voice summer 2010

THE VOICEOF ST. GEORGE

S U M M E R 2 0 1 0

ContentsCommuniqué from the Holy Assembly of Bishops 3

Life Of Our Father Justin Archimandrite of Ćelije 4The Inward Mission of Our Church by St. Justin of Ćelije 6

St. Symeon of Dajbabe 9The Summer Lent: Celebrating the Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul 10

St. Justin Popovich Tells Us How To Read The Bible and Why 11Q & A about Sunday of All Saints 12

What Is The Liturgy? 15Master Plan Committee & Rennovation Update 16

From the Treasurer’s Desk 16Church School Update 18

Robert Daniel Trifunovic, MD, receives MBA from USC 192010 Graduates 20

Junior Choir News 23Gone too soon 24

Kolo Sisters 25SNF Lodge #89 St. George 26

Milanka’s story, Part 2: Escape to Italy and Life as a Refugee 27Continuing Our Legacy List 29St. George Stewardship List 30

St. George Serbian Orthodox ChurchWestern American Diocese

of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North & South American

3025 Denver Street • San Diego, CA 92117telephone: (619)276-5827

web: http://saintgeorgeinsd.com

Church Officers & StaffPARISH PRIEST

V. Rev. Protopresbyter Bratislav Krsicemail: [email protected]

PARISH DEACON

Rev. Deacon Paul GermainPRESIDENT

Nemanja Selezan

1st VICE PRESIDENT

Vladan Trifunovic

2nd VICE PRESIDENT & 3rd VICE PRESIDENT

Dobrila Unheim & Simona Trifunovic

TREASURER

Deacon Paul Germain

RECORDING SECRETARY

Vera Rakic

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE

Vera Giles, Dejan Jovanovic, Jack Milasinovic

STEWARDSHIP MINISTRY

Lydia Petric Rhoads, Chair

AUDITING BOARD

Miro Copic, President; Sean Wright, Zeljko Milasinovic

TUTORS/VESTRYMEN

Mico Lukic, Ladislav Tapavcevic, Pete Dopudja,Jeffrey Wilgus, Alex Sekanovic, George Skaljac, Vojkan Popovich, Miro Copic, Milan Miljkovic,

Dejan Jovanovic

S.S.S. ST. GEORGE CHOIR

Velimir Jovanovic, President

CIRCLE OF SERBIAN SISTERS (KOLO)

Sylvia Ivanovic, President

CHURCH SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT

Mira Jovanovic

MORAVA FOLKLORE ENSEMBLE

Maria (Draskovic) Milasinovic, Director

ADULT ORTHODOX FELLOWSHIP

Nemanja Selezan

VOICE OF ST. GEORGE

Marsha Jovanovic, Editor(619)988-0650 • FAX (619)588-5767

email: [email protected]

Mara Bosnak, Cover art

Reaching for the Stars! Yes, let’s all reach for the stars and more as we celebrate summer with new saints, ancient saints, and stewardship to improve our Church both physically and spiritually. In this issue St. Justin of Celinje will challenge you as Orthodox Christians to embrace the mission of Church to make everyone one with Christ. You are also asked to revisit your pledge to stewardship, the Orthodox tradition that is a way of life, acknowledging accountability and responsibility before God. We become a steward when we say we believe in God, to whom we give our life, love, loyalty, and trust. We affirm that every aspect of our lives comes as a gift from Him. Also in this issue, we congratulate and share in the joy of our young people and their families as they move through the education system with great success and use their talents in so many beautiful ways. Also we remember our heritage and history with an article about the Serbian National Federation fol-lowed by the second part of the story of Milanka Vlasovich’s escape from war-torn Croatia during WW2. Then you can review the Continuing Our Legacy and Stew-ardship lists. Remember Your Stewardship contribution goes directly to support the operational needs of the Church and its numerous parish ministries. And your support of the rennovation program, which is also discussed in this issue, is critical to sustaining our church facility. You are encouraged to talk to Fr. Bratso, Deacon Paul, or any of our lay leaders about the great opportunities for stewardship and to help in our parish ministries. And please let them know if your participation has not been acknowledged. Remember: you must sign a commitment card for stew-ardship and legacy programs, and if you have not, your name will not be listed and there is a chance your contribution has gone to the general fund. So let us know if you need help with your stewardship and legacy cards. Thank you for your support and may God continue to bless our parish.—Father Bratso Krsic

In this issue...

VOICE OF ST. GEORGE • SUMMER 2010 3

Communiqué from the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade April 26 - May 5, 2010

The regular Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church was held at the Patriarchate in Belgrade, under the pres-idency of His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, from April 26 - May 5, 2010. All the diocesan hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox Church participated in the work of the Assembly.

The Holy Assembly of Bishops began its work with the conciliar serving of the Holy Hierarchical Liturgy at the Cathe-dral Church of St. Archangel Michael in Belgrade, officiated by His Holiness Ser-bian Patriarch Irinej, at which the service of the Invocation of the Holy Spirit was served for the blessed and edifying work of the Assembly. Afterward, His Holi-ness the Patriarch, as the President of the Assembly, in his introductory remarks to the Assembly renewed the prayerful memory of our Church of the person and spiritual merits of his predecessor, Patri-arch Pavle, and indicated the importance of responsibly resolving the existing issues in the spirit of the holy canons and the age old practice of the church.

The most important and most grace-filled act of the Assembly at this year's session was the canonization of the two archimandrites, Fr. Justin Popovic (1894-1979) from Monastery Celije near Valjevo, and Fr. Symeon Popovic (1854-1941) from Monastery Dajbabe near Podgorica, that is, the entrance of their names into the Diptychs of the saints of the holy Orthodox Church and their glo-rification (formal proclamation as being the chosen of God) at the conciliar Holy Hierarchical Liturgy at the St. Sava Tem-ple on Vracar on Sunday, May 2, 2010.

This confirms their already existing prayerful veneration among the faithful people of God not only within the bound-aries of our Serbian Orthodox Church but also throughout ecumenical Ortho-doxy. According to the decision of the Assembly, the liturgical commemoration

of the Venerable Justin of Celije will be celebrated on 1/14 June, while the mem-ory of the Venerable Symeon of Dajbabe will be 19 March/1 April each year. It was decided, likewise, that in the future the memory of the New Martyrs of Jase-novac be celebrated on August 31/Sep-tember 13.

The assembly decision from last year's regular session was confirmed to join in the building of a church and memorial center dedicated to the liturgical and his-torical commemoration of all Serbian casualties of the wars of the 20th century, as well as the casualties of the NATO aggression on Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and those during the March pogrom against the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in 2004.

During the Sabor, on May 1, a meeting was held with the central committee for the completion of the St. Sava Memorial-temple on Vracar, during which, among other things, reports were heard and approved regarding completed and planned projects and the financial aspect of the building of this testimonial holy site of the entire Serbian people. After the meeting a parastos memorial service was served in the church for all its bene-factors and donors, and also for Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo (Dozic) of blessed memory, on the occasion of the 60 year anniversary of his passing in the Lord. On the following day, May 2, in the great amphitheater of the Orthodox Theologi-cal Faculty, in the presence of His Holi-ness the Patriarch, members of the Assembly of Bishops, the dean, profes-sors, and students of the Faculty, as well as the interested public, a formal aca-demia on the occasion of the 90th anni-versary of the restoration of the Patriarchate of Pec, that is, the unifica-tion of the regional church into the unity of the Serbian Patriarchate and on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the passing away of Patriarch Gavrilo. Met-ropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro and the Coastlands spoke on that occa-sion of the strong personality, painstak-ing life, and spiritual merits of Patriarch Gavrilo.

The Assem-bly of Bish-ops heard and approved the follow-ing reports regarding the life of the Church over the past year period since last year's meeting: on the passing and funeral of Patriarch Pavle of blessed repose; on the election and enthronement of the current Patriarch; on the work of the Holy Synod, the Patriarchal adminis-trative board, the Great ecclesiastical court, the funds of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Informational-publication organizations, the Covekoljublje charita-ble organization, the pilgrimage agency Dobrocinstvo and other central church bodies and institutions; on the decisions of the Fourth pan-Orthodox Pre-concil-iar conference in Chambesy near Geneva in June 2009 on the theme of a more effi-cient and organized mission, witness, and cooperation of the local Orthodox Churches in the Diaspora and on the stand of the pan-Orthodox preparatory commission for the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, held in December of last year also in Chambesy, on the manner of proclaiming church autocephaly and autonomy. In this con-text, the Assembly especially analyzed the status and problems of the life of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Diaspora and made appropriate deci-sions. In this regard, last year's decision regarding the restructuring of the dio-ceses in the United States was con-firmed.

Also considered, in the same framework, were the relations of the Serbian Ortho-dox Church with the sister Orthodox Churches, and with heterodox Christian churches and communities, as well as with inter-church and ecumenical orga-nizations, and other religions. It was stated with regret that the Romanian Orthodox Church continues in an unca-nonical manner to violate the canonical territory of the Serbian Orthodox Church and it was decided, through renewed brotherly dialogue, to overcome this


problem in the spirit of love and respect for the structure of the Orthodox Church.

As it does every year, the Assembly ded-icated due attention to the state of Chris-tian education and opportunities to better develop it. It was decided that the Theo-logical Faculty of St. Basil of Ostrog for the time being remain in the town of Foca, and to again petition the Sarajevo government to finally return the building of the Sarajevo seminary located in the center of Sarajevo to the Serbian Ortho-dox Church, in the same was as the Islamic community and the Roman Catholic Church have had all of their buildings returned.

Also confirmed was the previous princi-pal Assembly decision that the Holy Synod, in cooperation with the Theolog-ical Faculty in Belgrade, prepare the con-ditions for the opening of a Theological Faculty in Nis. More quality in teaching and pedagogical activity was recom-mended for the seminaries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, in order to achieve the highest standards of intellectual church youth.

The Assembly approved the Rules for the Patriarch Pavle Fund, the Statute of the Serbian Orthodox Church Archives, Rules for the Sanctity of Life Charity Fund and the Regulation on honorary orders and awards of the Serbian Ortho-dox Church. It was decided to address the construction at a suitable location of a building for the Serbian Patriarchate, since the current building, meant only to serve the needs of the Archbishopric of Belgrade-Karlovci, does not meet even present minimum requirements.

The Assembly gave due attention to hearing the reports of its members regarding their archpastoral work, as well as the current state and difficulties in their regional dioceses, especially in some of them. With great regret it was concluded that in the dioceses of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina there are still provocations, and at times gross endangerment of the integrity of the clergy and monastics of the Serbian Orthodox Church, along with its churches, monasteries, and property. The

Assembly, therefore, expects and requires that the local authorities provide full freedom and security for the Serbian Orthodox Church, and that the authori-ties of the neighboring Republic of Hun-gary prevent any further thefts from the churches of the Diocese of Budapest. The Assembly, in a special appeal, reacted to the recent unacceptable actions of the self-proclaimed ethnic Albanian authorities in Kosovo and Metohija by which telephone connec-tions in Serbian settlements were inter-rupted.

The Assembly fathers devoted the great-est attention and care to the Diocese of Raska-Prizren, hearing, following the reports of Bishop Artemije and Bishop-administrator Atanasije, a comprehen-sive and documented report by the Holy Synod regarding the serious state and massive anomalies in the life of this dio-cese, which for centuries has been the first in suffering and martyrdom in the history of the Church and people. Having considered the overall situation and the unfortunate occurrences there, as well as the canonical responsibility of Bishop Artemije for them, and particularly for the extremely destructive, morally and canonically unacceptable actions of a number of his close associates, the Assembly, by a majority vote, perma-nently relieved him of his duties as dioc-esan bishop and placed him at the disposal of Church under the status of retired bishop. As administrator of the vacant Diocese of Raska and Prizren the Assembly appointed - actually left in place - the current administrator, the retired Bishop of Zahumlje-Herzegovina Atanasije. Bishop Artemije accepted the decision of the Assembly. This, however, does not influence his self-proclaimed 'defenders' to accept it.

In this regard, and especially in regard to the unprecedented defamatory campaign against His Holiness the Patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Assembly, and the incitement of uninformed believers against their own Church and their canonical bishops, as well as attempts to create a sectarian and parasynagogal mentality completely foreign to Ortho-doxy, whose ringleaders are prodigal and

irresponsible individuals acting through anti-church, schismatic-oriented sites, the Holy Assembly of Bishops calls upon the faithful people of St. Sava to not believe and to stay away from their insidious insinuations, all the while believing in the all-powerful transfigur-ing love of Christ and awaiting the repentance of at least some of them. Finally, The Assembly decided that the solemn enthronement of the Serbian Patriarch at the Patriarchate in Pec will take place on October 3 of this year.

