The Rev. Fr. Anastasios Kousoulas, Presbyter at the church since June 1997, said the congregation has worked hard at maintaining the 1950s-era church, as well as adding Greek Orthodox icons and traditional touches.

Last Saturday, 16 years in the waiting, members finally raised a Byzantine-style cross atop their spiritual home.

"Traditionally, Orthodox churches have crosses on the top of their domes -- the highest point of the church -- and face east," Kousoulas said. "We are doing the best we can with what we have to work with."

The reference to facing east when praying, Kousoulas noted, comes from a quote from St. Matthew, that as "lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

There have been discussions about building a dome where Saints Peter & Paul's bell tower sits, but the cost has been prohibitive. Nothing, however, could have taken that away from last Saturday's special occasion.

"As a priest, to have a cross atop your church, it's a significant thing," Kousoulas said.

Kousoulas and Nick Carras, a founding church member, said a number of things fell into place, allowing the church to move forward with the addition of the cross.

For example, another church member, Dimitrios Frantzis, is a structural engineer, Carras said, and Frantzis knew an architect who was willing to donate his services. Savvas P. Savopoulos, president of American Iron Works, in Hyattsville, donated the cost of constructing the cross, Kousoulas said. ----

The church had budgeted $5,000 for the project at one point -- in the end all the labor was volunteered and nearly all costs provided free of charge.

Steve Kontos, of Kontos Construction, with the help of church members Frantzis, Curtis Keith and Steve Paleos, rented a crane and lifted the 8-foot-tall, several-hundred-pound cross atop the church on a snowy Saturday.

With volunteers preparing Athenian chicken fundraising dinners all weekend at the church, a good number of the 200-family congregation witnessed the raising of the aluminum, gold-baked, Byzantine cross.

"It was cold, maybe 20 degrees, the wind was blowing and by the end, it was snowing," Kontos said. "But we managed to get it done."

Carras said eventually the church plans to add lighting atop the church to illuminate the cross at night.

Kousoulas said, "The cross, as the morning sun hits the gold, will be a beautiful reminder to people commuting to work on Fairview Avenue that we are a Christian church.

"The cross is a symbol of Christ and a reminder of God's love," Kousoulas continued. "Orthodox Church members wear crosses on ourselves, and they are all over our homes as well. Now, we have one on our church as we should."

Between 1958 and 1964 Harper was chaplain to the Oxford Street stores, and in 1962 he had another dramatic experience while reading the Epistle to the Ephesians. "It was earth-shattering," he said, "everything leapt off the page." As a result he concluded that he had received "Baptism in the Spirit", which linked him with the so-called neo-Pentecostal movement that was then spreading rapidly in North America. This involved "speaking in tongues", healings, casting out demons and other unusual events.

John Stott was unhappy about this development in a member of his staff, as he regarded the movement as "unbalanced and unhealthy", and Harper was asked not to preach on the subject in All Souls. Their personal relationship was affected for a time, but harmony was eventually restored.

Meanwhile, Harper was instrumental in setting up the Fountain Trust as a means of propagating the Charismatic movement, as it came to be called, and his efforts met with considerable success. A humble, gentle man, he was none the less a powerful, dynamic speaker.

Meetings were held and conferences convened up and down the country, and the magazine Renewal achieved a wide circulation. Later a song-book, Sound of Living Waters e_SEmD which he co-edited with his wife, Jeanne, a musician – became an important feature of Charismatic worship. It remains so today.

"Baptism in the Spirit" was soon widely experienced in Anglican evangelical parishes, in many Free Churches and among some Roman Catholic congregations. A conference held in Guildford attracted 700 participants from 20 countries and 14 different denominations. Harper was soon an international figure and, besides frequent visits to America, addressed meetings and conferences in many other parts of the world. Some 50,000 people heard him speak at South Bend, Indiana, and at Rimini in Italy.

