Since 1992, International Orthodox Christian Charities has provided more than 330 million in services to some of the world's most vulnerable people in 33 countries.  The organization reaches out to victims of poverty, war, natural disasters, to orphans, school children, refugees, the elderly, and people with disabilities.  On average 92% of IOCC's resources are used for their humanitarian relief and development programs such as providing education, job training and disease prevention to many communities throughout the world.  Check out the website: http://www.iocc.org/dayofsharing/index.aspx

With All Souls day coming on November 2^nd, have you considered your own mortality?  Where are you going to rest your body while we wait for Our Savior's return?  The Benedictine Fellowship of St. Laurence (BFSL) by Tallahassee Creek is a very peaceful, natural beauty that whispers serenity.  Even though the cost is $1,000 for the plot, most commercial cemeteries charge a lot more.

Also by locking in your plot, you can pay for your plot in installments and do not have to worry that the cost would increase in the future.  Also by BFSL being an Orthodox institution, you know that we will treat you and your loved ones with the utmost respect and we will be there for your spiritual needs.

BFSL has partnered with the Archdiocese of Denver for the mortuary services (http://www.archdenmort.org/ArchDenMort/archdenmort.html ).  This partnership will keep your loved ones with price competitive services and peace of mind that our principle mission is to help the faithful.

You can also consider that there are many abbeys in the US that are making caskets.  So you not only get a well-made casket but you also help monks.  From St. Meinrad Archabbey, Benedictine monks create Abbey Caskets (http://www.abbeycaskets.com ).  Trappists monks In Iowa make Trappist Caskets (http://www.trappistcaskets.com ). 

So feel free to check out our website: http://saintlaurenceosb.org/cemetery.html and consider us for your own temporary resting location.  Thank you.

Antiochian Orthodox Christsian Diocesse is raising money for Special Olympics on Sunday to fund the 2011 Special Olympics Sports Camp to be held at the Antiochian Village August 12-20, 2010. Next summer we will celebrate our 30th Annual Special Olympics Sports Camp. This ministry is sponsored by the North American Council of Teen SOYO. Our teens work very hard for this ministry and rely on the generosity and support of the faithful of our Archdiocese and the Order of St. Ignatius.

 It is essential that immediately following Special Olympics Awareness Day, your teens should send their check for the full amount collected in the enclosed envelope to:

Special Olympics Awareness Day
Department of Youth Ministry
PO Box 389
Westwood MA 02090-0389

Encourage your teens, ages 16-19, to consider volunteering as a coach next year. If for some reason your parish did not receive the mailing, you may download all of the materials (other than the icon bookmarks and promotional videos) from the website: www.antiochian.org/soyo_special_olympics.

Our Commitment

When we were contemplating opening Best Orthodox Gifts, we knew we wanted to look beyond the four walls of our family business and try in some small way to embody the charity and love we have been shown by our Father through his son Jesus Christ. At present, we have three different ways to allow parishes to announce their charities and raise funds.

Orthodox Charities

The first began at the inception of Best Orthodox Gifts website. Any Orthodox Church can email us with their parish's charity/charities and we will post the information on our website. One such example is the Outreach Alaska program where you can learn how to "Adopt a Seminarian" or help stock St. Juliana Food Pantry that assists married students and their families while attending St. Herman Theological Seminary. This is a wonderful forum to view when you are looking to give a gift to God in celebration of the Nativity, the Resurrection, a Saint's Day, or a special day in your life that you are thankful to God.

Partnering with Parishes

The second is a recent program we call "Partnering with Parishes." We want to serve you and your parish, so Best Orthodox Gifts has created a donation program for participating parishes. All you need to do is email your interest in this program and we will provide you with a code that your parishioners use on our website at the time of order. When this code is used we will donate 5% to your parish on their purchases. Additionally, we will donate 10% back on purchases that collectively exceed $500 a quarter. To help you tell your parish about this program we will provide you with a poster showing a few of our products, to place on your bulletin board, and Partnering with Parishes cards that provide our website and your parish code.