The make-up of the Holy Synod remains the same.

Communique of Serbian Orthodox Church

Life Of Our Father Justin Archimandrite of Ćelije

Troparion, Tone 4As Orthodox sweetness and divine nectar, Venerable Father* thou dost flow into the hearts of believers as a wealth:* by thy life and teachings thou didst reveal thyself to be a living book of the Spirit, most wise Justin;* therefore pray to Christ the Word* that the Word may dwell in those who honor thee.

The Venerable Justin of Ćelije was a theologian, a champion, a writer, a critic of the pragmatic church life, a philoso-pher, and archimandrite of the Monas-tery Ćelije, near Valjevo. He was formally glorified as saint by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church on May 2, 2010, and commemorated on June 1 each year.

Saint Justin was born to pious and God-fearing parents, Proto Spyridon and Pro-tinica Anastasia Popović, in Vranje, Ser-bia, on the Feast of Annunciation, March 25, 1894. At baptism, he was given the name Blagoje, after the Feast of the Annunciation (Blagovest means Annun-ciation or Good News). He was born into a priestly family, as seven previous gen-erations of the Popović family were headed by priests (Popović in Serbian actually means “family or a son of a priest”).


Blagoje Popović completed nine years of studies at the Theological Faculty St. Sava in Belgrade in 1914. In the early 20th century, the School of St. Sava in Belgrade was renowned throughout the Orthodox world as a holy place of extreme asceticism as well as of a high quality scholarship. Some of the well-known professors included the rector, Fr. Domentian; Professor Fr. Dositej, later a martyr; and Dr. Atanasije Popović ; and the great ecclesiastical composer, Stevan Mokranjac. Yet one professor stood above them: Hieromonk Nikolai Velim-irović, PhD, the single most influential person in Fr. Justin's life.

In autumn of 1914, Blagoje served as a student nurse primarily in South Serbia—Skadar, Niš, Kosovo, etc. During the win-ter, he contracted typhus and had to spend over a month in a hospital in Niš. On Jan-uary 8, 1915, he resumed his duties, shar-ing the destiny of the Serbian army, he passed a path of Golgotha from Peć to Skadar (along which 100,000 Serbian soldiers died) where on January 1, 1916, he entered the monastic order in the Orthodox cathedral of Skadar, and took the name of Justin, after the great Chris-tian philosopher and martyr for Christ, St. Justin the Philosopher.

Shortly after becoming a monk, Father Justin, along with several other students, traveled to Petrograd, Russia, to begin a year’s study in the Orthodox seminary. There Father Justin first dedicated him-self fully to Orthodoxy and the monastic way. He learned of the great ascetics of Russia: St. Anthony the Great and St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves in Kiev, St. Seraphim Sarovsky, St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. John of Kronstadt, and oth-ers.

After his year’s sojourn in Russia, Fr. Jus-tin Popović entered, by the prompting of Fr. Nikolai Velimirovich (later Bishop Nikolaj) the Theological School in Oxford, England. Justin attended the studies of theology at Oxford in the period 1916-1919, but his doctor's thesis “The Philosophy and Religion of F.M. Dostoevsky” was not accepted.

In 1923, Fr. Justin became the editor of the Orthodox journal The Christian Life; and in this journal he published the doctoral dissertation for which he was persecuted at Oxford. Together with his fellow colleagues from the Oxford Uni-versity he has edited this periodical for 20 years.

In 1926 he was promoted to the title of the Doctor of Theology at the Faculty of Theology, University in Athens. For his course on the Lives of the Saints, Justin began to translate into Serbian the Lives of the Saints from the Greek, Syriac, and Slavonic sources, as well as numerous minor works of the Fathers—homilies of Ss. John Chrysostom, Macarius, and Isaac of Syria. He also wrote “The The-ory of Knowledge According to St. Isaac.”

From 1930 until 1932 after a stint as Professor in the Theological Academy of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Prizren, he was an associate and escort of Bp. Joseph (Cvijovich) of Bitola in reorga-nizing the Church of the Carpatho-Rus-sians in Czechoslovakia. This area had been besieged by those espousing Uni-atism, where previously converted Christians of these regions started their conversion back into Orthodoxy.

He was professor of Dogmatics at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Belgrade from 1934 until 1941. In 1945, within the perspective of the newly established communist and atheistic regime, the likes of a zealous Christian such as St. Justin, who was now beginning to convert the intellectuals to faith in Jesus Christ, had no place. Con-sidered ineligible by the Communist party, together with a few fellow profes-sors, he was ousted from the Faculty. As an ecclesiastical person and clergyman St. Justin spent the next 31 years in the Monastery Ćelije under the continuous surveillance of the Communist Party police.

A devoted monk and philosopher of the Eastern Orthodox theology, Justin Popo-vić was a great critic of ecumenism, pro-viding it was inclined towards relativization of the God's Truth. Until

the end of his life Father Justin was a ded-icated creator. His work is considered a great contribution to the Orthodox theol-ogy and he himself as the secret con-science of the Serbian Church and the entire martyr's Orthodox religion (according to John N. Karmiris, the Greek academician).

Saint Justin of Ćelije fell asleep in the Lord on March 25, 1979, on his birthday, the Feast of the Annunciation.

Adapted from the orthodoxwiki and an article by V. Rev. Protopresbyter Daniel Rogich


The Inward Mission of Our Church by St. Justin of Ćelije

It is very, very difficult indeed for infi-nite and eternal life to make its way into the human soul—so narrow—and even into the narrower human body. Held behind bars, the inhabitants of this earth suspiciously stand their ground against anything coming from without. Cast into this prison of time and space they are unable—from atavism or perhaps from inertia—to bear being penetrated by something outlasting time, outlying space, something which surpasses these, and is eternal.

.Such an invasion is considered to be aggression towards them and they respond with war. A man, given the fact that he is being cor-rupted by the "moth" of time, does

not like the intrusion of eternity into his life and is not easily able to adapt himself to it. He often considers this intrusion to be sheer unforgivable insolence. At cer-tain times he might become a hardened rebel against eternity because in the face of it he perceives his own minuteness; at others he even experiences fierce hatred towards it because he views it through such a human prism, one that is all too earthbound, all too worldly. Plunged bodily into matter, bound by the force of gravity to time and space, and having his spirit quite divorced from eternity, the world-weary man takes no pleasure in those arduous expeditions towards the eternal, toward what lies beyond. The chasm existing between time and eter-nity is quite unbridgeable for him because he lacks the strength and ability needed to get across it. Thoroughly besieged by death, he covers with scorn all those who say to him, "Man is immor-tal; he is eternal." Immortal in just what respect? In his mortal body? In what

respect eternal? With respect to his fee-ble spirit?

In order for a person to be immortal he must, at the very core of his sense of self, feel himself immortal. For him to be eternal, in his center of consciousness of self he must know himself eternal. With-out doing this, for him both immortality and eternity alike will be conditions imposed from the outside. And if at one time man did have this sense of immor-tality and awareness of eternity, he had it so long ago that it has since wasted away under the weight of death. And waste away it really has; we learn this from the whole mysterious makeup of human beings. Our whole problem lies in how we might rekindle that extinguished feel-ing, how we might revive the wasted-away awareness. Human beings are not in a position to do this; nor, indeed, are the "transcendent gods" of philosophy. It is something to be done by God, who incarnated His immortal Self inside man's sense of himself and incarnated His eternal Self within man's self-aware-ness. Christ did precisely this when He was made man and became God-human. Only in Christ, in Him alone, did man feel himself immortal and know himself eternal. Christ God-human, in His Per-son, bridged that chasm between time and eternity and restored relations between them. For this reason only he who is organically made one with Christ God-human, one with His Body, the Church, can be the one to feel himself really immortal and know himself in truth to be eternal. Whereby, for man and humanity, Christ composes the one and only passage and transition from time to eternity. This is why in the Church, the Orthodox Church, Christ became and remained the one and only way and the single guide from the former to the latter, from the sense of one's own mortality to the sense of one's immortality, from self-awareness of what is transient to self-awareness of what is eternal and without dimension.

The ever-liv-ing personal-ity of God-human Christ is precisely the Church. The Church is always per-sonality, God-human body and spirit. The definition of the Church, Her life, Her purpose, Her spirit, Her plan, Her ways, all these are given in the wondrous Person of God-human Christ. Hence, the mission of the Church is to make every one of her faithful, organi-cally and in person, one with the Person of Christ; to turn their sense of self into a sense of Christ, and their self-knowledge (self-awareness) into Christ-knowledge (Christ-awareness); for their life to become the life in Christ and for Christ; their personality to become personality in Christ and for Christ; that within them might live not they themselves but Christ in them (Gal. 2:10). The mission of the Church is still to bring about in her mem-bers the conviction that the proper state of human personhood is composed of immortality and eternity and not of the realm of time and mortality...and the conviction that man is a wayfarer who is wending his way in the sway of time and mortality towards immortality and all eternity.

The Church is God-human, eternity incarnated within the boundaries of time and space. She is here in this world but she is not of this world (John 18:36). She is in the world in order to raise it on high where she herself has her origin. The Church is ecumenical, catholic, God-human, ageless, and it is therefore a blas-phemy—an unpardonable blasphemy against Christ and against the Holy Spirit—to turn the Church into a national institution, to narrow her down to petty, transient, time-bound aspirations and ways of doing things. Her purpose is beyond nationality, œcumenical, all-embracing: to unite all men in Christ, all without exception to nation or race or social strata. "There is neither Greek nor

The mission of the Church is to make every

one of her faithful, organi-cally and in per-son, one with the Person of

Christ

The love of Christ is all-embracing

love, always. By prayer it is acquired

because it is a gift of Christ.


Jew, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28), because "Christ is all, and in all." The means and methods of this all-human God-human union of all in Christ have been provided by the Church, through the holy sacra-ments and in her God-human works (ascetic exertions, virtues). And so it is: in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist the ways of Christ and the means of unit-ing all people are composed and defined and integrated. Through this mystery, man is made organically one with Christ and with all the virtues: faith, prayer, fasting, love, meekness, through com-passion and giving alms, a man consoli-dates in this union and preserves himself in its sanctity, personally experiencing Christ both as the unity of his personality and as the essence of his union with other members of the body of Christ, the Church.

The Church is the personhood of the God-human Christ, a God-human organ-ism and not a human organization. The Church is indivisible, as is the person of the God-human, as is the body of the God-human. For this reason it is a funda-mental error to have the God-human organism of the Church divided into lit-tle national organizations. In the course of their procession down through history many local Churches have limited them-selves to nationalism, to national meth-

ods and aspirations, ours being among them. The Church has adapted herself to the people when it should properly be just the reverse: the people adapting themselves to the Church. This mistake has been made many times by our Church here. But we very well know that these were the "tares" of our Church life, tares which the Lord will not uproot, leaving them rather to grow with the wheat until the time of harvest (Matt. 13, 29-30). We also well know (the Lord so taught us) that these tares have their ori-gin in our primeval enemy and enemy of Christ: the devil (Matt. 13, 25-28). But we wield this knowledge in vain if it is not transformed into prayer, the prayer that in time to come Christ will safeguard us from becoming the sowers and culti-vators of such tares ourselves.

It is now high time—the twelfth hour—time for our Church representatives to cease being nothing but the servants of nationalism and for them to become bishops and priests of the One, Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The mission of the Church, given by Christ and put into practice by the Holy Fathers, is this: that in the soul of our people be planted and cultivated a sense and awareness that every member of the Orthodox Church is a Catholic Person, a person who is for ever and ever, and is God-human; that each person is Christ's, and is therefore a brother to every human being, a ministering servant to all men and all created things. This is the Christ-given objective of the Church. Any other is not an objective of Christ but of the Antichrist. For our local Church to be the Church of Christ, the Church Catholic, this objective must be brought about continuously among our people. And yet what are the means of accomplishing this God-human objective? Once again, the means are themselves God-human because a God-human objective can only be brought about exclusively by God-human means, never by human ones or by any others. It is on this point that the Church differs radically from anything which is human or of this earth.

These means are none other than the God-human ascetic exertions and vir-tues. And these can be successfully prac-

ticed only by God-human, Christ-bearing ascetics. God-human virtues exist in an organic kinship. Each has its source in the other and they bring one another to completion.

