Jesse Brandow (FB) a graduate of Holy Cross and St Vladimirs will be giving a presentation on his two year missionary experience to Guatemala. For those unaware Guatemala has had a very large number of Mayan peoples become Orthodox Christians.
Nov. 6th in Goldendale, WA: Mission Parish — presentation at Thursday evening catechism group ( I believe Holy Cross Parish in Yakima would have contact info)
Nov. 16th in Tacoma, WA: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church — Sunday Divine Liturgy followed by presentation on missions, featuring Mr. Cliff Argue and Jesse Brandow
“Join us for an elegant evening to Support Camp Agape NW. Taste indulgent, truffles and chocolates from Seattle area chocolate makers. Drink award winning wines and have the chance to meet the winemakers from select Washington wineries. Enjoy a local season dinner menu prepared by Herban Feast.
Dance to a nine-piece swinging “Big Band” that plays the sounds of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Tom Jones, Ella Fitzgerald and more.
Support children with cancer and their families.
Camp Agape NW is a non-profit organization whose mission is to give children with cancer a chance to feel normal, siblings a chance to be special and parents a time to be together. Ticket price includes dinner, all tastings, local wine and beers.” (from website)
Serbian conductor and musicologist Bogdan Djaković directs Cappella Romana in a program of resplendent choral works from his native country.
Sacred Songs of Serbia Bogdan Djaković, guest director 24-25 October in Seattle & Portland Click here for more info
Hailing from the historically turbulent northern region of Vojvodina, Djaković leads Cappella Romana to show another side of Serbia: a rich musical tradition full of beautiful and moving choral works.
“an evening rich in emotion” – Evening News, Norwich
Now in his 27th season directing the Choir of St. George’s Cathedral in Novi Sad, Serbia, Bogdan Djaković is one of the world’s leading experts in Serbian Orthodox Choral Music.
Bogdan Djaković has established himself as an international director, leading performances in Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, Switzerland and Sweden.He makes his US debut directing Cappella Romana this month.
Dr. Djaković makes his home in Serbia’s historically-turbulent northern region, which for generations has been subject to competing cultural influences. He has devoted his career to exploring the meeting of East and West in Serbian choral music. His program “Sacred Songs of Serbia” presents traditional Eastern Orthodox sources filtered through Western European musical colors and techniques, creating works of resplendent beauty.
Dr. Djaković is Professor of Choral Literature at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, as well as Professor of Art, Medicine & Art Therapy at the University of Novi Sad. He has also held positions on the Executive Board of Radio & Television in Vojvodina, Serbia, on the Regional Artistic Committee of the European Choral Association Europa Cantat, and on the Organization Board for Serbia’s most prestigious national choral festivals.
Under his direction, the St. George’s Cathedral Choir has recorded for Radio-Novi Sad, Radio and Television Belgrade, and the BBC3.
For more information and tickets to “Sacred Songs of Serbia”
Call 503-236-8202 or click here.
1017 SW Morrison St Ste 315
Portland, OR 97205 USA
On Saturday, October 18th, the Church of Annunciation will have Great Vespers at 7pm followed a special prayer service for babies who have died as a result of miscarriage, abortion or early infant death.
The service will be a combination of the panikhida and funeral for a child. This is an opportunity to reach out to those who have suffered loss. Please invite anyone who you feel would benefit from this prayer service. You may also wish to pray for someone else’s child.
The church address is: 13515 SE Rusk Road, Milwaukie, OR 97222
У петак 17. октобра у амфитеатру Србског Дома, са почетком у 20 часова, Бошко Обрадовић, један од оснивача Двери и издавачке куће „Catena mundi”, одржаће предавање на теме:
Верујем у Бога и Србство,
Односи Матице и Дијаспоре,
Има ли наде за Србски народ,
Како спасити Србију.
На крају предавања, посетиоци ће бити у прилици да поставе питања господину Бошку Обрадовићу.
Prophet Elijah Mission in Ellensburg Washington is starting a new young adult, ages 16-24ish, gathering for all “local” parishes. This is a new endeavour, that they hope they can repeat regularly and eventually rotate parishes. What a great idea! Seattle Portland, BC your not going to be outshone are you? –editor For the full scoop: Youth Gathering letter from the Sept Gathering.