Email us at aromanczakbestorthodoxgifts.com to sign up. There is no cost to your parish.

Have Your Parish Icon Digitized for Fundraising

And finally, a fundraiser that allows you to show your parish pride. We can digitize your icon to be embroidered on shirts, bags, aprons, etc. These beautiful embroidered icons have all the shading and usually contain 20-35 thousand stitches depending on size. Below are the two ways your parish can participate in this program.

Fundraising Plan 1

Pre-order 12 items of any combination (items can be determined later) and we will wave the $35 digitizing fee. We will produce the items at multiple-order pricing to allow a margin for your fundraiser.

Fundraising Plan 2

Pay the $35 digitizing fee and we will place a stitch-out example on our website and pictures of the items the icon can be embroidered on. We will provide you with a code that your parishioners can use on our website at the time of order. When this code is used we will donate 5% to your parish. See "Partnering with Parishes" above.

We hope these programs will assist you in getting the word out about your charities and help your parish raise money. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your questions and as always thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you and your parish.

This T-Shirt is for The Original Men In Black Fighting Evil for over 2,000 years. The Orthodox Clergy. Sunglasses and Holy water not included. Order for your priest, deacon, reader, bishop. Free Shipping. Click on link to pre-order now. Orders will start shipping the week of July 12th.

http://www.shop.bestorthodoxgifts.com/Clergy-Only-Club_c30.htm

In an article on Orthodox Biz in May 2010, I predicted the demise of Protestantism. That seemed outrageous to many of my readers, who were not at all shy about sending me emails questioning my sanity. Of the approximate 2 billion Christians in the world today, 648 million or so are Protestants, with most of those being Evangelicals. The idea that hundreds of millions of Protestant Christians will convert to some other religion seems far-fetched in the extreme. Over the short term, I agree that this is impossible. But I think the trend is there, and the next hundred years is going to see a massive shift in Christianity around the globe. That shift, in my opinion, will be away from Protestantism and towards Orthodoxy on a massive scale.

Protestantism in the United States is under relentless, sustained attack. An attack so serious that it threatens to sweep Protestantism, as a movement, into the dustbin of history. Unfortunately for the various Protestant Churches, many of their own Theologians are inadvertently providing aid and comfort to the enemy in this struggle. Of course, it doesn't help at all that the men attacking Protestantism so ferociously have been dead for almost 2,000 years.

I just got in a whole collection of children's books from Potamitis Publishing, and found myself blown away!

Mary was a sixth-century hooker in the Eastern Roman Empire. She had been one from her youth. She wasn’t in it for the money, as she told a monk named Zosimas later in life, but "out of insatiable desire”. One day she saw the crowds of pilgrims preparing to go to Jerusalem, to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. She decided to go with them, out of curiosity perhaps. She went along, announcing to her fellow-travelers, "I have a body and that will serve as both fare and food for me". The trip was an eventful one, as Mary put her body to prodigious use with her fellow travelers.

Di: Hi Angel, summer's flown, and there's so much to say...

Angel: I've got an idea. What if we submit my Godparents article from www.malista.com in loving memory of and gratitude to my Godmother Athena Hanzakos, who passed away yesterday (8.8.1921 to 10.13.2009)?

Di: A beautiful idea since I've been thinking about your Godmother Athena all day, and Malista (yes, in Greek) is your Godsister Elena's Detroit area site.

Angel: Amen to that, and now for the story.

An Evangelical friend of mine of was complaining about his kid learning Chinese history in school. He was incensed that his son would learn "foreign history" instead of "Western history." I laughed and then infuriated him when I said, "For your kid, Western history is just as foreign."

I first started working on Web projects for the Orthodox Christian Network (myocn.net) in late 2006. At the time, OCN had one program – Come Receive the Light. Come Receive the Light was primarily a traditional radio broadcast, airing in many key markets once a week. OCN’s Website was important, but had always been considered a secondary delivery channel compared to terrestrial radio.

