On Saturday 10 December and Sunday 11 December we will have services for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost and in honour of Monk-Martyr Stephen the New (+767 AD).  Matins will be served at 6.00pm on Saturday and the Hours and Divine Liturgy will be served at 9.00am on Sunday. 

On Saturday 26 November and Sunday 27 November we had services for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost and in honour of the Holy Apostle Philip (+87 AD).  Matins 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 Ukraine and for deliverance from the coronavirus.  In his sermon the parish rector spoke about the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), emphasising the relationship between love for God and love for one’s neighbour; the extraordinary call to love one’s neighbour as oneself; and of one’s neighbour as being simply any other person with whom we have contact.  Following Divine Liturgy on Sunday a litia was served for the ever-memorable founder of our parish, Archpriest John Lupish (+1977), Tuesday 22 November 2022 having been the forty-fifth anniversary of his repose.  After the service many of those present gathered in the church hall for a light meal, this practice having been re-established after a break of over two-and-a-half years.

Our Summer 2022-23 Schedule of Services - covering December, January and February - is now available in PDF format.  A copy of the English-language Summer 2022-23 Schedule of Services is available here, and a copy of the Russian-language Summer 2022-23 Schedule of Services is available here.  Printed copies will be available in church from the weekend of 26-27 November.   Services of note will be for the second day of the Great Feast of the Nativity Of the Lord (Christmas) on Sunday 8 January, and for the Sunday after the Great Feast of Baptism of the Lord (Theophany) on 23 January, a day on which we will have a Great Blessing of Water and commemorate Newcastle's former Theophany parish.  Although we will not have services this year for the summer feast of Saint Nicholas on 18-19 December, a moleben to the saint will be served after Divine Liturgy on Sunday 18 December.

On Saturday 12 November and Sunday 13 November we had services for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost and in honour of the Apostles of the Seventy Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Narcissus, Apelles and Aristobulus (1st C. AD) and Martyr Epimachus of Alexandria (+250 AD).  Matins 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 Ukraine and, in view of the rising number of cases, for deliverance from the coronavirus.  In his sermon the parish rector spoke about Christ's miraculous healing of the demon-possessed man (Luke 8:26-39); His miracles as signs of both His divine power and His love for humanity; and the need for a response to both those things.  He spoke about the different forms of response evident in the lives of the saints commemorated, commending in particular Saints Spyridon and Nicodemus, prosphora-bakers of the Kiev Caves (+12th C. AD), for the simplicity and faithfulness of their Christian lives.

The October 2022 issue of “Word of the Church” (“Церковное Слово”), the official journal of the Australian-New Zealand Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), is now available in our parishes. This edition continues the beautiful glossy colour format introduced in December 2020.  Content includes information in Russian and English about the September 2022 Council of Bishops; the election by that Council of Bishop Nicholas (Olhovsky) as Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York and First Hierarch of the ROCOR; and the appointment of Bishop George as Ruling Bishop of the Australian-New Zealand Diocese. Also included in both languages are articles on the repose of Queen Elizabeth II; the repose of Priest David Lloyd; the July 2022 Residential School of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Institute; the history of the Harbin Diocese of the ROCOR (with many wonderful photographs); and more.  Copies are $5.00.