First among the ascetic virtues is the effort of faith: The souls of our people must pass through, and constantly be passing through, this exertion; meaning that these souls may then be given up to Christ as having no reservations and being without compromises; having extended down to the God-human depths and ascended to the God-human heights. It is essential to create in our people the sense that the faith of Christ is a virtue beyond nationhood, being œcumenical and catholic, trinitarian; and that for someone to believe in Christ entails their waiting on Christ, and only on Christ, with every event of their lives.

The second ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of prayer and fasting: This being a virtue which must become the way of life of our Orthodox people, becoming the souls of their souls, because prayer and fasting are the all-powerful, Christ-given means of purging not only the human personhood but also society, the people, and the human race at large, of every defilement. It is prayer and fasting which are able to cleanse our people's souls from our defilements and sinning (Mt. 17:19-21; Lk. 9:17-29). The souls of our people must fall in step with the orthodox life of prayer. Prayer and fasting are not to be performed merely for the individual, or for one people, but for everyone and everything ("in all and for all"), for friends and enemies, for those who persecute us and those who put us to death, because that is how Christians are to be distinguished from the Gentiles (Mt. 5: 44-45).

The third God-human virtue is that of love: That love which knows no bounds, which does not question who is worthy and who is not, but loves them all; loving friends and enemies, loving sinners and evildoers, without however loving their sins and their crimes. It blesses the accursed, as the sun does, it shines both on the evil and the good (Matt. 5: 44-46). This God-human love must be cultivated

The souls of our people must fall in step with the orthodox life of prayer. Prayer and fast-ing are not to be performed merely for the individual, or

for one people, but for everyone and everything

("in all and for all"), for friends and enemies, for those who persecute us and those who

put us to death, because that is how Christians are to be distinguished from the

Gentiles (Mt. 5: 44-45).


in our people because its catholic charac-ter is what sets it apart from other self-proclaimed and relative loves: from that of the pharisaic sort, the humanist, the altruistic, the nationalist, and likewise from animal love. The love of Christ is all-embracing love, always. By prayer it is acquired because it is a gift of Christ. Now the Orthodox heart prays with intensity: Lord of love, this love of Thine for everyone and for all things—give it to me!

The fourth ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of meek-ness and humility. Only he

who is meek at heart can appease fierce hearts that are in uproar: only he who is lowly in heart can humble proud and haughty souls. To be "showing all meek-ness unto all men" (Tit. 3:2). But a per-son becomes truly meek and humble when he turns his heart of hearts into the Lord Jesus, humble and meek, He being the only true "meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29). The soul of the person must be rendered meek by Christ's meek-ness. Every person must learn to pray: Meek, gentle Lord, assuage my fierce soul! The Lord humbled himself with the greatest humility—he was incarnate and became a man. Should you be of Christ, then humble yourself as a worm: embed your flesh in the pain of all who are in pain, of everyone sorrowing and in grief; in the trial of everyone who, impas-sioned, is thus tormented; and in the trauma of every animal and bird. Humble yourself lower than them all: be all things to all men, but be of Christ and according to Christ. When you are by yourself, then pray: O humble Lord, by your humility, humble me!

The fifth ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of patience and humility: Which is to say, to endure ill-use, not to render evil for evil, to forgive in total compassion all assault, slander and hurt. This is what it

is to be of Christ: to feel yourself perpet-ually crucified to the world, persecuted by it, violated and spat upon. The world will not tolerate Christ-bearing men just as it would not tolerate Christ. Martyr-dom is the state in which a Christian brings forth fruit. This must be imparted to our people. For the Orthodox, martyr-dom is purification. Being Christian does not simply mean to bear suffering cheer-fully, but to pardon in compassion those who cause it, to pray to God for them as did Christ and the archdeacon Stephen. And so, pray: Long-suffering Lord, give me forbearance, make me magnanimous and meek!

Our Church's mission is to infuse these God-human virtues and ascetic exertions into the people's way of living; to have their life and soul knit firm with the Christ-like God-human virtues. For therein lies salvation from the world and from all those soul-destroying, death-dealing, and Godless organizations of the world. In response to the "erudite" atheism and refined cannibalism of con-temporary civilization we must give place to those Christ-bearing personali-ties, who with the meekness of sheep will put down the roused lust of wolves, and with the harmlessness of doves will save the soul of the people from cultural and political putrefaction. We must exe-cute ascetic effort in Christ's name in response to the cultural exercising which is performed in the name of the decayed and disfigured European being, in the name of atheism, civilization, or the Antichrist. Which is why the major task of our Church is the creation of such Christ-bearing ascetics. The watchword which should be heard within our Church today is: Let us return to the Christ-bearing ascetics and to the Holy Fathers! To resume the virtues of Saint Anthony, Saint Athanasios, Saint Basil, and Saint Gregory, of Saints Sergios and Seraphim of the Russians, of Saints Savva, Prochorus, and Gabriel of the Serbs, and others like them because it was these God-human virtues which brought about Saint Anthony, Saint Gregory and Saint Sava.

And today only Ortho-dox ascetic efforts and virtues can bring about sanctity in every soul, in the soul of all our people—seeing that the God-human objective of the Church is unalterable and its means are likewise so, since Christ is the same yesterday, today and unto all ages (Heb. 13:8). Herein lies the difference between the world of men and the one in Christ: the human world is transient and time-bound, whilst that of Christ is ever whole, for evermore. Orthodoxy, as the single vessel and guardian of the perfect and radiant Per-son of God-human Christ, is brought about exclusively by this extension of virtues by grace, through entirely God-human Orthodox means, not through borrowings from Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, because the latter are forms of Christianity after the pattern of the proud European being, and not of the humble God-human being.

This mis-sion of the Church is facilitated by God Himself because among our people there exists an ascetic spirit as created by Orthodoxy through the centuries. The Orthodox soul of our people leans towards the Holy Fathers and the Ortho-dox ascetics. Ascetic exertion, at the per-sonal, family, and parish level, particularly of prayer and fasting, is the characteristic of Orthodoxy. Our people is a people of Christ, an Orthodox peo-ple, because—as Christ did—it sums up the Gospel in these two virtues: prayer and fasting. And it is a people convinced that all defilement, all foul thoughts, can be driven out of man by these alone (Matt. 17:21). In its heart of hearts our

Only in Christ, in Him alone, did

man feel himself immortal and know himself

eternal.

Orthodoxy is ascetic effort

and it is life, and it is thus by effort and by life that her mission is broadcast and brought about.

Mission of the Church is facili-tated by God

Himself


people know Christ and Orthodoxy, they know just what it is that makes an Ortho-dox person Orthodox. Orthodoxy will always generate ascetic rebirth. She rec-ognizes no other.

The ascetics are Orthodoxy's only mis-sionaries. Asceticism is her only mis-sionary school. Orthodoxy is ascetic effort and it is life, and it is thus by effort and by life that her mission is broadcast and brought about. The development of asceticism...this ought to be the inward mission of our Church amongst our peo-ple. The parish must become an ascetic focal point. But this can only be achieved by an ascetic priest. Prayer and fasting, the Church-oriented life of the parish, a life of liturgy: Orthodoxy holds these as the primary ways of effecting rebirth in its people. The parish, the parish com-munity, must be regenerated and in Christ-like and brotherly love must min-ister humbly to Him and to all people, meek and lowly and in a spirit of sacri-fice and self-denial. And such service must be imbued and nourished by prayers and the liturgical life. This much is groundwork and indispensible. But to this end there exists one prerequisite: that our bishops, priests, and our monks become ascetics themselves. That this might be, then: Let us beseech the Lord.

From Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ, (Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1994), pp. 21-31.

St. Symeon of Dajbabe

St. Symeon was born in 1854 in Cetinje as a little Savo in a brotherhood Popovic of Donji Kraj. He finished primary edu-cation in Cetinje. Later he studied at the Seminary in Kiev, and after it he finished Spiritual academy in Kiev.

In Kiev he wa ordained a hieromonk, and 1888 he returned to Cetinje, where he got a service of God's servant in the St. Nich-olas monastery on Vranjina, and one year later in the Ostrog Monastery, where he was a lecturer in its monastic school, which had been founded by Metropolitan Mitrophan Ban.

According to miraculous visions, which God revealed him, the hieromonk Symeon initiated a construction of a church at the site of present-day monas-tery Dajbabe in the late 19th century. The rest of his life hieromonk Symeon spent serving in the newly-established Dajbabe most holy shrine, and there he, as the Dajbabe monk, was visited by archiman-drite Justin Popovic, a great Serbian theo-logian, who along with St. Symeon, is now counted among Christ's Saints.

St. Symeon of Dajbabe reposed in the Lord on April 1 (according to the Grego-rian calendar), 1941.

His venerable relics were discovered 55 years after his death in the Dajbabe mon-astery thanks to the effort of His Emi-nence Amfilohije, Archbishop of Cetinje and Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, many priests and faithful people, worshippers of the Dajbabe monastery. Since then, every year on a day of his death, there is a great assemble in the Dajbabe monastery.

from Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral Eparchial (Diocesan) News

Sunday of Orthodoxy

This year also St. George parish hosted the pan-Ortho-dox Sunday of Orthodox Service. Sunday of Ortho-doxy is the first Sunday of the Great Lent and this year it fell on February 21. Thank you to Sylvia Ivanovic and Kolo members for their help!

God bless you!


The Summer Lent: Celebrating the Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul

On July 12, we celebrate the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, two men whose dedication to the formation and suste-nance of Christianity in the first century made them true pillars of the Church. Both men were chosen by Christ to min-ister to the world, and both were given new names to mark their new life in Christ. They both embraced their martyr-dom in Rome around 67 AD. Their resolve, commitment, and enthusi-asm gave the early Church life and firm ground. And even today we should look to them for inspiration as we work towards the support and growth of our Holy Orthodox Church.

St. Peter the Apostle. Simon, as he was first known, met Jesus through his brother Andrew, the “first-called” Apostle. Both brothers were fisher-men in the Sea of Galilee who gave up their work when Jesus told them, “I will make you fishers of men.” (Read Matthew 4:18-25 and John 1:40-42).

In Matthew 16:16-19, Simon tells Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus, pleased with His Disciple's faith, blessed him with a sacred trust, "“You are Peter (Petros) and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” [Editor's Note: Orthodox Christians understand that the "rock" that Jesus refers to here is Peter's statement, not the person of Peter.]

Peter was with Jesus throughout his min-istry. And just as Christ had foretold, Peter denied knowing the Jesus after He was arrested for fear of being persecuted. He later repented. After Christ's Resur-rection and Ascension and the grace of Pentecost, Peter helped foster the Chris-tian community in Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem Peter was arrested by the Jewish authorities, and an angel of the Lord freed him from prison (Acts 12). He

then journeyed throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Italy teaching peo-ple about Jesus Christ. He performed many miracles of healing and resurrec-tions as well (see the Book of Acts). He established the first church in Antioch and became its first bishop. In Rome he converted many to the faith.

Legend has it that when the great perse-cutions against Christians began in Rome, Peter was advised to leave the city. On the road he saw Jesus heading in

the opposite direction towards Rome. “Lord where are you going?” Peter asked. Jesus responded, “I am going to be crucified a second time.” Peter realized his fate and returned to Rome where he was arrested and condemned to be cruci-fied in 67 AD. He asked to be crucified upside down, as he felt unworthy of the same punishment as his Lord. Two of Peter's letters, probably written during his imprisonment in Rome, are included in the New Testament.

St. Paul the Apostle. Saul, as he was first known, grew up in a devout Jewish fam-ily in Tarsus, Syria. He saw Christianity as a threat to Judaism and, therefore, was

determined to eradicate it. He is first mentioned in Acts 7:58 as a zealous per-secutor of Christians in Jerusalem. On his way to Damascus to arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem, he was struck by a vision of heavenly light and fell to the ground (see Acts 9). A voice from the light asked: Saul, why are you persecuting Me! And Saul asked: Who are You, Lord?

Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Trembling and

astonished, Saul asked, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” And the Lord answered: Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.

Saul, blinded from this holy light, went to Damascus as the Lord had instructed. Three days later, the Lord sent Ananias, a devout Christian, to find Saul. He healed Saul and baptized him so he would receive the Holy Spirit. From this time forward Saul was known as Paul.

Paul began to preach to the peo-ple about Jesus, then, he, too, had to flee Damascus when the Jews plotted to kill him. He went to Jerusalem and tried to join the Apostles, but they were afraid of him, having known him as the harsh persecutor of Christians. Barnabas, also a devote Chris-tian, believed Paul and brought him to the Apostles.