Michael Claude Harper was born on March 12 1931 in Welbeck Street in the West End of London, and was introduced to evangelicalism early when his nanny took him to local Baptist churches. He won a scholarship to Gresham's School, Holt, and went from there to Emmanuel College, where he read Law and Theology.

He then prepared for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and from 1955 to 1958 was a curate at St Barnabas church, Clapham Common in south London. While there he established contact with the developments at All Souls, Langham Place, which led to his joining its staff.

Although the Charismatic movement became sharply divisive in evangelical circles, Harper was himself always seeking to build bridges between those of differing beliefs.

He was highly regarded in many parts of the Anglican Communion, was appointed a canon of Chichester Cathedral, collaborated with the World Council of Churches, and was leader of two international bodies propagating mission and renewal.

He was not, however, tolerant of what he regarded as false doctrine, and was distressed to discover too much of this in the liberal attitudes of the Church of England. The ordination of women to the priesthood proved to be more than he could bear and, whereas most of the other opponents of this move became Roman Catholics, he decided to join the Orthodox Church, explaining the reason for this in his book The True Light.

The Antiochian Orthodox Church, into which he was ordained, is an independent part of the Orthodox Church claiming to be the successor to the Christian community founded in Antioch by the Apostles Peter and Paul.

With its headquarters in Damascus, most of its adherents, numbering between 750,000 and one million, are located in the Middle East, but it also has communities in several Western countries, including Britain.

Harper was initially attached to an Arabic-speaking cathedral in London and was appointed head of a newly-formed Orthodox deanery for this country. He also founded St Botolph's parish, near Liverpool Street station, which has an English-language liturgy and a thriving congregation.

He continued to regard himself as a Charismatic while seeking to make the life of the Orthodox Church more widely known and appreciated. He was the author of 18 books.

Michael Harper's wife survives him.

New Release From St Vladimir's Seminary Press

Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis

by Norman Russell

Asked about the Orthodox Christian doctrine of salvation, many people will hastily tell you that it has to do with "theosis" or "deification."  But few can explain what "theosis" actually means, and fewer still can do so with a broad and deep knowledge of the Church Fathers.  Drawing on ancient and modern sources, and building on his magisterial study, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Norman Russell presents this teaching with breathtaking clarity without compromising its genuine complexity.  This book stands out from others on the subject as a model of lucidity and reliability, and will enthrall specialists and non-specialists alike.

THE AUTHOR:  Norman Russell is an independent scholar who has written widely on Orthodox themes, specializing in early Greek patristics and fourteenth-century hesychasm.

This is highly to be commended - [Russell] has managed an enviable feat for a writer - hitting a marvelous literary style and tone of approach....making high theology understandable.   ~ Fr. John McGuckin, Union Theological Seminary

ISBN 978-0-88141-339-7 - Paperback - 189 pages - US$18.00  

To read an excerpt or place an order, please click on this link:

Fellow Workers with God

This book can be ordered from any good bookstore or directly from http://www.svspress.com/.

Customers in Canada, Great Britain or Australia,  please see details on the distributor in your country: http://www.svspress.com/distributors.php.

St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary
575 Scarsdale Rd - Yonkers, NY 10707 USA
(914) 961-8313

Requiem by Stevan Hristić; Serbian Orthodox Music

Directed by composer, conductor & Orthodox priest  REV. DR. IVAN MOODY

"Listeners--many with eyes closed--were taken on a shimmering meditative journey"
--The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, BC, August 2009)

Perhaps the most famous Serbian composer of the first half of the 20th century, Stevan Hristić brought a cosmopolitan view to Serbian cultural life, both as founder of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra and director of the Belgrade Opera after completing his education abroad in central Europe. His music taps his Serbian roots, especially in his moving choral masterpiece Opelo, or Requiem. This program features two North American premieres: the Te Deum by Rajko Maksimović, whose Ja na Tvoj poziv touched Cappella Romana audiences so profoundly in 2006, and Seven Hymns for Saint Sava by Ivan Moody.

