Divine Liturgy 9:00 a.m. for the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos - Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ's sake records that while the multitides of the faithful were gathered in church, Epiphanius, friend of Saint Andrew, through the Saint's prayers, beheld the Virgin Mary above the faithful and spreading out her veil over them, signifying her unceasing protection of all Christians.  "Today we Orthodox people joyfully keep festival, being illumined by thy glorious coming among us, O Mother of God; and gazing upon thy most pure image, we say with compunction:  Shelter us with thy most precious Protection, and deliver us from all evil, and pray to thy Son, Christ our God, that He save our souls." (Dismissal Hymn of the Holy Protection in the 4th Tone)  

Great Vespers for Sunday Divine Liturgy - "I will give thanks to the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing to the name of the Lord Most High."   (Psalm 7:18) 

Sunday Divine Liturgy - Domnina the Martyr, and her daughters, Verine (Berenice) and Prosdoce of Syria.  Dominina and her daughters were Christians.  Dominina was married to an idol worshipper, as was her daughter, Verine.  They left home and went to live in Edessa.  The husbands, together with soldiers, captured the women and were en route to Hieropolis.  When they stopped to eat next to a river and the soldiers became drunk, the three women slipped away into the river.  Domnina feared that they would be raped by the soldiers.  They left their sandals by the edge of the river to show that they entered the waters of their own will.  Domnina held her daughters in the water and there they all agave up their spirits.  St. John Chrysostom later praised Domnina for a courage that surpassed the bounds of nature.  Also, he praised the daughters for their obedience.

Great Vespers 6:00 p.m. - Jesus is a friend who knows all your faults and still loves you anyway.     "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. "  Romans 5:8         

General Confession

Sunday Divine Liturgy -  Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council   -    On the Sunday that falls on or immediately after the eleventh of this month, we chant the Service to the 350 holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which gathered in Nicaea in 787 under the holy Patriarch Tarasius and during the reign of the Empress Irene and her son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to refute the Iconoclast heresy, which had received imperial support beginning with the Edict issued in 726 by Emperor Leo the Isaurian.  Many of the holy Fathers who condemned Iconoclasm at this holy Council later died as Confessors and Martyrs for the holy Icons during the second assault of Iconoclasm in the ninth century, especially during the reigns of Leo the Armenian and Theophilus.

Enlightener Deadline

Great Vespers for Sunday Divine Liturgy commemorating Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke -   This Apostle was an Antiochean, a physician by trade, and a disciple and companion of Paul.  He wrote his Gospel in Greek after Matthew and Mark, after which he wrote the Acts of the Apostles, and dedicated both works to Theophilus, who, according to some, was Governor of Achaia.  He lived some eighty-six years and died in Achaia, perhaps in Patras, the capital of this district.  His emblem is the calf, the third symbolical beast mentioned  by Ezekiel (1:10), which is   a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial and priestly office, as Saint Irenaeus says. 

Sunday Divine Liturgy commemorating the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke - "O Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke, intercede with the merciful God that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of offences." 

Trustees' Meeting

St. Demetrius Memorial Saturday Panikhida - Blessed are they whom Thou has chosen and taken, O Lord.  Their memory is from generation to generation.   Their souls shall dwell with the blessed.

Great Vespers for Sunday Divine Liturgy - A great champion hath the whole world found thee to be when in grave perils; for thou dost put to flight the heathen, O victorious one.  As thou didst humble Lyaeus’s arrogance and gavest boldness to Nestor in the stadium, thus, O holy Great Martyr Demetrius, do thou entreat Christ God that we be granted great mercy.

Sunday Divine Liturgy - God, Who hath given thee invincible strength, O Demetrius, hath adorned the Church with the royal purple of the streams of thy blood and hath kept thy city unharmed, for thou art the support thereof. 

Great Vespers with Litiya

Divine Liturgy  -  St. Demetrius was a Thessalonian, a most pious son of pious and nobel parents, and a teacher of the Faith of Christ.  When Maximian first came to Thessalonica in 290, he raised the Saint to the rank of Duke of Thessaly.  But when it was discovered that the Saint was a Christian, he was arrested and was imprisoned in a bath-house.  While the games were under way in the city, Maximian was a spectator there.  A certain friend of his, a barbarian who was a notable wrestler, Lyaeus by name, waxing haughty because of the height and strength of his body, boasted in the stadium and challenged the citizens to a contest with him.  All that fought with him were defeated.  Seeing this, a certain youth named Nestor, an acquaintance of Demetrius’, came to the Saint in the bath-house and asked his blessing to fight Lyaeus single-handed.  Receiving this blessing and sealing himself with the sign of the precious Cross, he presented himself in the stadium and said, “O God of Demetrius, help me!” and straightway he engaged Lyaeus in combat and smote him with a mortal blow to the heart, leaving the former boaster lifeless upon the earth.   Maximian was sorely grieved over this, and when he learned who was the cause of this defeat, he commanded straightway and Demetrius was pierced with lances while he was yet in the bath-house.  Before his death,  an angel of God appeared to Demetrius saying, “Peace be with thee, thou sufferer for Christ; be brave and strong!”.  As for Nestor, Maximian commanded that he be slain with his own sword.  Christians buried Demetrius and his relics began producing a healing fragrant myrrh.  A small church was built over his relics, and when a nobleman was healed there of an incurable disease, he built a much larger church. 

Great Vespers for Sunday Divine Liturgy -  God intervenes in the affairs of men by invitation only.  Come to church and invite Him in your life.  "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:  if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."   -   Revelation 3:20