Barnabas and Paul then went on many missionary travels together throughout Syria, Asia Minor, Cypru,s and Greece. With others and on his own, Paul contin-ued his ministry to the people in these lands. He traveled to Ephesus, Corinth, Athens, Thessalonica, Thrace, Crete, Malta, Sicily, and Rome. He was the greatest Apostolic missionary and is often referred to as the “Apostle to the Gentiles.”

His great courage, stamina and fierce intelligence were the hallmarks of his ministry. As Fr. George Poulos notes in his Orthodox Saints series, Paul was a


brilliant orator and writer, and he was sensitive to the needs and moods of var-ious tribes of both Greek and Near East-ern peoples. His extraordinary letters or epistles make up almost half of the New Testament.

In Rome Paul was arrested and beheaded in 67 AD. In his last letter, 2 Timothy, he states, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

The Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. On July 13, we celebrate the Holy Twelve Apostles whose ministry to all ends of the known world spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Fast of the Holy Apos-tles Peter & Paul begins the Monday after All Saints to June 29/July 12. This fast requires the same preparation as any Lenten period.

Catherine K. Contopoulos, in June 2010 Path of Orthodoxy

St. Archimandrite Justin Popovich Tells Us How To Read The Bible and Why

The Bible is in a sense a biography of God in this world. In it the Indescribable One has in a sense described Himself. The Holy Scriptures of the New Testa-ment are a biography of the incarnate God in this world. In them it is related how God, in order to reveal Himself to men, sent God the Logos, who took on flesh and became man--and as a man told men everything that God is, everything that God wants from this world and the people in it.

Men cannot devise more questions than there are answers in the Bible. If you fail to find the answer to any of your ques-tions in the Bible, it means that you have either posed a senseless question or did not know how to read the Bible and did not finish reading the answer in it.

In the Bible God has made known:

1. what the world is; where it came from; why it exists; where it is heading; how it will end;

2. what man is; where he comes from; where he is going; what he is made of; what his purpose is; how he will end;

3. what animals and plants are; what their purpose is; what they are used for;

4. what good is; where it comes from; what it leads to; what its purpose is; how it is attained;

5. what evil is; where it comes from; how it came to exist; why it exists--how it will come to an end;

6. what the righteous are and what sinners are; how a sinner becomes righteous and how an arrogant flagitious man becomes a sinner; how a man serves God and how he serves satan; the whole path from good to evil, and from God to satan;

7. everything--from the beginning to the end; man's entire path from the body to God, from his conception in the womb to his resurrection from the dead;

8. what the history of the world is, the his-tory of heaven and earth, the history of mankind; what their path, purpose, and end are.

In the Bible God has said absolutely everything that was necessary to be said to men. The biography of every man-everyone without exception--is found in the Bible.

In it each of us can find himself por-trayed and thoroughly described in detail: all those virtues and vices which you have and can have and cannot have. You will find the paths on which your own soul and everyone else's journey from sin to virtue, and the entire path from man to God and from man to Satan. You will find the means to free yourself from sin.

In short, you will find the complete his-tory of sin and sinfulness, and the com-plete history of righteousness and the righteous.

The holy Fathers recommend serious preparation before reading and studying the Bible; but of what does this prepara-tion consist?

First of all in prayer. Pray to the Lord to illuminate your mind--so that you may understand the words of the Bible--and

to fill your heart with His grace--so that you may feel the truth and life of those words.

Be aware that these are God's words, which He is speaking and saying to you personally. Prayer, together with the other virtues found in the Gospel, is the best preparation a person can have for understanding the Bible.

How should we read the Bible? Prayer-fully and reverently, for in each word there is another drop of eternal truth, and all the words together make up the boundless ocean of the Eternal Truth.

The Bible is not a book but life; because its words are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). Therefore, its words can be com-prehended if we study them with the spirit of its spirit, and with the life of its life.

It is a book that must be read with life--by putting it into practice. One should first live it, and then understand it.

Here the words of the Savior apply: Whoever is willing to do it--will under-stand that this teaching is from God (John 7:17). Do it, so that you may understand it. This is the fundamental rule of Orthodox exegesis.

At first one usually reads the Bible quickly, and then more and more slowly, until finally he will begin to read not even word by word, because in each word he is discovering an everlasting truth and an ineffable mystery.

Every day read at least one chapter from the Old and the New Testament; but side by side with this put a virtue from each into practice. Practice it until it becomes a habit to you.

Let us say, for instance, that the first vir-tue is forgiveness of insults. Let this be your daily obligation. And along with it pray to the Lord: O gentle Lord, grant me love towards those who insult me!

And when you have made this virtue into a habit, each of the other virtues after it


will be easier for you, and so on until the final one.

The main thing is to read the Bible as much as possible. When the mind does not understand, the heart will feel; and if neither the mind understands nor the heart feels, read it over again, because by reading it you are sowing God's words in your soul.

All the words of God, which God has spoken to men, come from the Eternal Word--the Logos, who is the Word of life and bestows Life eternal.

By living for the Word, a man brings himself from death to life. By filling himself with eternal life, a man becomes a conqueror of death and "a partaker of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), and of his blessedness there shall be no end.

The main and most important point of all this is faith and feeling love towards Christ the Lord, because the mystery of every word of God is opened beneath the warmth of that feeling, just as the petals of a fragrant flower are opened beneath the warmth of the sun's rays. Amen.

Q & A about Sunday of All Saints

Q: When is the Sunday of All Saints? Speculate why. Where is the service found (which service book)?

A: The Sunday of All Saints is celebrated the Sunday after Pentecost. The service is the last one in the Pentecostarion, which has all the services from Pascha until the Sunday of All Saints, inclusive.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit enlight-ens mankind and makes us able to attain what God has predestined us to obtain. The Saints are those who have shown forth the fruits of the Spirit abundantly. Is it not appropriate that we should med-itate upon the marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit by meditating upon His wondrous works—the Saints?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Gal 5:22-23

Q: What is a Saint? What does the word literally mean?

A: The word Saint literally means Holy One. We recognize the holiness of those who have struggled to live holy lives, above and beyond the average Christian, by calling them Saints. All Christians are in some sense saints because the word also implies a setting apart. In our Lit-urgy, the priest exclaims “Holy things are for the Holy” shortly before he breaks the Lamb, and this phrase includes all true (Orthodox) Christians who struggle to be saved and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But when we refer to the Saints we call to mind those who “fought the good fight and finished the course and kept the faith,” (cf. 1 Tim 4:7) and in so doing, have “labored more abundantly than they all.” (1 Cor. 15:10)

A Christian is ever changing for the bet-ter and transforming from glory to glory through daily growth, by always improving and becoming deified and yet without ever reaching the end of perfection. For true perfection means that one never ceases to grow toward that which is better and never reduces perfec-tion to any limit. ~ St Gregory of Nyssa

Sunday of Orthodoxy: Reading the Confession of Faith


Q: Why do Christians pray to the Saints? Describe their attitude and expectations in these prayers. Why is this prayer so misunderstood by non-Orthodox?

A: All who profess Christ, whether they be Orthodox or not, commonly ask one another to pray for them. It is a duty of Christians to pray for one another. Because Orthodox Christians live in the knowledge that those who have passed on are not dead or insensible, and because “God is the God of the living, and not the dead,” they naturally turn to the Saints for intercession and place more confidence in their prayers than those fellow Christians who have not completed their earthly sojourn.

A Christian has great reverence in approaching the Saints because the Saints have been shown by God to be “more than conquerors.” We are in awe of their exploits and recognize the grace of God clearly in their witness and strug-gle. This is also natural, even in the world. Men honor others who have per-formed great deeds, such as a brave gen-eral or wise statesman. Because we are in awe of the Saints, we render them honor when we ask their intercession, even more so than we would honor a great man in the flesh. In every communica-tion with the Saints, we see the light of Christ and rejoice in it and do it honor.

We know that prayer to the Saints, (or put in a way that is less offensive to those who do not live fully in the knowledge of the resurrection and the Saints, “asking their intercession” ) is pleasing to God because of the witness of the Scriptures and the abundant experience of the church. Because we are assured that such prayers are pleasing and because we rec-ognize the great grace that God has bestowed upon His Saints, we have great confidence when we ask their interces-sions.

“In invoking the intercession of the saints, the Church believes that the saints, who interceded with the Lord for the peace of the world and for the stabil-ity of the holy churches of Christ while living, do not cease doing this in Christ's

heavenly, triumphant Church, and listen to our entreaties in which we invoke them, and pray to the Lord, and become bearers of the grace and mercy of the Lord.” St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, Mod-ern Orthodox Saints, Vol. 7 by. Constan-tine Cavarnos

We ought to have the most lively spiritual union with the heavenly inhabitants, with all the saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, prelates, venerable, and righteous men, as they are all members of one single body, the Church of Christ, to which we sinners also belong, and the living Head of which is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is why we call upon them in prayer, converse with them, thank and praise them. It is urgently necessary for all Christians to be in union with them if they desire to make Christian progress; for the saints are our friends, our guides to salvation, who pray and intercede for us. St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

There are many who profess faith in Christ but have almost no knowledge of the intercession of the Saints, and even eschew this intimate knowledge and heavenly association as blasphemy. There are several reasons for this: preju-dice, a lack of grounding in Christian Tradition, misunderstanding of Scrip-ture, and the abuses of Rome, but the pri-mary reason is they do not fully understand the resurrection, and its implications!

The Saints are not asleep or dead. Our Lord Himself told us clearly that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the liv-ing.” (Mat 22:32). The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob (Cf. Mat 22:32) once appeared transfigured on a moun-tain, with two of his favored ones (Moses and Elias) appearing very much alive next to Him. This clearly shows that the dead are even more filled with knowl-edge and activity than the living, as the apostles Peter, Jame, and John could not withstand the uncreated light that came forth from Christ, but Moses and Elijah basked in it. Therefore, the departed Saints have greater vision and knowl-edge and their intercessory boldness is greater for them without their bodies

than when they were in the flesh. This impor-tant under-standing is elementary knowledge for the Church, but has passed from many of those outside of her.

Partially because they do not understand that the Saints are alive, conscious, and active, those who eschew prayer to the Saints misinterpret the reverence Ortho-dox show to the saints. Many get stuck on the word “pray,” thinking that this word only applies to God, and any other use of it should make them rent their clothes. This is, of course, a misunder-standing, brought about by centuries of sectarianism and prejudice. To pray is merely to ask. We ask the Saints to inter-cede for us, and any examination of our writings and liturgical texts shows that we understand that worship is for God alone.

It is ironic that those who refuse to ask the Saints to intercede for them on ideo-logical grounds ask those who are still among the living, among their family and friends, to pray for them. This latter action is wholly correct, as fellow believ-ers naturally want to pray for those they love. The prayer of the living, however, is not as powerful as the prayer of the Saints, as the Scripture tells us: “... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16) Therefore, those who do not want to set-tle for second best, and, therefore, pray directly to God, actually DO settle for second best when they ask their sinful companions, who are still struggling with their passions in the flesh, to pray for them, instead of asking those who have passed on and are more righteous.

Father Bratso Krsic


The Church Adds Two More Saints to the Calendar

Recently the Church of God in Serbia added two newly ‘revealed’ saints to the calendar of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The fullness of the Church of God - gathered Hierarchs, presbyters, deacons, acolytes, laity, that is the Church of God, inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit at the Eucharistic gath-ering with one voice proclaimed to the end of the Universe that St. Justin of Celije and St. Simeon of Dajbabe are indeed holy men of God.

This Eucharistic gathering of the Church of God in Belgrade, Serbia, during which the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit in these two holy men has been communicated, is the early practice of God’s Church. No formal and legalistic study of their life or work has been made, as is practice in the Western Church. In our Holy Orthodox Church, the Church of East, it is always left to the local tradition and veneration of any particular saint to develop and grow into widespread veneration of God’s saints.

Monastery Celije where St. Justin’s relics are laid to rest continues to be an annual destination for thousands of pilgrims. There, at the grave of St. Justin, the pilgrims ask for his intercession before God. As a

result, many of them have had their prayers answered and miraculous heal-ings and empowering by the Holy Spirit, still present in his relics, have taken place. The same can be said of St. Simeon of Dajbabe. Both men were the vessels of the Holy Spirit. Both of them strived to preserve the image of God in them. Both of them multiplied the gift given to them by God so that each of them became a gift to their people and Church.