REV. DR. IVAN MOODY (full biography here) is a Briton living in Portugal, composer, conductor, scholar and musicologist, polyglot, expert in Orthodox music, and, as of 2007, a priest of the Orthodox Church. Moody is best known among Cappella Romana audiences for his largest work to date, The Akáthistos Hymn, written for the ensemble in 1998/9 and subsequently released on CD, a US tour of his Passion and Resurrection (2002), and recently a program of music from the Balkans (2006), and of Finnish Orthodox Music (2008) pending release as a new CD. Recordings of Moody's works sung by the Norwegian ensemble Trio Mediaeval, and as well as the Ravenna Sanctus for the San Franciso-based ensemble Chanticleerremained on the Billboard Top 10 list for weeks. He recently gave a lecture/seminar with Arvo Pärt as part of the RTÉ Living Music Festival in Dublin, Ireland and was re-elected as chairman of the International Society for Orthodox Church music attached to the University of Joensuu, Finland.

PORTLAND: Fri, Feb. 12, 2010, 8pm, St. Mary's Cathedral, 1739 NW Couch St (at 18th) 
SEATTLE: Sat, Feb. 13, 2010, 8pm, St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 2100 Boyer Ave E.

FOR BOTH CITIES:  Tickets at 503.205.0715 or 800.494.8497 
Free pre-concert talk at 7pm in both cities on the Legacy of St. Sava
Tickets start at $22, discounts for seniors and students www.cappellaromana.org

Cappella Romana's name (lit. "Roman Chapel") refers to the Medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe, as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and its Slavic commonwealth. Each program in some way reflects the musical, cultural and spiritual heritage of this ecumenical vision. A variety of photos, sound samples, and video clips available upon request. 

ABOUT GUEST ARTIST IVAN MOODY

Short biography above. Full biography here

ABOUT CAPPELLA ROMANA

Its performances "like jeweled light flooding the space" (Los Angeles Times), Cappella Romana is a vocal chamber ensemble dedicated to combining passion with scholarship in its exploration of the musical traditions of the Christian East and West, with emphasis on early and contemporary music. Its name is derived from the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which included not only "Old Rome" and Western Europe but also "New Rome" (Constantinople) and its commonwealth of Slavic countries.

            Flexible in size according to the demands of the repertory, Cappella Romana is one of the Pacific Northwest's few professional chamber vocal ensembles. It has a special commitment to mastering the Slavic and Byzantine repertories in their original languages, thereby making accessible to the general public two great musical traditions that are little known in the West. Leading scholars have supplied the group with their latest discoveries, while its music director has prepared a number of the ensemble's performing editions from original sources. In the field of contemporary music, Cappella Romana has taken a leading role performing the works of such European composers as Michael Adamis, Ivan Moody, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener, as well as the work of North Americans.

            The ensemble presents annual concert series in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Critics have consistently praised these for their unusual and innovative programming, including numerous world and American premieres. The group has also frequently collaborated with such artists as conductor Paul Hillier, chant specialist Ioannis Arvanitis, and composer Ivan Moody.

            Cappella Romana tours regularly and made its European début in March 2004 at the Byzantine Festival in London with concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sophia, followed by 2005 appearances at the Byzantine Studies Symposium of Queen's University, Belfast (N. Ireland) and the University of Limerick (Rep. of Ireland).  The Metropolitan Museum of Art presented the ensemble in its New York début for the exhibit "Byzantium: Faith and Power 1261-1557" in April 2004, which included the release of a CD by Cappella Romana, Music of Byzantium, to accompany the exhibit.  The ensemble has also appeared in Festival Vancouver (B.C.) the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Indiana Early Music Festival (Indianapolis) and at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), and the Early Music Society of the Islands (Victoria, BC).  Future engagements include the J. Paul Getty Museum again in December 2006, the Smithsonian Institution, and regional touring in the Pacific Northwest.

