My beloved spiritual children in Our Lord Jesus Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

ON JUNE 24th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN, THE FORERUNNER, AND BAPTIST OF CHRIST.

Six months before his appearing to the Most Holy Ever-Virgin Mary in Nazareth, the Great Gabriel, Archangel of the Lord, appeared to Zacharias the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. Before he revealed the miraculous conception by a virgin who has not known a man, the Archangel revealed the Wondrous conceiving by an old and barren woman. Zacharias was unable at once to believe the words of God's herald, and for this his tongue as bound in dumbness and remained thus until the eighth day after Saint John's birth. The kinsfolk of Zacharias and Elizabeth gathered together on that day for the infant's circumcision and naming. When they inquired of the father how he wished the child to be called, he, being still dumb, wrote on a slate: 'John'. At that moment his tongue was loosed and he began to speak. Zacharias's house was on the heights between Bethlehem and Hebron. The news of the Angel's appearing to Zacharias, of his dumbness and of the loosening of his tongue at the exact moment that he wrote 'John', was carried throughout all Israel, coming to Herod's ears. So, when he sent men to kill all the infants around Bethlehem, he sent men off to Zacharias's family house in the hills, to slay Saint John also. But Elizabeth hid the child in good time. The king was enraged at this and sent an executioner to the Temple to kill Zacharias (for it was then his turn to serve in the Temple again). Zacharias was killed between the court and the Temple, and his blood clotted and solidified on the paving slabs, and remained as an enduring witness against Herod. Elizabeth hid herself and the child in a cave, where before she soon died. The young John remained in the wilderness (desert) alone, in the care of God and His Angels. (Source: The Prologue from Ochrid)

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DIVINE SERVICES ON THE FEAST DAY:

Orthros.........................................9:00 a.m.
Divine Liturgy.............................10:00 a.m.

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things! -- Saint John Chrysostom

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George