While in this life saints never admitted that they were holy. As a matter of fact, they would say that they are the least of all, the greatest sinners. Their actions and ascetic efforts, so often praised by their

contemporaries, were perceived by them not as extraordinary, but rather as some-thing that ‘is to be done’. This acuity about life is characteristic of saints who see themselves in the light of God’s mercy; see themselves in the light of truth. As they work on purifying their souls through ascetic efforts such as fast-ing, prayer, vigils, etc., they ‘uncon-sciously’ bring themselves into a new quality of life. This new life lacks preten-tious living filled with idealism made of embellishments of this fallen world. This is why saints fled praise and glory of their contemporaries. They simply could not identify themselves with all that which is not true. Their true identity was in Christ and their true aim of life was to reveal the likeness of God.

We, the people of God, have two new saints in the calendar now to go to and ask for their intercession. Their lives, works, writings, and miracles serve as inspira-tion and reminder that our main goal in life is acquirement of the Holy Spirit. Their life calls upon all of us to live a holy, unpretentious and true life – life according to Christ.

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, St. Justin and St. Simeon, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us and save us. Amen!

Protopresbyter Bratso Krsic

C E L E B R A T I O N * D E D I C A T I O N * P R O G R E S S * V I S I O N

Origins of Orthodoxy

Jesus Christ founded His Church through the Apostles. By the grace received from God at Pentecost, the Apostles estab-lished the Church throughout the ancient world. St. Paul founded the Church of Antioch; St. Peter and St. James, the Church of Jerusalem; St. Andrew, the Church of Constantinople; St. Mark, the Church of Alexandria; St. Peter and St. Paul, the Church of Rome.

The Roman (or Western) church sepa-rated from the True Church in the year 1054 after changing the Creed and

wrongly claiming supremacy of the Bishop of Rome (Pope) over the other bishops.

Drifting further from its origins, the Western church was then shattered into a myriad of sects by the Protestant Refor-mation. However, in Greece, Russia, the Balkans, Middle East, and elsewhere, the True Apostolic Church continued to flourish, preserving the Faith of Christ pure and unchanged. Today this Church is known as the Eastern or Orthodox Church and it is a haven for those seeking Christ's truth.


What Is The Liturgy?

The liturgy is, first of all, the Paschal gathering of those who are to meet the Risen Lord and enter with Him into His Kingdom.—Fr. Schmemann

The liturgy is the eternal repetition of the great act of love for us—Nicholas Gogol

The central event of the liturgy is the descent, the appearance, and the divine presence of the resurrected Christ. A person is frequently reminded of this presence. For example, at one point in the liturgy the priest says, “Christ is in our midst.” The concelebrant priest responds, after exchanging the kiss of peace, “He is and shall ever be.”

The Eucharist is the Biblical wedding supper at which the celestial Bridegroom – Jesus – weds the pure bride, the chosen community, you and me. It is the con-summation of the love relationship between God and man.

The liturgy is the place where one can “lay aside all worldly care,” as the Cher-ubim Hymn invites us, “to receive the King of all.”

The liturgy is where the saving deeds of Christ are made present to us today so that we may participate in them. Christ becomes our contemporary; Christ Who is “the same yesterday, today and for-ever.”

In the liturgy, by sharing the Body and Blood of Jesus, we become partakers of divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) and experi-ence a foretaste of the kingdom, which was inaugurated at the incarnation in Bethlehem and manifested at Pentecost in the Upper Room.

When do we sit down and stand in the Church. While Orthodox Christians stand for most of the services, you are free to sit down. We ask that you do stand for the Gospel reading, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Eucharistic Prayer, and at the time of Holy Communion.

Can I sing the responses during the Divine Liturgy. The answer is empathi-cally yes. St. George parish has an out-standing choir. Choir members with their voices enhance the worship and glorify God, and we are grateful to Him for giv-ing us such talents.

However, the Liturgy is a living and ongoing participation in the Kingdom of God made present here and now. This means that all of us are called to partici-pate in it. We do this by coming to church on time, by crossing ourselves, making prostrations, singing responses, welcom-ing visitors, reading the epistle lesson, serving in the altar, singing in choir, helping with collection of stewardship offering, lighting candles, and many other ways.

When Should I Light Candles. Lighting candles for our departed or living loved ones is an important part of our spiritual life. However, since the candle holders

are placed closer to the Altar, we ask that you do not light the candles during the Gospel reading and the sermon, reading of the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Eucharistic Prayer, and at the time of Holy Communion.

What about confession. Confession is a sacrament in the Orthodox Church, and everyone who approaches it should do so with sincerity and piety. There is no need to confess every time to receive the Holy Communion, nor is it sufficient to come to the confession just once or twice a year. It is suggested that you seek pasto-ral counseling from the priest. You may come to confession on Saturdays before or after the Vespers service (see weekly bulletin for schedule) or on Sunday before the Liturgy. For other times, please talk to the priest.

Father Bratso Krsic


Master Plan Committee & Rennovation Update

It is my pleasure to report that we have passed all preliminary City inspections and are approved to install the roof, wrap the building in preparation for stucco, insulate, and drywall the the hall. My hope is that by the time you read this, we will have had the roof installed and our funding replenished.

To date we have spent approximately $160,000. The expense report on the next page is representative of payments made prior to the concrete work done before Pasha. That work cost approxi-mately $11,000 and will be on the next expense statement.

Some of you may not know the scope of work performed thus far, so let me recap our progress:

• All the old plumbing has been serviced and an additional 2-inch water line for further expansion was added, specifically for a fire sprinkler system, if needed.

• Most of the inside framing was replaced due to water damage and dry rot.

• New roof beams were installed along with a 5-feet tall extension to the exterior wall. The new beams were needed to support the new kitchen exhaust and air conditioning system. The extension wall was added to provide a visual balance to hall, but more importantly to conceal the mechanical equipment on the roof .

• A brand new package air conditioner / heater has been added to provide service solely to the kitchen area.

• Installed brand new high quality patio doors.

• Modified and repaired the East wall of the Social Hall surrounding the patio doors to match the new construction of the kitchen and bathrooms.

• New drainage system on the main hall and kitchen remodel.

• Erected patio beams

• Completed concrete work behind kitchen and bathrooms.

• Replaced the main hall electrical panel and repaired electrical systems in hall and bar.

(editor says: Wow!)

To put these first phase accomplishments into better perspective, consider that none of the construction bids included the additional water lines, any hidden damage behind the dry walls, social hall modifications, installation of patio doors, electrical panel repairs beyond the scope of the new remodel, drainage sys-tems on the social hall, patio concrete, patio beams, and countless of other items that were replaced , repaired or made better than originally thought possible!

By the Grace of God we will soon enjoy hot cooking from our own kitchen and use our Social Hall to its full capacity.

As chairman of the MPC, I have been blessed with the help of many wonderful people who have stepped to forward to help. I thank you all of you from the bot-tom of my heart for you support and patience.

Vladan Trifunovich, Chair MPC

From the Treasurer’s Desk

The first quarter 2010 financials were audited and all our bank accounts con-tinue to be in good order.

Please find below a snapshot of where we stand as of March 31, 2010. These results are fully audited and accepted by our Auditing Committee:

• Total Bank Account Assets as of 03-10 $128,062

• Total Asset Accounts Assets as of 03-10 $90,947

• Overall Total Cash Assets as of 03-10 $219,010

Our restoration project has started and we are now fully funding all of the ongo-ing work. In order to have full clarity, we have created a separate account dedi-cated solely to the restoration. The detailed financials on income and expenses were presented at the last quar-terly Stewardship meeting. The progress is exciting, and we will continue to pay close attention to all the financials to assure we maintain stability.

• Restoration Inflows (Donations) Q1 2010 $46,709

• Restoration Outflows (Expenditures) Q1 2010 $102,378

I pray our God will continue to bless us with these gifts and I thank Him for all of His mercy upon us.

In Christ our Lord,

Deacon Paul Germain, Interim Treasurer

Beloved parishioners and friends: we ask for your holy prayers as we work on the remodeling of our church hall. Please, pray for the wisdom, strength and guidance of each other, the workers, support-ers and our neighbors. We pray that God is glorified through our work and that our community contin-ues to grow in faith, grace and knowledge in Jesus Christ. May God grant it! Amen!


Parish Center Project -142,636.87Building Supplies -30,158.43

11/18/2009 Restorati... 7080 Pine Tree Lumber Co R -1,329.49

12/2/2009 Restorati... 1002 Pine Tree Lumber Co R -9,321.62

12/2/2009 Restorati... 1003 White Cap R -2,566.60

12/14/2009 Restorati... 1009 Window Visions Door Deposit Order 22142 R -8,000.00

1/6/2010 Restorati... 1036 White Cap R -479.20

1/11/2010 Restorati... 1038 RTD Construction RTD and Dixieline Rebar R -201.52

2/8/2010 Restorati... 1045 Window Visions Door Deposit Order 22142 R -8,260.00

Concrete - Ready Mix -4,217.601/5/2010 Restorati... 1035 Superior Ready Mix Concrete R -300.00

1/11/2010 Restorati... 1037 Superior Ready Mix Concrete Inv 1125413 R -3,917.60

Demolition -11,590.0012/4/2009 Restorati... 1005 Dirt Cheap Demolition R -11,590.00

Design Expense -5,757.8311/25/2009 Restorati... EFT Jasna Belanich Inv#1120 R -5,757.83

Electrical Labor -21,640.503/9/2010 Restorati... 1069 Bond B Electric Billing #1 -21,640.50

Engineering Expense -1,820.002/1/2010 Restorati... EFT GSSI Structural Engineers R -1,820.00

Framing -20,900.0012/2/2009 Restorati... 1004 North County Framer R -3,300.00

12/5/2009 Restorati... 1008 North County Framer R -2,200.00

Quarterly Business Meeting: Conducting the serious business of the church, the church board members listen to Deacon Paul’s report. All Stewards of St. George are urged to attend these meetings.


Church School Update

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Mat. 19:14)

I remember as a child the anticipation of going on summer break. It was always great fun to realize that you can sleep in late, not have to do homework, go swim-ming, hiking, camping and play all day. I expect that it is no different today than years past and I wish everyone a wonder-ful summer vacation.

The regular Church School year has also come to an end and it is important to rec-ognize the dedicated teachers and par-ents who keep our program alive. We wish to especially recognize Mira and Jelena Jovanovic for their tireless work keeping the school running. They have spent countless hours making sure our children have the opportunity to partici-pate in interesting and spiritually rewarding activities. Of course, there is the annual St. Sava program and the Christmas holiday. They also coordi-nated a field trip to a local aquarium and a special Lenten activity to benefit the homeless in San Diego. If you want a

great peanut butter and jelly sandwich, please see Mira and Jelena! When you see them at Church, please extend a warm thanks for all they do for our chil-dren. We also want to recognize Natalija Germain and Sandie Papac, who also contribute to our efforts with love for our dear little ones.

Don’t forget when planning your sum-mer vacation that the Jackson camp details are forthcoming. Fr. Bratso and I will inform you as soon as the details are available.

Children need the foundation of God and family in order to live a life that is balanced, happy and fruitful. We as adults are responsible for demonstrating to them our commitment to Jesus Christ and His Holy Orthodox Church. As St. Ignatius Brianchaninov states, “He who has entered into the service of God from the days of his unspoiled youth, and who remains in this service with constancy, submits himself to the continual influ-ence of the Holy Spirit. Why have we forgotten eternity?” The Holy Spirit provides us with peace, discernment, knowledge, moral fortitude and a love for Christ. This is what we learn by attending Church and encouraging our

children to learn about God in Church School. They can then take this into their adulthood so that they may lead a liturgi-cal life and carry on the traditions of our faith. The world will come and go, but allowing our children to love the world more than God is something we all should consider as parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers in Christ.

I ask all of the parents to please bring their children to St. George Church School. We appreciate your support and consider it a blessing to educate the chil-dren in Orthodox Christianity.

Deacon Paul Germain

EasterSundayService

St. George Church School for Children

Every Sunday after Holy Communion

11:45 am to 12:30 pm


Robert Daniel Trifunovic, MD, receives MBA from USC

Dr. Robert Trifunovic was born March 5, 1960, in Wilmington, Delaware, to Serbian immigrants, Alexander and Danica Tri-funovic. At the age of 15, he moved with his parents and sister, Ariane, to North Carolina where he completed High School as Valedictorian. He went on to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where he received his BS in Biology in three years and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. He then was accepted and completed his Medical Degree at East Carolina University, going on to complete his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

After attending a conference in “sunny” San Diego during the month of October, Robert realized he could practice medicine anywhere in the US. He chose to move to Escondido. He met and married Simona Petakovich and had 4 beautiful children: Alexandra (16), Stefan (13), Katarina (11), and Natalia (9) [see pictures at right]. After 18 years of private practice with Escon-dido OB/GYN, three years ago he went to work for Palomar Pomerado Health as the Physician Development Officer after recovering from a stroke. On March 15, 2010, Robert received his MBA from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

Natasha Radojevic to begin PhD studies at Alliant University. Natasha Radojevic, daughter of Dan and Dr. Vesa Radojevic and granddaughter of Protinica Nedezda Radojevic, will begin the Doctoral Program in Psychology in August, 2010, at Alli-ant International University/California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. Her proud family is looking for-ward to having Natasha become a Licensed Psychologist just like her mom.