            Cappella Romana has released twelve compact disc recordings to date: Tikey Zes Choral Works and When Augustus Reigned (Gagliano),The Akáthistos Hymn by Ivan Moody and Epiphany: Medieval Byzantine Chant (Gothic), Music of Byzantium (Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Lay Aside All Earthly Cares: Orthodox Choral Music in English, The Fall of Constantinople, Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from Grottaferrata, The Divine Liturgy in English in Byzantine Chant, Richard Toensing: The Kontakion on the Nativity of Christ, Peter Michaelides: The Divine Liturgy (CR Records), and the compilation CD Byzantium: 330-1453 published by the Royal Academy of Arts in London.  Forthcoming recordings include a disc Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium, Robert Kyr: A Time for Life, The Divine Liturgy by Tikey Zes, and music from Cyprus.

ALEXANDER LINGAS

Alexander Lingas, Cappella Romana's founder and artistic director, is a Senior Lecturer in Music at City University in London and a Fellow of the University of Oxford's European Humanities Research Centre. He was formerly Assistant Professor of Music History at Arizona State University's School of Music and a British Academy Junior Research Fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford. He also serves as a lecturer for the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Lingas has received a number of academic awards, including the British Academy's Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship for 2009-2010. He has previously been awarded fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (for theological study under Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia), Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University), the Institute for Advanced Study, and the American Council of Learned Societies (NEH Areas Studies Fellowship). His musical studies in Greece with noted cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos were supported by the Fulbright and the Alexander S. Onassis foundations. Dr Lingas has written articles for the The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Einaudi's Enciclopedia della musica, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, The Oxford Companion to Music and The Orthodox Encyclopedia published by the Research Center of the Moscow Patriarchate. He is currently working on a study of Sunday Matins in the Rite of Hagia Sophia for Ashgate Publishing and a general introduction to Byzantine Chant for the Yale University Press.      

Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.  The Orthodox Christian Network (OCN) is pleased to announce the upgrading and redesign for one of its Internet Radio Stations, The ARK, together with the official appointment of a Program Director.  Our Professional Web-Site and Graphic Design team comprised of Glen Chancy (Orthodox Church in America, OCA), Cameron Thorp (Orthodox Church in America, OCA) and Jacob Lee (Antiochian Archdiocese, AOC), have put together a new more friendly look and feel to the website.  The Program Director is planning to bring a wealth of new music for all of us to hear from various Orthodox Christian artists worldwide.

The ARK provides a listening experience of the best of contemporary music from an Orthodox perspective, along with the best of traditional Orthodox liturgical music selected for Western ears, with the goal of providing music that encourages a relationship with Jesus Christ, twenty four hours per day, seven days a week.

Fr.Christopher Metropulos, OCN's Executive Director stated, "We are truly blessed to have such talented staff at the OCN, who continue to offer the best that Orthodox Christianity can put forward in the world.  Listeners and visitors to our site will be thrilled with the new design of our Internet Radio Station, the ARK, and its functionality.  I am also honored to have on our staff in an official capacity as the Program Director for the station Ron Moore, who brings with him a wealth of knowledge of music and a deep commitment to share the Love of Christ with everyone.  He joins other worthy staff members of the OCN such as Dr. Vladimir Morosan and his wife Helen (raised in both OCA and ROCOR Churches now serving as a choir director in an Antiochian Archdiocese parish), who are the Program Directors for The RUDDER, another Internet Radio Station brought to you by the OCN, which plays traditional liturgical music of our faith.”

Program Director Ron Ephrem Moore has been involved professionally with contemporary music since his high school days in folk and rock bands. He coined the name "Contemporary Christian Music" as a contributing reviewer in the early days of the genre, but kept to the fringes of that scene, feeling that Christian artists should be in the general market to reach all through their art. His concerts and recordings have been well received in Christian circles as well as in general market universities, coffeehouses, and festivals. David Di Sabatino's Contemporary Christian Music Encyclopedia lists Ron Moore as a major contributor to the development of CCM.