Eat a day the Greek way! On Saturday, October 11 from 11am-7pm and Sunday, October 12 from 12pm-6pm St. Anne Orthodox Church will host the Mid-Valley’s eleventh annual Greek Food Fest at historic Lewisburg Hall, 6000 NE Elliott Circle, Corvallis. The St. Anne Greek Fest has become a popular, family- friendly, mid-valley tradition and is one of only two Greek festivals in the state. Proceeds from the event help pay for the renovation and maintenance of the historic Lewisburg Grange Hall. This year a special diaper drive will also be held during the festival to assist needy families in Linn and Benton counties served by Family Tree Relief Nursery.
The St. Anne Greek Fest offers authentic Greek dinners, desserts, wine & spirits, crafts and live Greek music and dancing. “The Athenians”, a Portland-based Greek band featuring Maria George and Brett Pitner will perform both days. The menu includes pork souvlaki, braised lamb with carrots and potatoes, pasticcio, kifta kebabs, spanakopita, stuffed grape-leaves (dolmas) and Moroccan chicken. Complete dinners served with Greek salad, rice pilaf and pita bread will be offered for $12.00 for two entrees or $14 for three entrees. A la carte, to-go items and Greek desserts will also be available, and there will be a “taverna” in the tent serving appetizers, Greek red wine, beer, ouzo and retsina. Desserts will include baklava, kourambiethes (butter cookies), galatoboureko (custard-filled filo drizzled with honey syrup) and melamakorona (honey cakes).
Visitors are invited to tour the Grange Hall and the Orthodox Christian chapel located on the second floor. Tours will be held every hour on the half hour and will include an explanation of Orthodox iconography. There is no admission fee for any part of the festival and free event parking is available along Elliott Circle and at Mountain View Elementary School.
More info including pictures from past festivals, can be found on their Festival webpage.
St Spiridon’s Cathedral (FB) in Seattle, Washington is having its Annual Bazaar. It features food from several different nationalities that attend this active, multiethnic, Cathedral.
An evening of inspiration and fine dining prepared by the Sisters of St. John’s. Sunday evening, October 12, 2012, 5:30 pm at the Civic Auditorium Ballroon, The Dalles, Oregon.
Enjoy an Evening of Fine Dining and Inspiration in support of the completion of the Church Temple of St. John the Forerunner Greek Orthodox Monastery. The evening will feature authentic Greek cuisine prepared by the nuns of St. John’s. Come enjoy a silent auction, raffle, wonderful food, and a surprise video presentation. SPACE IS LIMITED
For Questions please call 509-773-9944
This sites focus is limited to events in the NW that may be of interest to Orthodox Christians. However world events of late cannot be ignored. Our fellow Christians both Orthodox and Heretodox are being eliminated from the Middle East. Islam is once again demanding renunciation of the faith or martyrdom. On this the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross I offer these 2 websites to help you learn more.
JihadWatch: Probably the best known of sites exposing Islam and its bloody history.
Facing Islam Blog: This site is run by an Orthodox Christian and is well worth a visit.
“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.[4]
We are approaching the Feast Day of The Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross – to give the Feast its full title – this coming Sunday, September 14. This is the day that we liturgically commemorate and venerate the Cross that will be placed in the middle of the church toward the end of Great Vespers on Saturday evening. The Feast will then have a full “octave” for its celebration – thus making it an eight-day Feast which serves to stress the importance of the Cross in the life of the Church and in our personal lives. To further turn our attention toward the Cross, we recall the Third Sunday of Great Lent – the Adoration of the Cross; and the less well-observed Feast of the Procession of the Cross on August 1. And, importantly, every Wednesday and Friday is a day of commemorating the Cross, one of the reasons that we fast on those two days on a weekly basis.