Sally Pantovich engaged to be married. St George Steward Sally Pantovich of Chicago, IL, and Michael Timarac will be married in Detroit, MI, September 5, 2010. Sally is the daughter of Nada & the late Novo Pantovich. Best wishes to all.

Peter William Yancey baptized. During Great and Holy Satur-day Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, Peter William Yancey, was baptized and welcome into the Holy Orthodox Church. May our Lord grant many years to His newly illumed servant Peter.

Trifunovic Family

Erica Elise Dukovich graduates from Westview High School in June. Erica's future endeavors are in Theater Arts and Business. She will be majoring in Theater and Drama Arts at Cal State University, Fullerton. Erica was nominated for "Best Actress in a Lead Role" by the National Youth Theater Assoc. for her performance as Lenya in Neil Simon's awarding winning play entitled "Fools.". Erica loves her family very much and is a wonderful and caring daughter.


Marian Pavlovich receives BA from UCLA

Marian Pavlovic, daughter of Socorro Pavlovich and the late Adam Pavlovich, completed a Matsui Foundation Congressional Fellowship in Washington, DC, interning with Senator Ted Kaufman (D) of Delaware, who serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. She graduates in June from UCLA with both College and Latin honors with a double major in Political Science and International Development. She will begin a Master’s program in global politics at the London School of Economics in the fall.

Marian tells the folks at St George:

I greatly appreciate your always supporting me throughout the years. It truly means a lot to me to have such great friends and family. Now, I feel bittersweet about leaving Washington. During my last week I met Henry Kissinger, Rep. Watson, Berman, Senator Begich and even the Prime Minister of Croatia, Jadranka Kosor. Little did I know that I would end up being on Croatian Television the next day as I learned from my friend from Zadar.

Marian says that her half-Montenegrin, half-Mexican ancestry has given her unique insight and openness toward diverse cultural heritage and prompted her to learn more about the role government, politics, and social norms play in ethnic communities across the globe. This experience has helped her shape her dream for the future that includes graduate level study on global management issues and eventually earning a law degree to pursue a career in international social and economic policy analysis.

Congratulations to all graduates ofhigh school, college,

& graduate school programsMay God bless you in your future plans.

Katija Popovic graduates with honor from Steele Canyon High School Class of 2009

Katija Popovic, daughter of Janet Pugh of Jamul and Dragan Popovic of Mexico City and kumče of Andja Stankovic, graduated from Steele Canyon last year [pardon the edi-tor for being so late!]. In addition to being an honor graduate, Katija was also the Senior Class president. She is currently working full time and attending Cuyamaca College. She plans to transfer to the University of Southern California(USC) in LA to pursue a business degree.

Katija with her stepfather and mother, Bob and Janet Pugh, after the ceremony

Marian Pavlovich


Tisa Aud graduates in International Baccalaureate Program at SD High

Tisa Aud is the daughter of Matthew and Laurie Aud and younger sister of Joanna. She is also the grandniece of Branko Kukich and the late Borislava Kukich, and granddaughter of Boris Batinica. Tisa was born and raised in San Diego and has been a part of the St. George Family for most of her life, partic-ipating in many church activities, including Sunday School, and dancing and traveling with Morava Folklore. In June, she will be graduating from San Diego High School of International Studies after having completed the International Baccalaureate Program in her senior year. Tisa will be starting her college career at San Diego State University in the Fall. Her favorite subject in school has always been math, so she decided to pursue Mechanical Engineering as her major. Tisa currently works at Sea World and enjoys her job. When she is not working, she likes to spend a lot of her free time at Sea World. Tisa loves to be with family and friends and has a deep connection with her St. George home.

GraduatesHigh school Tisa Aud

Mishko Kennedy

Ericka Dukovic

Katija Popovic

CollegeMarian Pavlovich

Graduate SchoolRobert Trifunovic, MD

St George SeniorsOn Thursday, May 27, at noon, seniors of St. George parish held their first monthly luncheon and fellowship at the parish house. Some 18 seniors gathered for over three hours visiting with one another and reminiscing about times shared together as the members of cherished St. George parish. We express our deep appreciation to all of them for countless hours of dedicated time, talent and treasure that they gave of themselves for the ministries at St. George parish.The next senior gatherings will be Thursday, July 8, and September 9, 2010..

A special thanks to Stevo and Stana Basich for refinishing all the pews in the church. Stevo and Stana donated all the material and labor for this much needed project. Both of them were our 2010 Church Slava Kumovi and we thank them for their faithful stewardship and hope that other fam-ilies follow their example of giving back to God what He has entrusted us with. God grant them many years!

Tisa Aud


Oksana’s Piano Escapades

Oksana Germain started 2010 very well and with many blessings in her busy piano schedule. She recently placed in the San Diego Symphony’s Young Artist Competition (Hot Shots), playing Beethoven’s Piano Con-certo #1,1st mvt. She will make her debut with the San Diego Sym-phony in March, 2011. Oksana was invited to play in four children’s concerts for the San Diego Symphony in May, 2010. In the program called Bravo Beethoven, Oksana played Beethoven’s Fur Elise for school children in a special outreach program at Copley Symphony Hall. Last but not least, Oksana placed first for the second year in the local VOCE competition for chamber music and went to the state final in Orange, CA. Thanks be to God for all of His gifts!

Oksana at San Diego Symphony

Future Broadway Star—Alexandra Trifunovic

Alexandra Trifunovic is a wonderful young lady and the daughter of Dr. & Mrs. Robert Tri-funovic. She is currently a Junior at La Jolla Country Day School, which she has attended since the sixth grade. Alexandra has been sing-ing with the school choir since the 7th grade. Currently she is a member of the Madrigals and traveled with the choir to Madrid, Spain, in Jan-uary. She enjoys dancing, singing, foot mas-sages, Lady Gaga, and the theater, especially the Phantom of the Opera! Alexandra starred as the comical Ado Annie in this year’s produc-tion of OKLAHOMA! Over the years Alexan-dra has performed in “Singing in The Rain”, “Honk”, “Guys, and Dolls”, and “Merrily We Roll Along.” On the weekends, she enjoys jig-ging it up with Morava Folklore and chomping down on See’s chocolate raspberry truffles. She sometimes gets overly excited BUT isn’t that what you need for the theater? Alexandra would like to thank her parents for always being there for her and supporting her in every aspect of life.


Junior Choir News

We wish to inform our parishioners that we now have in parish a Junior Choir. Kate Thickstun and Diana Coso gra-ciously accepted the ministry of teaching our young ones to sing Liturgical hymns and responses as well as other religious and folk songs. Many thanks to both of them.

Practice for our Junior Choir is each Fri-day whenever we have the Morava Folk-lore Group. It starts at 6pm. We would like to encourage all parents to please bring their children to both practices.

Our Orthodox music has great potential in bringing us closer to God and each other. When we sing, we glorify God. Please, give the opportunity to your chil-dren to grow, to learn and to lay a foun-dation for things that will never go away, that is, a spiritual foundation and growth in Jesus Christ.

“Recent brain research tells us that when children sing and move to music, their developing brains are entirely engaged and stimulated. Both the left and right sides of the brain are activated when we sing. And the process of singing stimu-lates both new learning and memory. For example, music has been shown to help children remember their addresses and phone numbers. Even adults can often remember the songs from their child-hood days.

The more senses that are engaged, the more learning will take place. When children sing and dance the ‘Hokey Pokey,’ they are using their voices to produce language, rhythm, and pitch. They are using their ears to listen to the voices and sounds around them. They are using their eyes to follow the movements of others. And they are using their whole bodies to develop rhythm and coordina-tion. When it comes to active learning, ‘that's what it’s all about!’”

Diana Coso & Kate Thickstun


+Rajka Orlich with Elizabeth Kasic in 2008

Gone too soon

For Christians, death is simply a passage from our earthly presence into the heavenly kingdom of God. This passage awaits all of us—some sooner, some later. When our time is short, it is particularly painful for those left behind. And no one would know that better than our dear friend and sister in Christ, Rajka Orlich.

Every New Year since 1995 triggered that acute pain of early separation for Rajka and her family. And while the whole world would be celebrating with abandon, Rajka was remembering the day her son, Robert Dado Orlich, had been killed in a tragic car accident at the age of 21. The agony of this event became forever etched in her heart.

After years of therapy and the continuous support of friends and family, and her own will, Rajka slowly healed. She and her hus-band Pero sold their memory-filled house in North Park and moved completely out of the neighborhoodto the East County. There the lightness and beauty of their new sur-roundings and the closeness of dear friends and young people began to fill her life.

Rajka became a quiet but important influ-ence in the lives of many people, especially young women. She was both friend and role model. She lovingly shared with many—all behind the scenes.

Then three years ago, Rajka began her own passage to the other side when she was diagnosed with cancer. She valiantly fought the disease, but in the end her frail body could take no more, and she passed away April 18, 2010.

Services for Rajka were mixed with sorrow and joy, sad memories and funny stories. And even though her body was just a shell of her former self, her beauty was still clearly apparent. And we all stood around her flower-covered casket, grieving because she had left us so soon—son, hus-band, mother, sister, and dozens and dozens of friends, including a bevy of her young protégées, several who had traveled from across the country just to honor her.

Memory Eternal!

Editor

Why Do We Pray For the Dead?

'I am the resurrection and the life,'' He said, ''he who believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live, and he who lives and believes in me shall have life everlasting...'

Christianity is a religion of love. Praying for the dead is an expression of love. We ask God to remember our departed because we love them. Love relationship survive death and even transcend it. There is an inner need for a relationship with a loved one to continue to be expressed even after a loved one has died. Often even more so after a loved one has died since physical communication is no longer possible. The Church encourages us to express our love for our departed brethren through memo-rial services and prayers.

The anniversary of the death of a loved one is very painful. The Church helps us cope with this pain by encouraging us to have memorial prayers offered in Church for departed loved ones on the anniver-saries of their death, i.e., forty days after the death, six months, a year, etc. This gives us the opportunity to do something for our loved one. It helps express and resolve our grief.

Focus On Christ. When Orthodox Christians pray for departed loved ones, they focus not only on them but also on Christ in Whom they died:

Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith..."(Hebrews 12:1).

Father Bratso Krstic

F A M I L Y

Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

Do your part to build a happy home. Be cheerful, helpful, and considerate of oth-ers. Many problems in the home are cre-ated because family members speak and act selfishly or unkindly. Concern yourself with the needs of other family members. Seek to be a peacemaker rather than to tease, fight, and quarrel.

Remember the family is the most sacred unit of the Church. Honor your parents by showing love and respect for them and by being obedient. Be willing to help in the home with chores that need to be done. Participate in family activities and tradi-tions, including family prayer, family home evenings, and family Scripture reading. These traditions strengthen and unify fam-ilies.

Set a good example for other family mem-bers. Strengthen your relationships with your brothers and sisters. They can become your closest friends. Support them in their interests and help them with problems they may be facing.

For more reading, look up epistle lesson of St. Paul to Ephesians 6:1–3.


Kolo Sisters

Dearest fellow parishioners of St George:

Sisters have been quite busy during the first part of this year, filling in when needed, continuing to have our lunches and events, and I would like to once again thank everyone who has put their time and talents to make our organization operate.

I would like to share this information with you that because of all of the good efforts that have been put forth, we can be hon-ored to say that Kolo’s finances have been blessed. We have found ourselves in a very positive position, where as we are able to make a contributiion to the renno-vation fund in the sum of $10,000. This is so rewarding, knowing that because of our past efforts our savings will play a

major part in this project. Congradulation sisters, hold your head up high!

Supporting our church is an on going commitment. The challenge we face the most is that most church groups are made up of the same parishoners. They are either members of one or officers in an other. So for the most part, its the same people who are involved the majority of the time. Yes, we are a small parish, and we have to drive a distance, and when our celebrations are back to back, we can get burned out. So I'm making a plead to those who attend services, and enjoy attending the celebrations at St. George, don't be shy when it comes to participat-ing from time to time. You may have a great idea and perhaps you are talented in some way. When an announcement is sent out, find out what help is needed.

