On Wednesday 21 May and Thursday 22 May we will have services commemorating the Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra in Lycia to Bari, Italy, in 1087 AD.  This is the patronal feast-day of our church.  All-night Vigil with the blessing of wheat, wine, oil and five loaves will be served at 6.00pm on Wednesday and the Hours and Divine Liturgy will be served at 9.00am on Thursday.  Divine Liturgy will be preceded by the Lesser Blessing of Water at 8.00am.  For a moleben to Saint Nicholas and a festive lunch we will wait until Sunday 25 May, when Archbishop George will visit.

On Saturday 24 May and Sunday 25 May we will have services for the Sixth Sunday of Pascha, the Sunday of the Blind Man.  Matins will be served at 6.00pm on Saturday.  At 9.00am on Sunday, God willing, we will greet His Eminence Archbishop George of Sydney, Australia and New Zealand, visiting our parish in honour of our patronal feast of Saint Nicholas. During the Hours our parishioner and altar server James Savage will be tonsured a reader.  Archbishop George will then preside at Divine Liturgy, after which there will be a moleben to Saint Nicholas with a procession around the church, and a festive lunch. All are welcome!

On Monday 9 June, the Second Day of Pentecost and the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Hours and Divine Liturgy will be served at the site of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Monkerai, New South Wales (NSW).  Monday 9 June 2025 is the King’s Birthday public holiday in NSW, Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory.  Further information about the services and travel to the monastery site will be made available in early May.  This will be a good opportunity for all with an interest in the monastery project to visit the site and see the work that has been done there under the leadership of Gregory Alexandrovsky since he became caretaker in 2022.

Our Winter 2025 Schedule of Services - covering June, July and August - is now available.  Services of particular note during this period will be All-night Vigil and Divine Liturgy on Saturday-Sunday 7-8 June for the Great Feast of Pentecost and All-night Vigil and Divine Liturgy on Wednesday-Thursday 27-28 August for the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.  A copy of the English-language Winter 2025 Schedule of Services is available here, and a copy of the Russian-language Winter 2025 Schedule of Services is available here.  Printed copies will available in church as of Wednesday 21 May.

Our parishioners and friends will be saddened to learn that as of 29 April 2025, parish cleric Deacon Michal Matys has been formally transferred to Saint George Russian Orthodox Church in Carlton, NSW.  Father Michal was ordained to the diaconate in the Carlton parish on 6 May 2017 and served there until moving to the region and beginning to serve with us in October 2021.  He was formally assigned to our parish in February 2023, the first deacon assigned here in our long history.  We plan to formally recognise Father Michal's service at a later date. 

On Saturday 10 May and Sunday 11 May we had services for the Fourth Sunday of Pascha, the Sunday of the Paralytic.  Matins was served on Saturday evening and the Hours and Divine Liturgy were served on Sunday morning.  At Divine Liturgy prayers were offered for the unity of the Orthodox Church and peace in Ukraine.

On Saturday 26 April and Sunday 27 April we had services for Thomas Sunday, the Second Sunday of Pascha.  Matins was served on Saturday evening and the Hours and Divine Liturgy were served at on Sunday morning.  At Divine Liturgy prayers were offered for the unity of the Orthodox Church, peace in Ukraine, and peace in the Holy Land.  In place of a sermon, the parish rector read aloud the Paschal Epistle of Archbishop George in Russian and English. At the end of Divine Liturgy the Prayer at the breaking of the Artos was read and pieces of the Artos were distributed to the faithful.

This year, our parish had just two traditional Holy Week services.  Matins with the reading of the Twelve Passion Gospels was served in the evening on Thursday 17 April and Vespers with the bringing out of the Shroud of Christ was served in the afternoon on Friday 18 April.  As our parish rector was serving in Gosford for Pascha this year there were no Resurrectional services in our church, and our parishioners attended festive services at either the Greek Orthodox or Serbian Orthodox parishes in Newcastle or travelled to Gosford.  God willing, we will have Paschal services in our parish again in 2026.

