December Services and the Nativity Cycle
+Dec 6: St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Lycia.  St. Nicholas will visit the children of our parish during coffee hour on the Sunday following his feast, and will have something for each of them.
+Dec 13: Venerable Herman of Alaska, Wonderworker of all America. St. Herman was the first canonized saint who labored in North America.
+Dec 24: Eve of the Nativity of Christ.  The Royal Hours will be celebrated this morning, followed by Vespers.  This is a service that proclaims the joy of Christ’s Coming in psalms, hymns and biblical readings for the feast.  There will be a Vigil service this evening (scheduled earlier than usual) combining Compline and Matins.  
+Dec 25: Nativity of Christ.
+Jan 1: St. Basil the Great & Circumcision of Christ.

Anticipating Theophany
The Feast of Christ’s Baptism falls on a Sunday this year, which means more of you will be able to participate in the Great Blessing of the Waters.  There are actually two water blessings called for on Theophany – one on the eve of the feast and another on the day of the feast itself.  The first blessing is to be done in church, while the second is to be done at an outdoor body of water, preferably “living water” (ie. flowing water) such as a stream or river, but also a lake or even the ocean.  Perhaps we could begin to celebrate the Outdoor Blessing this year (at Runyon Lake?).  This blessing would take place immediately following the end of the Liturgy.  If we do an outdoor blessing, would any family like to have their house blessed and then host the parish for coffee hour that Sunday?  Please speak with Father if you are interested.

Theophany House Blessings
It is not without a purpose that Orthodox tradition calls for waters to be blessed.  In addition to renewing and restoring the waters of creation, this service provides us with a supply of holy water that it is to be used for the blessing of our homes.  House blessings are a beautiful and important Orthodox tradition, a way of renewing and restoring not only our “castles,” but even those mundane, utilitarian objects that fill them.  In having our homes blessed, we dedicate them once again to a godly purpose.  Plan to have your home blessed in the Theophany season.  All you will need is a bowl, a candle, and a space in your icon corner.

Blessing the Continental Divide
The Continental Divide is a ridge running down the Rockies that forms a watershed separating the rivers flowing in an easterly direction from those flowing in a westerly one.  The water blessing at the Divide, an annual tradition of our Deanery, thus ensures that as the snow pack begins to melt in the summer months, our entire continent may be sanctified.  This year His Grace Bishop Benjamin will preside at the Blessing of the Waters at Monarch Pass, on Tuesday, Jan. 8th at 11:00 am.  Following the service, we will proceed to Amica’s brick oven pizzeria and brewery in Salida for food and fellowship.  Along with Lenten Vespers, this is one of the few events that brings together the faithful from our various Rocky Mountain Deanery parishes.  With Popadija’s pregnancy, Father has four seats in his car that need to be filled.  This is a beautiful event and not one to miss!  We’ll leave from the church around 8:30 am and return in the early evening.

Confessions
The Nativity Fast is a time to take stock of our entire spiritual life and make an ascetical effort that involves abstention from meat & dairy products (as well as eating less in general), increased attendance at divine services, and seeking the reconciliation made possible by the sacrament of penance.  All who plan to receive Holy Communion on Christmas must have been to confession at some point since the Feast of Pentecost.

Serbian Synaxarion
Arrested along with many other Serbs following a rebellion against Muslim rule, the Deacon Avakum (Habbakuk) refused to join his erstwhile comrades in apostasy (by which they retained their earthly lives).  Upon his declaration of faith, he was forced to carry through the streets the very pike on which he was to be impaled.  As he bore this along, his mother stepped before him and begged him to accept Islam and save his life.  The Turks again asked him to have some regard for his life and embrace Islam.  Still, Avakum was not afraid to die for Christ.  In an act of mercy, the Turks stabbed him in the heart rather than impaling his body in the air.  The Venerable Deacon Avakum is commemorated on Dec 17.

Treasurer’s Report

Many thanks to the anonymous sponsor who had our censer repaired and gold plated.  It looks beautiful!  The chrismation kit will be available for sponsorship as soon as Father gets a quote on re-plating it.

From the Archives
This month we introduce a new feature to the bulletin, a space where parish metrical records, council minutes, correspondence and other feature’s of St. Michael’s history will be shared in the hopes of making us more familiar with our past.  The first installment, printed below, is a hand-written overview of the parish’s history written by Priest Alexander Varlashkin, who was rector from 1914-1918:

“Overview of the Church of the Archangel Michael in Pueblo, CO”