My parish is in the Diocese of the South, and does not have a bishop at present. When we do have a bishop, that bishop covers an area the size of Western Europe with over 70 different parishes. The fact is that a bishop presiding over the South could spend every Sunday away from home, and still not be able to visit all of his parishes in a given year.

God's Will and Doing the Right Thing

We've been hearing alot of people being depressed about the economy, about government, about alot of things in their life. Some are just giving up, some won't watch TV or listen to the news anymore. Some are taking a different approach that is truly fatalistic. They are saying it's God's will and implying that all is as it should be and we shouldn't mess with it.

Someone is going to lose their home, oh well, it's God's will, don't worry. Someone loses their life's savings, it's God's will, nothing to fuss about. Government is moving to remove freedoms for which, we were reminded of this weekend, thousands of lives were sacrificed, and oh well, it's God's will, nothing we can do about it.

What's wrong with these attitudes? For one thing, they are forgetting that there are different types of God's will. One of sovereign will, that means it's going to happen no matter what. We don't know much about these except one called the second coming. That will happen, no matter what we do.

However, there is another type of God's will that current culture has just about thrown away. Providential Will. That's the will that allows us to have free will and to choose to do the right thing.

Let's take an example. This Monday we went to our favorite thrift store which had everything at 50% for the holiday. We got a few things and along the way Peter saw a hat he needed. He tried it on, and left it on with the tag hanging off it. The store was like Christmas Eve, crowded and every cashier was very busy. We paid our $5.50 for our 6 items and walked out. Outside we marveled at our bargains and then Peter realized he still had the hat on with the price tag, the cashier never noticed it; nor did he. Well, what should we have concluded from the situation? We could have thought that God "bought us the hat". After all wasn't it God's will that we walked out without paying? That's what some of the current culture thinks about these things, but it's wrong.

What happened was that it was God's will that we were given the opportunity to do the right thing. We were given the opportunity go back and pay the $1.25 for the hat.

So what are we to get from all this? Do the right thing. Don't take the fatalist approach; that approach that takes away your part of using your free will to do what's right. It's God's will that you do what's right.

Suicide is the active hastening of the moment of death, to the point where one commits self-murder. There is usually very little confusion or doubt about whether one is dying. In the course of a terminal disease or advanced age, the Christian prepares for the moment that the Lord will "require of him his soul," when he will enter his repose. When death is known to be approaching (and frequently, this is known to the person well in advance of the actual event), then it is better to prepare in prayer and repentance, instead of avoiding death by electing one "heroic measure" after another. A Christian is correct to forego a medical treatment that will only delay the inevitable - especially a treatment that will make his preparation for death more difficult. If he knows he is "terminal" or dying already, he is also correct to make an "advance directive" whereby he refuses, in advance, any "heroic measures" like resuscitation.

ELEOS BLOG (14): PASCHA 2009: Magnify your Purpose with God’s Essential Oils, Loving EveryOne Selflessly

Di: Christos Anesti!

Angel: Alithos Anesti!

Di: Alithos O Kyrios! Which of our many beautiful oils would be appropriate for us to feature, honoring the greatest Feast Day of the year in the Orthodox Christian Church – Holy Pascha?

A: Well, sister, the name of our therapeutic-grade essential oil blend, Magnify Your Purpose, enters my mind every time I hear EIKONA sing the ancient hymn:

According to a recent article, dying in one's sleep is actually a frightening thing for Orthodox Christians. This seems foolish to the world, but much Orthodox truth seems counterintuitive like this.

I. Making Decisions at the End of Life in a Post-Traditional Culture: Finding One's Way to God

Orthodox Christianity offers orientation in the cosmos. More precisely, it leads us away from our passions and purifies our hearts so that we can be illumined by the uncreated energies of God and come into union with Him.

