stella McTaggart at [email protected]


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Community News

Chapter Therma #10 Pan-Ikarian Brotherhood

We wish to thank everyone who came out and supported our spaghetti luncheon in July. The money we collected from your generous donations helped add to our scholarship program. We thank you all.

Mark your calendars for New Years Eve 2014. We will once again have our dance and ring in the New Year together! More details are to come.

Cross Dive Announcement

Due to a venue conflict we are unable to host the Cross Dive this year.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Stephanie Gallaher and Graham Harrill who were married on July 26.

Congratulations to Stephen and Kimberli Theophilos on the birth of their son, Nikolas Milo Theophilos on August 9. Νά σάς ζήσει!

Sympathies and Memorials

On June 29 a 10 year memorial was held for Ethel Zarres Melts who departed this life on June 27, 2004. She was the mother of Melissa Kirkby, Maria Stasios, and Florence Thomas. She was a loving wife, mother of 6, grandmother of 12. May her memory be eternal!

On July 20 a 40-day trisagnon was held for Panos Bouboulis, father of Nikoloas and Panagiota. May his memory be eternal!

On July 20 a memorial in memory of all the departed

Ikarians of Chapter Therma was held. May their memories be eternal!

On August 3 a one year memorial for Ioannis Vogiatzis, brother of Georgia Vogiatzis was held. May his memory be eternal!

On August 10 a Trisagnon was chanted for Mihail “Mitch” Rodites, uncle of Lambra Koklanaris, who passed away in July. Mitch was 90 years old and a World War 2 veteran. May his memory be eternal!

We would like to extend our deepest sympathy to Ed Mayorga and family on the passing of his father, Edward Mayorga, on August 11, 2014 in Youngstown, Ohio. May his memory be eternal!

With the Saints, give rest to the souls of Your servants, where there is no pain, sorrow, or suffering, but life eternal


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Church Financial Snapshot of General Fund August 1, 2014

July Jan – JulyOperating Income $21,128 $172,216 Operating Expense $26,249 $177,774Net Operating Income / Loss ($5,121) ($5,558)

Stewardship Pledged $197,487Full Year Stewardship Goal $244,590

Stewardship Received $141,080


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G.O.Y.A

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We're having a picnicand we'd love you to come.

Put on your sunscreenand join us for some fun!

Pan-Ikarian BrotherhoodChapter Therma

invites you to their annual

in the parkSaturday ~ September 20, 2014

2:00 pm - 6:00 pmHalyburton Park Shelter #1

Hamburgers, Hot Dogs & Fixin's will be provided.We ask each family to please bring a 2 liter soda or dessert.

Come join us for good food and fun!Everyone ~ Adults & Children alike

In case of rain event will be rescheduled.If unsure about the weather call: Peter Malahias at 431-5944 or Vangeli Fragos at 233-2572

Save The DateSunday - October 12, 2014 - General meeting following coffee hour.Sunday - November 16, 2014 - General meeting at 5 pm Church hall.

Saturday - December 20, 2014 - Christmas Party - 5:30 pm Church hallSunday - December 21, 2014 - Elections following Liturgy.Wednesday - December 31, 2014 - New Years Eve Dance

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Please check our online Parish Calendar at

http://www.stnicholaswilmington.org/ParishCalendar.html

for up to date information about our Parish Life events

Parish Calendar

ST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

608 S. College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403

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september 2014 monthly newsletter

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