For an example, Morava’s Folkfest in July—this requires much work. Let’s see where we can be of help. Our children are the future of our parish. Let’s support all their endeavors.

I'm truly blessed. I want to take the time to say, that God has allowed me to share and express some thoughts and feelings with you. I have had so many positive comments from so many of you, thank you all.

A reason to share.

Could someone have benefited with what I should have shared. I didn't even give them a chance, maybe I was scared.

I see that I was selfish, as if this were mine to keep. I found it hard to say some-thing, so hard to speak.

The chance I had was lost today, and may never return. Time has passed and slipped away, and this is what I've learned.

That when we reach out to others, to show how much we care, God in return gives us time.... to live,... to love... to share.

Your sister in Christ,

Sylvia Ivanovic, Kolo President

St George Slava at sister church St Petka due to rennovation construction


SNF Lodge #89 St. George—Join to keep this tradition alive in our parish

On June 25, 1976 our first meeting of St George Lodge #89 met at the home of founding member President Dan Janich and his wife Marcia with only five mem-bers present. That was over 30 years ago. Today we have 72 members, many are families, coming here from states all over the US who were members in their previous towns. Our peak membershiip was more than 100 during the late 1980s and 90s. During that time, we hosted eight midwinter SNF golf tournaments, which were both socially and financially successful. Hundreds of golfers and their friends came to spend a sunny warm week in America's Finest City, and, as a result, we were able to add much to the value of the church by making restora-tions and improvememts where needed.

The Serb National Federation is a frater-nal organization of the type that most ethnic groups established. We are over 110 years old, started by the early immi-grants who came to the US to improve their quality of life through hard work and big dreams (the US needed workers and encouraged their coming). It was the core group for all those who needed help in adapting to the new country and get-ting their lives started. They formed neighborhoods where people of like backgrounds could find friends, jobs, homes, and start their journey. Many churches were built, English and Serbian was taught, and little by little they offered health and life insurances along with savings programs to help the immi-grants with some of their basic needs. These projects are still part of the SNF. The Savez exists today and has aproxi-mately 13,000 members.

Post World War II brought another wave of immigrants most of whom had been scattered all over Europe as prisoners of war when the ware ended and chose not to go back to Yugoslavia because of the Communist party running the country. They too received help from the SNF.Some were sponsored by members, others were directed to jobs and living

locations and as more came to our coun-try, they too got help in finding their way here. Many are long-term members of the SNF.

The SNF supports many the present day projects, too—Sporting tournaments, choir festivals, folklore programs, schol-arships (numbers increase yearly) sum-mer camps, and others. It is totally involved in our Serbian culture.

One of the nicest honors that has been received by the SNF is that the bi~monthly newspaper of the SNF, THE AMERICAN SRBOBRAN has been voted the best ethnic paper for the last two years in a row. It is a national paper covering US and Canada. It keeps us in touch with people and events, our his-tory, literature, learning the Ianguage, and many other interesting topics. It has been in print for almost a hundred years. [Read about SRBOBRAN’s role in help-ing the survivors of Milanka Vlasovich’s family after their escape to Italy in 1943.]

Now coming b back to SNF Lodge #89 St. George, we would ask you to become a member if you are not yet or become an active member. Our local lodge is going through some difficult times . For the last two years we have lost part of our board mem-bers who have relocated to other parts, through illness and their passing, and now we are left with only two board members—Dusan Martinovich, our president, and myself, Nada Pan-tovich, the secretary /trea-surer. Health problems have put the brakes on all the things we were able to do before. We are asking for some of our members or potential members to step forward and help us get the ball rolling again so that we can again put on golf tour-neys, bowling tournament, and all of which can help

create funds for finishing our rennova-tion project.

With the many younger people in our congregation (under 65 years) who are now active in our church life, along with the slightly older ones who could share their experiences and talent, we could again be a positive attribute to our church life. If you are a SNF member in another lodge out of state or even in California, you can still participate in our lodge.

We are hoping to innvite the president of the Serb National Federation to one of our Steward Meetings this fall. Our next Steward Meeting will be July 26 in the Church Hall, and we will be there to answer more quiestion or give you more information.

Thank you and God Bless!

Nada Pantovich, SNF Secretary-Treasurer

Tutor/Vestryman Milos Lukic managing the hundreds of candles lighted on Easter Sunday


Milanka’s story, Part 2: Escape to Italy and Life as a Refugee

More than one year ago, Part 1 of Milanka’s story was published in the Voice (Spring 2009). Ever since, this writer has been haunted by its horror—how in 1941, the 14-year-old Milanka Prica (Vlasovich) with her family and countless other Serbian people in Lika, Croatia, were terrorized and thousands murdered as ethnic violence possessed their former friends and neighbors, all supported by the war-time political sys-tem. But even in the midst of this evil, there were some rays of sanity and kind-ness, not to mention the miracles of God’s care and direction as he slowly lead the remains of the Prica family into a new life in a new land.

Saved by the Italians...After Milanka’s father, Petar Prica, mother, Siba Kusulja Prica, and brothers, Milan and Bogdan Prica, were murdered by the Ustashe in 1941, Milanka and her youngest brother Savo took refuge with their older sister Bogdanka Prica and their mother’s wealthy brother, Milan Kusulja, in Korenica. Uncle Milan had been forced to leave his fine homes in Zagreb, taking what he could from his properties to a rental house in Korenica.

This was not just an ordinary house, however. Milan Kusulja rented the larg-est house he could find in Korenica and filled it with the beautiful furnishings he had brought in trucks from Zagreb. Built of stone, with huge, thick walls, it was the finest house in the town. After the town was occupied by the Italian V Corps, the Italian Command took the house for their senior officer.

The top floor housed the colonel; a lower floor was used as a mess hall for Italian V Corp soldiers; and the Prica family lived in the basement. Because Milan’s knowledge of legal Latin facilitated communication with the colonel, they soon developed a friendship. This friend-ship resulted in the family being pro-tected by the Italian colonel for the duration of the war. And Bogdanka quickly learned the Italian language.

There actually were 120 Serbian families remaining in Korenica at that time, and the Ustashe were constantly demanding the Italian forces to turn them over to their control. But because word was get-ting out that people were being murdered by the Ustashe, the Italians resisted. One man from Vrelo who escaped from a massacre site near Preboj sent a message to the people not to believe that men and boys were being rounded up for work details—they were being killed. When the Italian colonel heard these rumors, he investigated the Preboj site and found out men and boys were not simply being killed, but they were being buried alive in caves and lime poured on top of them to destroy the bodies. This strengthened the Italian colonel’s resolve not to let the Ustashe have any of the Serbs in Koren-ica.

The enemy of my enemy is also my enemyThe winter of 1941-1942 in Korenica was bitter cold, sometimes -45 degrees, and snow was three meters deep. Koren-ica was surrounded by Partisans1 who bombarded the city constantly from December to March. The big stone house took many hits; but its thick walls with-stood the assault. Milanka remembers hearing hand-to-hand fighting around the house every night, and even a bomb being lobbed into the house. “Partisan snipers positioned on top of the nearby church steeple shot at anything,” and “everyone knew the Partisans would soon ‘liberate’ the town.” Most people were not politically communist, they joined the Partisans simply to fight the Germans and their allies and to be pro-tected from the Ustashe.

In March 1942, when the snow was finally melting, everyone, including the

120 Serbian families, got ready to evac-uate Korenica. Among the families were several cousins and an aunt of the Prica siblings, too. The colonel gave Milan Kusulja a truck and an Italian driver for his own use, and Milan told the colonel he could take whatever he wanted from the house’s opulent goods—thick Per-sian rugs, crystal, chandeliers, and the like. The colonel took everything, as Milanka remembers.

So in a convoy of Italian forces and Ser-bian civilians, they started moving through the fields from Korenica. The convoy traveled through Udbina, where Milanka first remembers seeing the bearded Chetniks, Gospic and Otocac, both towns having suffered huge massa-cres by Ustashe, to Crkvenica by the Adriatic coast. All along the way, Ustashe were demanding that the Ser-bian families be turned over to them. But the Italian colonel refused, saying they were the “burden of the Italians.”

Plethora of factionsNow that it was apparent the war in Cro-atia was lost to the Partisans, all fac-tions—Italians, Croatians, Ustashe, Serbs, and Chetniks—were trying to get out before being conquered by the Com-munists. The Partisans were fighting them fiercely the whole way. There were places where everyone was taking cover under the trucks. This irritated the Italian colonel who demanded that all of the men stand up and fight the Partisans. But they didn’t want to fight. The colonel himself was a ferocious fighter. When two Partisan tanks came to the road to attack, he jumped on one tank and threw a bomb inside, and the second tank quickly withdrew.

Invitation to ItalyThe family spent the 1942-43 winter in Crkvenica, and in the spring, the colonel asked the Prica family if they would like to go to Italy, offering them a pass to Carpi in the Po Valley. Everyone except the aunt, decided to take the offer and leave what was left of their shattered home country.

In September 1943, an armistice between Italy and the Allies was signed,

1.The Partisans were a communist-led resistancemovement, anti-Serbian, anti-Monarchy, and athe-istic in its ideology and philosophy that did nothave a national or racist agenda. Its membersfought against Axis forces and their collaboratorsfrom 1941 to 1945. In 1945, the Partisans defeatedthe Independent State of Croatia and the Germansafter the Allies turned their backs on General DrazaMihajlovic and his troops. The former kingdombecame the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugosla-via, and Partisan leader, Josip Broz Tito, ruled asPresident until his death in 1980.


and the Allied armed forces were occu-pying the southern end of Italy.

On the way to Italy, at the border city of Trieste, Bogdanka became ill with typhus and had to be put in a hospital. The rest of the family continued to Carpi. The Red Cross later found Bogdanka in Fiume (Rijeka), and she was sent to Bologna. She later joined the family in Carpi. In Carpi they were treated just like Italian citizens by the local government.

Good bye Germans, hello workThe war was still raging in 1943 when they arrived in Carpi. The Americans were advancing from southern Italy, and the Germans and Fascists were being chased out of the country. After the Ger-mans withdrew from Carpi, in one final stroke of malice, they turned their canons on the city, leaving a parting scar of destruction and injury on the small town.

Now without fear of Germans or Ustashe, life was a bit more peaceful, but certainly not easier. Living in Carpi was a constant struggle to survive. The two sisters took work as servants, then later

worked in the fields. Savo was accepted as an apprentice in a machine shop. They stayed in Carpi until August 1945, work-ing like slaves.

Italy by Refugee CampThe Prica siblings would spend four years, 1943-1947, bouncing from camp to camp across Italy, working menial, backbreaking tasks, becoming a part of the dis-played person community, scheming and dreaming a way out of the extreme poverty and insecurity of not having a place to call home.

In August 1945 the sisters went to Montecatini-Terme where they worked for a year. Then the Italian government issued an edict to gather all displaced per-sons. And they collected and sent with another 120,000 refugees to Fossoli Concentration camp (near Carpi). A true concentra-tion camp, used by the Nazis to

gather Jews for deportation to the death camps, Fossoli was re-purposed to house some of the growing numbers of dis-placed persons now in Italy. Milanka and Bogdanka spent one winter there.

Then 200 women were selected for transport to a monastery in Alberobello, a small town in the province of Bari. Then to another camp, and finally to Trani, a free refugee camp, where they joined their brother Savo.2

Život piše romane (Life writes novels)During all these movements, the dynamic Bogdanka was forever enter-prising, using the diplomatic and lan-guage skills she had learned while in her uncle’s household. During one of her vis-its to an assistance office, she noticed a newspaper from the United States called THE AMERICAN SRBOBRAN. As she began to read the paper, she noticed an article about Milan and Soka Prica, own-ers of one of the oldest taverns in Chi-

cago, IL. Her immediate thought was that perhaps they were relatives because they shared the same surname.

So she wrote them a long letter, asking the Prica’s of Chicago if they might be relatives and explaining their terrible sit-uation in Italy. On a wing and prayer, Bogdanka sent the letter.

A few weeks later, she received a sur-prising answer from the Prica’s of Chi-cago. They most probably were not related; but that did not mean they would not help the Prica’s from Lika. In the let-ter, Milan and Soka Prica enclosed $120 US cash, which in 1946 was an enor-mous amount of money (average weekly wages were around $50). Bogdanka would use this money for bribes and other needs as they worked their way out of the Italian refugee camps. And this was just the beginning of an unbeliev-able relationship with a generous, help-ful American Serb family—or as the old Serbian proverb goes—life writes nov-els.