On Saturday 12 April and Sunday 13 April we had services for Palm Sunday, the Sixth Sunday of Great Lent and the Great Feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem.  All-night vigil with the blessing of wheat, wine, oil, and five loaves and the blessing of palms and pussy-willows was served on Saturday evening and the Hours and Divine Liturgy were served on Sunday morning.  At Divine Liturgy prayers were offered for peace in the Holy Land and a collection was taken up to benefit the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem.  As this was the final Divine Liturgy in our parish for Great Lent, a great many people confessed and received Holy Communion.  At the end of the service on Sunday prayers of blessing were read over a set of new red covers for the Holy Table, Table of Oblation, and icon stands.  The new covers are the work of the sisters of Saint Elizabeth Convent in Minsk, Belarus.

“Let us appreciate and sincerely give thanks unto God for His great loving-kindness and mercy shown towards fallen mankind by redeeming us from sin through His suffering on the cross and glorious Resurrection, making us heirs of His heavenly kingdom. … Let us not be tempted by the so-called pleasures and riches of this temporal world, but let us always strive for spiritual riches which do not fade away. Our way of life now will have eternal consequences." Archbishop George’s Epistle is available in full in English here and in Russian here.

“May the present celebration, for which we have been preparing with prayer and fasting, renew the right spirit, that is, a healthy spirit, in our hearts, in order to understand the mystery of Christ's Resurrection, to enjoy the "riches of goodness" of which Chrysostom writes, and to anticipate "eternal joy"! ...  May our feast be united with the general yearning of the faithful to God for peace and for the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onouphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. For "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it," says the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 12:26).”  Metropolitan Nicholas’s Epistle is available in full in English here and in Russian here.

The April 2025 issue of “Word of the Church” (“Церковное Слово”), the official journal of the Australian-New Zealand Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, is now available in our parishes. This is the first issue for 2025.  Content includes the 2025 Paschal Epistle of Archbishop George in Russian and English; articles in Russian and English concerning the March 2025 Pastoral Conference of our Diocese convened at the Holy Protection Cathedral in Brunswick (Melbourne), Victoria, during Great Lent; the text in Russian and English of a paper presented at that conference by Archpriest Nicholas Karipoff, ‘The Image of the Pastor: The Bible, Vitae of the Saints and Pastoral Theology’;  announcements concerning various awards bestowed on Diocesan clergy by the Synod of Bishops and by Archbishop George; articles in Russian marking the centenary of the repose of Patriarch Tikhon; articles in Russian and English about the December 2024 Diocesan Youth Conference (“Syezd”); a colour supplement of photographs from Chersonesus (near Sevastopol, Crimea); and more.  Copies are $5.00.

The Twenty-First Diocesan Assembly of our Australian-New Zealand Diocese is to be held at Saints Peter and Paul Diocesan Cathedral in Strathfield, NSW, from the evening of Thursday 23 October until the afternoon of Sunday 26 October 2025.  As all Diocesan clergy will be participating in the Assembly, the only services in our Diocese on Saturday-Sunday 25-26 October will be at the Strathfield Cathedral.  A news article about the Twentieth Diocesan Assembly may be read here.  A delegate from amongst the laity to join the parish rector in representing our parish at the Assembly will be chosen at a parish meeting to be convened on Sunday 10 August 2025.  Further information about the parish meeting and the Twenty-First Diocesan Assembly will be made available in due course.

This year, 2025, is the centenary of the repose of two great hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church:  Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (31 January 1865 - 7 April 1925, canonised 1981) and Saint Jonah, Bishop of Hankow (17 April 1888- 20 October 1925, canonised 1996).  In recognition of this significant anniversary, the Synod of Bishops of our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has called upon the bishops and clergy to make a particular effort to remember these two holy bishops.  To this end, they are to be commemorated at the dismissal of each Divine Liturgy up until the Great Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple (4 December, the day of the Patriarchal enthronement of Saint Tikhon in 1918) and to remember Saint Tikhon in a sermon and with a moleben on Sunday 6 April, the Fifth Sunday in Great Lent and the eve of the anniversary of his repose.  As there will not be a service in our parish on that Sunday, arrangements for a moleben to Saint Tikhon and another to Saint Jonah will be made later in the year.  Holy Hierarchs Tikhon and Jonah, pray to God for us!