The Director commented, “The ARK is unique in its encouragement of creating new music and poetry while keeping the ancient Christian faith content intact. As more and more contemporary artists find the early Church alive and well, more material, and artists are becoming available. As tastes and product in the arts becomes more diversified, and available thanks to the internet, The ARK finds itself in the extraordinary position of being in the vanguard of arts of faith with depth, meaning, and skill, for a growing population of listeners who are disappointed with a shallow, despairing field of choices. The ARK will continue to sail through the storm, carrying the faith, and new life found in the good news of Jesus Christ. Welcome aboard!”
   
Visit our web site and listen to the ARK today and give us your feedback.  By all means share this station with the youth of your parish and especially young family members. 

"The Ark" at the Orthodox Christian Network (www.myocn.net)

The *Orthodox Christian Network* is one of the official agencies of SCOBA, commissioned by our hierarchs to create a national, sustainable and effective media witness for Orthodox Christianity throughout North America. OCN produces the only nationally syndicated Orthodox Christian radio broadcast, as well as several other outreach programs, including DVDs and Internet-based media, in direct collaboration with sister SCOBA agencies (e.g. IOCC, OCMC, OCF, OCPM), as well as with various Orthodox Christian jurisdictions and pan-Orthodox, para-church organizations. Our goal is to engage the broader culture of North America with Orthodox Christianity's rich theological, spiritual and moral heritage, and to thereby strengthen the Orthodox Church's witness and contribution to the culture in which we live.

Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, 
and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. (Psalm 144:12)

 
 
Scout Sunday
February 7, 2010

 
The Hierarchs of the Standing Conference
of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas

To the Most Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics and Devout Faithful
of the Holy Orthodox Churches in the Americas.

Dearly Beloved in Christ Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

In 1955, the hierarchs leading the various Orthodox Christian Churches in our land came together to recognize and endorse the work of the Boy Scouts of America.  This encounter prefigured the promising possibilities for witnessing our unity in Jesus Christ in this land and culture when we live and work in unity. Then and now, we believe that the Scout affirmation and Law are significant aids to our parishes and families in raising young men and women who “do their duty to God.”  The methods of the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts USA, and the Camp Fire Boys and Girls programs are tremendous tools and we continue to fully endorse the work of these valued institutions.
 
We encourage each of our parishes to actively support the celebration of “Scout Sunday” on Sunday, February 7, 2010. We recognize our Orthodox Scouts every February but this year’s celebration is a particular joy to us as the Boy Scouts of America celebrates 100 years of vital service to the youth of our nation. We are grateful for the efforts of the first SCOBA endorsed agency, the Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting [EOCS], that has prepared materials for our parishes to assist in their celebration, available atwww.eocs.org <http://www.eocs.org> .  We also call on the reverend pastors and faithful of our parishes to support and recognize their youth engaged in neighborhood units. Integrating a young person’s Scouting experience in the fullness of Church life and the Church’s youth ministry programs is a powerful witness to our conviction that Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11).
We prayerfully look forward to commemorating Scout Sunday with you on February 7.  We ask you to work with the EOCS (www.eocs.org) or with your Church’s Scouting representative to make this day a success for our youth ministry.
 
With paternal blessings and love in Christ, 


†Archbishop DEMETRIOS
Chairman
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America 
 
† Metropolitan PHILIP
Vice Chairman
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese
Of North America
 
† Metropolitan CHRISTOPHER
Secretary
Serbian Orthodox Church in North 
And South America 
 
† Metropolitan NICHOLAS of Amissos
Treasurer
American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox 
Diocese in the USA
 
† Archbishop NICOLAE
Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese
In the Americas
 
† Metropolitan JOSEPH
Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church
 
† Metropolitan JONAH
Orthodox Church in America
 
† Metropolitan CONSTANTINE
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA
 
† Archpriest Alexander Abramov
Acting Representative of the Moscow
Patriarchate in the USA 
 
† Bishop ILIA of Philomelion
Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America

STANDING CONFERENCE of the CANONICAL ORTHODOX BISHOPS in the AMERICAS
8-10 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075