Taking the long way aroundMilanka and her sister and brother now really wanted to immigrate to the US. But the US was the only country not tak-ing refugees unless they had blood rela-tives to sponsor them. And since the Prica’s had no one, they began to “shop around” for alternatives. They decided upon Peru in South America and were among 600 displaced persons to leave Europe, like the conquistadors did in the 16th century, to explore and live in a country on the other side of the world—and a “million miles” from home.

More to come

Part 3 of Milanka’s story tells how the family got to Peru, their life there, and how the family finally got to the United States in the 1950s.

Marsha Jovanovic, editor

2.Several St George parishioners were also in thesecamps. This will be discussed in a future chapter ofMilanka’s story.

Milanka & Bogdanka Prica with Mrs. Soka Prica,a non-relative who helped them immigrate to the US


Continuing Our Legacy

• Andolsek, Tonska

• Barron, Zorka

• Batinica, Boris

• Batricevich, Slobodan and Branka

• Belcevich, Milos

• Benesh, +Kathryn

• Bosnak, Mara and Les Lambert

• Bozinovska, Jadranka

• Copic, Miro and Laura

• Cronemeyer, Jamie and Zorica

• DeGranda, Boris and Danila

• Denton, Natalie

• Djujic, Donna

• Drakulich, Persida

• Draskovich, Proto Bozidar and Protinica Bozana

• Driscoll, Josephine

• Economy Restaurant Supply

• Emery, John

• Frank, Nick

• Gavrilov, Gleb and Svetlana

• Germain, Deacon Paul and Natalija

• Germain, Ann

• Goich, Mike and Mara

• Hartwell, John

• Hess, Daniela Radovic

• Ilic, Petar and Rosa

• Irick, Olga

• Jedrysik, Ben and Kimberlie

• Jorling, Joe and Nina

• Jovanovic, Drasko and Ranica

• Jovanovic-Vuskovic, Natasa

• Jovanovic, Nenad

• Jovanovic, Marsha and Misha

• Jovanovich, Martha

• Jovanovich, Ratko

• Kennedy, Ken and +Sonia

• Kinach, Alex and Seka

• Krsic, Proto Bratso and Protinica Lisa

• Koruga, Milenko and Jelena

• Kukich, Branislav

• Kukulj, Dragan and Lillian

• Kunac, Dusan and Maria

• Kurkjian, Betty

• Leff, Craig

• Masic, Milenko

• Markovic, Predrag

• McKenzie, Sally

• Miladinovich, Miroslav

• Milanovich, Jennifer

• Milasinovic, Zeljko and Marija

• Milicevic, Nikola and Nada

• Milicevic, Jim and Melanie

• Miller, Stephanie

• Milosevich, Alexsandra Babic

• Medigovich, Milica

• Miladinovich, Ljubisav and Radmila

• Miljkovic, Miodrag and Vecki

• Morava Youth Group – San Diego

• Nedic, Ivana

• Nedic, Sava and Spomenka

• Nedic, Milosh and Karen

• Nikolic, Dragan and Gordana

• Pavlovich, Maria

• Petakovich, Proto Velimir and Protinica Ljubinka

• Plavsic, Mara-Seja and D.Dee

• Plavsic, Rade and Jelena

• Popovich, Ella

• Popa, Cornelia

• Purlia, Sam and Gloria

• Radich, Jovan

• Radojevic, Dan and Dr Vesna

• Radojevic, Protinica Nedezda

• Radovanovic, Dragoslav and Ljiljana

• Rakic, Marko and Vera

• Rhoads, Howard and Lydia

• Ruzic, Stevan and Marija

• Savchuk, Nikolai and Olga

• Selezan, Nemanja and Lindsay

• Serebryanova, Elena

• Sigmreanu, Valentin and Mariana

• Simikich, R and Cheryl

• Starr, Tatyana

• St. Angelina Church

• St. George – San Diego Choir

• St. George – San Diego Kolo

• St. George – San Diego Sunday School

• St. Paul. Syriac Orthodox Church

• Sutter, Cameron

• Thickstun, Kathryn

• Trifunovic, Jelena

• Trifunovic, Katarina

• Trifunovic, Dr Robert and Simona

• Trifunovic, Stefan

• Trifunovic, Vladan and Milica

• Undheim, Natasha

• Undheim, Robert and Dobrila

• Urosevic, Branko

• Vallin, Becky

• Vasich, Milan and Milica

• Vasilia, Laurentiv and Daniela

• Villa, Brian

• Vlasovich, Milanka

• Vukotich, Danica

• Vukotich, John and Jean

• Vukotich, Stefan and May

• Vunduk, Ilija and Joann

• Vuskovic, Ivo

• Zivkovic, Jovan and Tina

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

On Sunday, May 3rd our parish cele-brated church slava together with our sis-ter parish of Saint Petka from San Marcos. The Liturgy was held at Saint George church and the blessing of the kolach and slava celebration took place in Saint Petka hall. This year is special for the reason that due to work on the construction of the hall our parish was unable to hold the celebration. Knowing this Father Milan Vukovic, president Dusan Turudija, executive board and parishioners of Saint Petka offered their hall and their help in putting together this wonderful celebration. Around two hun-dred people attended the celebration. Particular honor was to have Mr. Stevo and Ms. Stana Basic for kumovi. The Basic family is long steward and sup-porter of both parishes, and last example of their generousity is a complete refurs-bishing of pews for Saint George church. This work was in full donated by Mr. Basic.

At the celebration guests had an opportu-nity to see the ensemble from Saint Petersburg, Russia, folk group Morava, and Balkan Band from San Diego. The Parish of Saint George is greatful to the parish of Saint Petka for the brotherly gesture with offering the hall and the help in organizing the slava celebration. This speaks of the closness of our two parishes. On this day also significant funds have been collected for the renova-tion and expansion of the hall. God will-ing the hall will be completed soon and we will do for Saint Patka what it did for us. The more people that come together the greater the joy. We thank Lord for all his blessings during this year’s slava.

Nemanja Selezan, President St. George Church


St. George Stewardship List As of May 15, 2010

• Alemany, Lazar and Linda

• Aud, Matthew and Laurie

• Basic, Stevo and Stana

• Batinica, Boris

• Begovich, Michael and Samantha

• Belanich, David and Jasna

• Belcevich, Milos

• Cle, Mira

• Connor, Thomas and Evelyn

• Copic, Miro and Laura

• Cronemeyer, Jamie and Zorica

• Denton, Natalie

• Drakulich, Persida

• Draskovich, Proto Bozidar and Protinica Bozana

• Driscoll, Josephine

• Elez, Sladjana

• Freeman, Lillian

• Fulton, Jeff and Radmila

• Germain, Deacon Paul and Natalija

• Giles, Vera

• Grba, Svetozar and Christine

• Gregovich, Ljubica

• Grjakovic, Vladimir

• Ilic, Boris

• Ilic, Petar and Rosa

• Irick, Olga

• Jojic, Dobrinka

• Jojic, Vesko and Julijana

• Jovanovic, Dejan and Lana

• Jovanovic, Misha and Marsha

• Jovanovic, Tomas and Vesna

• Jovanovic, Vel and Mira

• Jovanovic, Ratko

• Jovanovich, Martha

• Jovanovich, Slavko and Tatijana

• Jovanovich, Svetlana

• Kinach, Alex and Seka

• Krsic, Proto Bratso and Protinica Lisa

• Lukic, Milos

• Lukich, Ljuban James and Petka

• Markley, Scott and Nada

• Melnick, Stanley and Pauline

• Mikler, Zora

• Milasinovic, Zjelko and Marija

• Miljkovic, Milan and Diane

• Milovancev, Miroslav and Mira

• Mitrovich, Jelena

• Mitrovich, Predrag

• Mrja, Millie

• Nedic, Sava and Spomenka

• Pantovich, Nada

• Pantovich, Mirjana Sally

• Papac, Wayne and Sandie

• Petakovich, Proto Velimir and Protinica Ljubinka

• Petric, Alex

• Petric, Milovan and Jelena

• Plavsic, Mara-Seja

• Plavsic, Milan and Ljubica

• Popa, Cornelia

• Popovich, Dolly

• Popovich, Ella

• Potkonjak, Michael and Sheila

• Pugh, Zachary and Milica

• Purlia, Sam and Gloria

• Radojevic, Dan and Dr. Vesna

• Radojevic, Protinica Nedezda

• Radomirovic, Vladimir and Sanja

• Radovanovic, Dragoslav and Ljiljana

• Raicevic, Vladimir and Silvana

• Rakic, Marko and Vera

• Rhoads, Howard and Lydia

• Rhoads, Michael

• Selezan, Nemanja and Lindsay

• Serdar, Sophie

• Smith, Justin and Zorana

• Smolan, Daniel

• Srbich, Dr. Alexander and Mrs.

• Thickstun, Kathryn

• Trifunovic, Dr. Robert and Simona

• Trifunovic, Vladan and Milica

• Undheim, Robert and Dobrila

• Vasich, Branko and Ruja

• Vlasovich, Milanka

• Vucelic, Michael and Dr. Inge

• Vukotich, Dorothy

• Vukotich, John and Jean

• Wright, Sean and Svenja

• Zigich, Baron

• Zivkovic, Jovan and Tina

Dragi Parohijani i prijatelji,

U nedelju treceg maja nasa parohija pro-slavila je hramovnu slavu zajedno sa parohijom Svete Petke iz San Markosa. Liturgija je sluzena u hramu Svetog Velikomucenika Djordja a rezanje kolaca i proslava su odrzani u sali paro-hije Svete Petke, u San Markosu. Ova godina je posebna po tome sto usred radova na sali nasa parohija nije bila u mogucnosti da odrzi proslavu. Otac Milan, predsednik uprave gospodin Dusan Turudija, uprava Svete Petke i njeni parohijani su nas prihvatili i pro-slavili ovaj veliki dan zajedno sa nama. Oko dve stotine gostiju prisustvovalo je proslavi. Posebna cast je ta sto su kumovi ove godine bili Stevo i Stana Basic. Porodica Basic je dugogodisnji clan i darotvor nase parohije a poslednja u nizu njihovih darova jeste kompletna restauracija klupa u crkvi. Ovo je pro-jekat koji je iziskivao velika sredstva a u potpunosti je bio poklonjen od gospo-dina Basica.

Prisutni su imali prilike da vide bogat program u kojem su gostovali pevacki ansambl iz Sankt Peterburga iz Rusije, folklorna grupa Morava i muzicka grupa Balkan Band iz San Dijega. Parohija Svetog Velikomucenika Djordja najiskrenije je zahvalna parohiji Svete Petke iz San Markosa na bratskom gestu gde je ustupljena sala i pomoc pri orga-nizacije ove proslave. Ovo je gest koji govori o bliskosti ove dve parohije u zelji da se pomogne moralno i novcano radi zavrsetka sale. Tog dana prikupljena su i znacajna sredstva za nastavak obnove sale. Dace Bog da se sala uskoro zavrsi pa kao sto je to parohija Svete Petke ucinila za nas da i mi pomognemo njoj. Sto vise ljudi ucestvuje to je radost veca. Gospodu hvala na slavskim blagodarima ove godine.

Nemanja Selezan, Predsednik Crkveno-skolske Opstine Sveti Velikomucenik Djordje


Morava’s Annual Summer FOLKFEST July 16-18, 2010

Folkfest show to be held @ UCSD Mandeville Auditorium

Get on the list! Email [email protected]

The Swiss are coming to San Diego!The Swiss are coming to San Diego!

KUD “NIKOLA TESLA” of Zurich, SwitzerlandKUD “NIKOLA TESLA” of Zurich, Switzerland will be our honored guestswill be our honored guests

Other guest groups include: GRACANICA of Boston, MAGRACANICA of Boston, MAGRACANICA of Boston, MA

SRBIJA of Cleveland, OHSRBIJA of Cleveland, OHSRBIJA of Cleveland, OH TROMEDJA of Schererville, INTROMEDJA of Schererville, INTROMEDJA of Schererville, IN

SKUD ZAVICAJ of Houston, TXSKUD ZAVICAJ of Houston, TXSKUD ZAVICAJ of Houston, TX GAVRILO PRINCIP of Phoenix, AZGAVRILO PRINCIP of Phoenix, AZGAVRILO PRINCIP of Phoenix, AZ

and more to be announced!and more to be announced!and more to be announced!

Misha JovanovicFirstworld Travel & Misha Tours

130 East Main StreetEl Cajon, CA 92020

619-588-5811 or 619-588-4644

Go Morava!

voice summer 2010

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