The Church of the Archangel Michael was built in 1901.  People from Austria (Hungary) in 1899 bought two lots and built first one part of the church, which is right now called the middle church [nave].  Then when the first Orthodox priest was sent in 1904, with the help of Serbs and Russians was built the altar and steeple.  And they paid off the mortgage, which was taken out at the beginning.  Around 1908, they made an inventory for the Orthodox bishop.  The church was built from wood on a stone foundation.  Under the church there was dug a hall for meetings and a school.  Around 1909 they bought the neighbor’s lot and built there a small, brick rectory.
            Attached to the church were a temporary priest and a deacon.  The priest received a salary from the parish of $45 per month.  The deacon received $5 per month.  The value of the entire church inventory was $8,000.
            Around 1912 a few selfish people who were among the original builders wanted by force to own the church and they appealed to the court.  This case is still not finished.
            Priest Alexander Varlashkin, son of the policeman Ivan Zahkarov Varlashkin, was born in Veshinskoe Oblast in 1889.  He studied at the Minneapolis North American Spiritual Seminary, which he completed in 1910.  On February 28, 1912, by order of the Most Reverend Archbishop Platon, he was tonsured a reader at Scranton, PA.  On April 10, 1912, he was made a reader for New Kensington, PA.  On September 1, 1912, by order of the Right Reverend Bishop Alexander, he was made the secretary, agent and reader for the Russian Emigres Home.
On April 1, 1913, he was made the reader for Karnet, PA.  On November 1, 1913, he was transferred to become the reader at Cleveland, OH.
            On September 23, 1914, the Right Reverend Bishop Alexander laid hands on him to ordain him a deacon, and on September 24, he was made a priest.
            On September 23, 1914, by order of the Right Reverend Alexander, he was sent to the Archangel Michael Church in Pueblo, CO.                                                                               He married the daughter of a US citizen, Anna Danilovich Klimovsky, and they had a daughter, Claudia.
            There was no reader or teacher.
            [A note written in the margin indicates that at the time of this writing, Priest Alexander was 26 years old and his wife 22.  Their daughter was 6 months.]

Annual Parish Meeting / Stewards of St. Michael
Our Annual Meeting will be held after Liturgy on Jan. 13.  In addition to hearing reports from various ministries of the parish (rector, treasurer, choir, bookstore), adopting our budget for 2008 and electing two parish council members, we will hear a presentation from the council regarding handicap accessibility, as well as other projects for the coming year.  Your current parish council representatives are: John Stuemke (Senior Warden), Betty Savage (Junior Warden), Eleni Wingate (Treasurer), Pavel Holder (Secretary) and Rade Budisavljevic.
Rade is up for election to a full term, and one additional member will be added to bring the total council membership to six.

All parishioners are encouraged to attend the meeting, though only Stewards of St. Michael may vote or be elected to office.  To be considered a Steward, one must have partaken of the sacraments of confession and communion at least once during the preceding year, as well as have submitted a pledge for the coming year.  Below is a current list of Parish Stewards.  If you feel your name has been left out in error, please speak with Eleni or Father.  A (hopefully) expanded list will be printed again in next month’s bulletin.

Blatnick, Ed & Gladys              Moss, Victor & Rita
Bourgeault, Larisa                    Negomir, Barbara
Budisavljevic, Rade & Lisa        Nestro, Debbie 
Dewar, Mary                             Orton, Philip & Katrina
Edwards, John & Gabriella        Perry, Timothy & Jordanna
Holder, Pavel                            Savage, Betty
Hoosier, Cathy                          Stuemky, John
Keller, Evelyn                           Tihonovich, John
Kuzmiak, John & Gabrielle       Wingate, Davi & Eleni
Mironoff, Helen           

Bookstore
The bookstore is slowly being restocked.  Announcements will be made as new items come in.  Christmas cards are available now and the new Orthodox Study Bible will be available in February.  Please speak to Father about special orders, and ask Zachary for help with purchases.

Recommended Reading          
Orthodox Christians in North America 1794-1994, by Mark Stokoe, tells the story of the original planting of Orthodoxy in North America, its “Golden Age” of unity and mission prior to WW1, its ethnic fragmentation into multiple jurisdictions in the postwar era, and efforts to restore unity and mission in recent years.  Most moving and informative about this work is its revelation of the little-known reality that the Orthodox Church came to this land as a missionary body, and that the undivided Church in America under the aegis of pre-Communist Moscow was a single, pan-ethnic jurisdiction with Arab bishops for Arab flocks, Serb bishops for Serb flocks and so on – all of these bishops being united in a single Synod working together to build up the North American flock and bring America to Orthodoxy.  If we truly seek to restore Orthodox unity today, this effort must include the knowledge that our present fragmentation is only an interlude.  Individual stories and photographs round off what is a short but moving work [soon to be available in the bookstore].

Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith, by Peter Gilquist, relates the transformation of a group of Campus Crusade for Christ leaders into an Evangelical Orthodox Church that would ultimately find its way into canonical Orthodoxy in 1987, bringing about the influx of some 2,000 American converts into the Antiochian Archdiocese.  This book is not simply a personal memoir, but one which leads the reader through the coming to grips with Liturgy, Tradition, Mary and the many other aspects of ancient Christianity that marked this group’s struggle to attain the Orthodox faith.  It is thus a valuable book not only for increasing one’s familiarity with this particular group of people, but with the mindset of thousands of others like them who right now are potential converts to Orthodoxy.  There is one copy currently available at $10.

A final book, The World of Islam, is a collection of National Geographic articles about the Islamic world written over the past 98 years.  Many of these articles are heartbreaking for Orthodox readers, from an overview of the defeat of Roman Emperor Heraclius in 636, to the destruction of Smyrna and the elimination of the Greeks from Asia Minor, to the suffering of Christians today who are caught in the crossfire of war in Israel/Palestine and Lebanon.  Although not available in our bookstore, this is an engaging read nonetheless.

For Sale
There is a Maytag mangle (an appliance used for ironing linens, now considered an antique) in the rectory available to anyone interested.  Make an offer by Nativity, after which it will be given to charity.

.