Prominent though that the Cross may be for Christians, it is the Apostle Paul who very succinctly and profoundly captured the unbelieving world’s attitude toward the Cross in his well-known text:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (I COR. 1:23-24)
This leads the Apostle to one of his most astonishing and paradoxical insights:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (I COR. 1:26)
The “scandal” for the unbelieving Jew would be the claim that the Messiah was crucified. The “folly” for the Greek/Gentile would be the claim that the divine would even enter the realm of flesh and blood and “become” human, let alone suffer death on a cross. Yet God, in and through Christ, transformed what is shameful, weak, lowly and despised – a crucified man – into “our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (I COR. 1:30) The entire passage of I COR. 1:18-31 deserves careful, close and constant study.
It remains fascinating, and highly instructive, that even non-Christians who profess to have a great respect for Jesus Christ, struggle terribly with the scandal of the Cross. This is clearly the case with Islam. Jesus is treated with great respect in many passages in the Qur’an: even to the point of acknowledging His virginal conception in a passage that clearly resembles the Annunciation form the Gospel According to St. Luke! (Qur’an, 3:45-47) However, the Crucifixion is treated in a way that bears no resemblance to the Gospel accounts:
“yet they did not slay him, neither crucify him, only a likeness of that was shown to them.” (Qur’an 4:156-159)
The Muslims believe that someone else – a figure unidentified by the Qur’an – was crucified in the place of Christ, but not Jesus Himself. The Muslim scholar Dr. Maneh Al-Johani wrote: “The Qur’an does not elaborate on this point, nor does it give any answer to this question.”
Clearly, the “scandal” of the Cross is too much for Muslim sensibilities, since Jesus is for them a great prophet sent by God. Muslims further believe that Jesus was raised to Heaven, yet before He died, clearly an odd teaching that again is meant to completely distance Jesus from His crucifixion. If there is anything that is agreed upon today among New Testament scholars – believers and skeptics alike – it is that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by crucifixion by orders of Pontius Pilate in the early 30’s of the Christian era. This lends a certain fantastic quality to these claims of the Qur’an.
There is a close resemblance here with an early Christian heresy known asdocetism from the Gk. word meaning “to appear.” In other words, it only “appeared” that Christ was actually crucified and died on the Cross. St. Ignatius of Antioch (+c. 110) vehemently rejected this heresy in its initial inception, early in the 2nd c.
Be deaf, then, when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died … He was also truly raised from the dead, when His Father raised Him up … (Epistle to the Trallians, 9)
St. Ignatius very poignantly asks: what is the purpose of suffering martyrdom for the Lord (as he did in the Roman arena) if the sufferings of Christ were an illusion? Should a Christian suffer in the flesh if his Lord did not?
But if, as some godless men – that is, unbelievers – say, his suffering was only apparent (they are the apparent ones), why am I in bonds, why do I pray to fight wild beasts? Then I die in vain. Then I lie about the Lord. (To the Trallians, 10)
We do not “worship” the Cross. We worship the One Who was crucified upon the Cross for our salvation. Indeed, with the Apostle Paul we call Him the “Lord of glory.” (I COR. 2:8) Jesus Christ was not merely a prophet in a chain of prophets sent by God. He is the fulfillment of the prophetic testimony to His coming, as He is the fulfillment of the Law. (MATT. 5:17) There are no prophets to follow Him with any further additions to the Christian revelation. We believe, as we chant in the Second Antiphon of the Liturgy, that He is the “Only-begotten Son and immortal Word of God … Who without change didst become man and was crucified.” The Cross remains “an unconquerable token of victory,” and “an invincible shield.” In fact, it is for this reason that in our practice, we,
kiss with joy the Wood of salvation, on which was stretched Christ the Redeemer. (Small Vespers)
Christianity does not exist because of what it holds in common with other great world religions, but because of what is unique and distinctive about it, primarily the Incarnation, redemptive Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is because of our love for Christ that beginning on the personal level, we must promote and practice mutual respect, tolerance and peaceful co-existence with sincerely believing people of other religions. I see no other way for those who claim to follow the crucified Lord of glory. However, this should in no way undermine our sense of Christian distinctiveness – “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (ACTS 4:12) – but actually demonstrate our loyalty to Christ Who never compels but invites – with outstretched arms upon the Cross.
Please pray for the 
Martyrs 
OrthodoxNorthwest 