Angel: Hi, Di! We’re over halfway through the Great Fast, during which we often recite or read silently the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim:

O Lord and Master of my life, take away from me the spirit to be lazy and neglectful, the desire for lust of power and idle talk. Grant me, your servant, the spirit of moderation, humility, patience and love.
Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and keep me from judging my brethren, for You are blessed now and forevermore. Amen

My family members are Evangelicals of the Pentecostal variety. I was raised in that faith, but being Orthodox for almost 10 years has distanced me quite a bit from the world of megachurches and televangelists. Still, visiting home frequently means coming face-to-face with it, as my retired dad usually watches several hours of televangelism a day. He's good about keeping the TV off when my kids are awake, but after they are in bed, he often turns on programs he's recorded during the day.

We got herded into the room blindfolded. We knew that we had gone down some steps into a basement and that it was cool. Other than that, we weren't sure where we were or what was happening.

We heard chanting. Suddenly, the blindfolds were removed, and robes were hurriedly put on us. As we stood there blinking, we found ourselves in a candlelit room with various symbols on the wall. On the floor, was a great diamond around which we found ourselves arrayed. As we stood there, a ceremony began that would bind us to this brotherhood. The service was intoned by robed men reading from leather-bound service books.

Icons in Sound is a relatively new program on the Orthodox Christian Network. The host, Vlad Morosan, is an expert on Orthodox liturgical music. I feel like this is a show that practically every Orthodox Christian needs to listen to, and listen to every week.

Why? Because we don't go to church except on Sunday.

My ninety-one-year-old grandmother was in horrible pain. As she lay in the hospital bed, dehydrated and unable to even take her own medicines, she repeatedly cried out to God, "Lord, help me!"

My father and I sat at her bedside watching her struggle. "She's praying for healing," I said to my father, "I don't think God is going to answer that prayer. I think he's already rendered His judgment on this, and she's praying the wrong prayer."

A short time later, she suddenly switched her prayer. She cried out, "Lord, take me on!" She prayed that prayer three times. Then she became very still, as if sleeping. Within five minutes, I noticed she wasn't breathing.

"I guess she finally prayed the prayer that God was willing to answer," I said to my father as we verified that she was gone.

Tune in this week to Come Receive the Light, the national Orthodox Christian radio broadcast, to hear Fr. Stephen Freeman, author of the popular Orthodox blog "Glory to God for All Things", as he speaks with Fr. Chris about deepening our spiritual life through Holy Confession, fasting and prayer during Great Lent.

Click here to listen, and here to download the study guide (pdf).

What would you say if I told you there was a medication that could help you to relax, make you feel better, and improve your relationships with your family and friends—would you be interested? If I told you there were no side affects, that it was free, and that you could easily get this medication—would you take it?

A few months ago I was working in a soup kitchen. One client—we’ll call her Kathy—had a glazed look in her eyes. I tried to talk with her, but she was in her own world. If you have ever had the joy of working at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, you have met individuals like Kathy; people who, for whatever reason, can’t communicate coherently with others.

The Orthodox tradition recognizes numerous saints of a certain type: Fools for Christ. These individuals, like Kathy, had difficulty relating to others “normally.” Yet the Church in her holy wisdom found it appropriate not only to accept such individuals, it actually recognized them as truly saintly men and women, inspired by God.

This raises the question: what, according to our faith, is “normal"?

Though I rarely have time to watch TV, the other night I did catch a rather intriguing episode of Animal Planet. It seems that in the high dry interior of Kenya, there was rumor of a lioness who was keeping company with an antelope. An animal expert traveled to the game reserve to see if there was any truth to the rumor. She did, indeed, find an adolescent lioness who seemingly had abandoned her

One fall evening in 1954, a car sped through dusky Pennsylvania twilight. Headlights off, it careened recklessly towards a blind intersection in a cornfield. In a sickening split second, it smashed broadside into another car.

There were three people in that second car. When the dust and smoke cleared, two bodies lay among the twisted metal. One was my mother, who would remain in a coma for a month. The other, my aunt, was killed instantly. My father escaped with only scratches. Looking up to the sky, he asked “Why us, God? We were on our way to be missionaries!”