Best of Bessemer
The Second Annual Best of Bessemer Festival is almost here and there is still a lot of empty space on the sign-up sheet to volunteer at St. Michaels’ booth.  There are no qualifications to staff our table other than a desire to share Orthodox Christianity with our neighbors.  The festival will be held June 23rd from 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm on Mesa Ave. between Evans and Santa Fe.  We plan to sell items from the bookstore, but also and more importantly, we plan to share information about Orthodoxy with the festival-goers, of whom there were over 800 last year.  In addition to needing people to staff our booth, we also need volunteers to transport, set up and knock it down.  Father Barnabas would also like one or two people to stay at the church so that it can be left unlocked and open to visitors.  Parish Council members Eleni Wingate and Kristin Lynch have volunteered to coordinate this effort, so please offer your own services today.  Remember, this is YOUR booth.  This is not the responsibility of only a few people.  It is your responsibility – or rather, opportunity – to serve your parish and your fellow Puebloans.  Vespers will begin earlier this day in order to enable your greater participation in the event.  Let’s not neglect to share the true “Best of Bessemer”: St. Michael’s Orthodox Church.

Services June-July
+June 11th: Holy Apostles Bartholomew & Barnabas.
+June 29th: Ss. Peter & Paul.  This marks the end of the Apostles Fast, which begins June 4th.  There will also be services that night and the next morning at St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church in Delta, CO.  This is an annual deanery event and Father plans to attend, so Vespers that Saturday will begin later (7:00 pm) in order to allow him enough time to get back.
+July 15th & 22nd: Divine Liturgy will be at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, two blocks away.  There will be Reader’s Vespers on these two Saturdays.
+August 1st: Procession of the Life-Giving Cross.  Water and honey are blessed on this day, so bring some if you like!
+August 4th-5th: His Grace Bishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West will preside at services.  We will want to welcome him with love and respect, and remember to ask a blessing when greeting him.

Father & Family Away
Father & Popadija will be in Toronto and Halifax for a two-week vacation in July.  Please worship at St. John the Baptist during this time.  If you need a priest, please contact either Fr. Stephen Powley (from St. John’s) at (719) 275-1436 or Fr. Anthony Karbo (from Ss. Constantine & Helen) at (719) 473-9238.  Fr. Barnabas can be reached if need be at his cell number: (719) 406-8833.  If this isn’t working, he can also be reached at (416) 487-6006.

Rocky Mountain Orthodox Youth Camp
It will soon be time once again for our regional church camp, which will take place from the evening of Aug. 5th to the afternoon of Aug. 8th near Boulder.  Glory be to God that we anticipate taking a record number of children this year!  Registration forms will be distributed to parents as soon as they arrive.  Due to the dates of camp this summer, there will unfortunately be no services for the Feast of Christ’s Holy Transfiguration.

Church Attire
The issue of church attire is a hot button in some parishes today.  There is a certain parish in Toronto, for example, where the only exterior sign in English reads, “Women must please to cover their heads.”  This article is not about head coverings, however, though a woman who wears one does a good thing.  Instead, it is about leg coverings.  We all know how hot Pueblo summers are, but please let’s keep our legs covered in church.  This goes for both men and women, shorts and short skirts alike, and is simply a matter of respect for the modesty becoming the Lord’s house.  This is not a difficult discipline to keep.  After all, if the clergy can wear four or five layers of clothing during services, everyone else should be able to keep their pants on.

This was a good month for our budget.  Be advised, however, that we cannot rest upon our laurels in our practice of stewardship, which is as much a part of our regular spiritual discipline as prayer, fasting, and participation in the holy sacraments.  Over $2000 of our income for the month was the result of one time donations solicited by a friend of our community who grew up here and has since moved away.  Let’s continue to move toward greater fulfillment of our fiscal responsibility to the Lord and His Holy Body, the Church.

Recommended Reading
Men evolving into Gods?  Secret, krypto-Masonic rituals?  A Father-God who conceives pre-incarnate souls with the aid of a heavenly consort?  It would be easy to make fun of the Mormon religion and dismiss it out of hand.  But this would not account for the fact that it has become the fastest growing religion in America and one of our most successful exports.  And all of this while the Holy Orthodox Faith, the True Church founded by Christ through His Holy Apostles in the Holy Spirit, continues to have only a negligible impact on North American society.  In their excellent work Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), Richard and Joan Ostling explore the history, beliefs, rituals, business practices and other well-guarded secrets of this new world religion.  Of particular interest to the Orthodox reader is Chapter 18, “How God Came to Be God,” which explores the Mormon doctrine that God the Father was once a man who evolved into a God, a feat which is likewise accomplishable by every Mormon man. 

This teaching is based on a sermon of Joseph Smith’s called “The King Follett Discourse,” contained as an appendix in Mormon America.  Disconcertingly, the chapter describes how modern Mormon “scholars” seek to support their heresy by referring to the Church Fathers’ teaching of deification or theosis.  Through conversations with Fr. Thomas Hopko and Bishop Kallistos Ware, fortunately, the authors are able to draw a clear distinction between the Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Mormon heresy that warps it.  While the Holy Fathers teach that man can be deified only as a gift of Divine Grace, and that even a deified man is still human by nature, Mormonism actually disregards altogether the distinction between human nature and divine nature, with the polytheistic result that Mormons actually become gods unto themselves.  This is but one feature of an excellent book you will want to read and have for reference when a couple of well-dressed, young men come knocking on your door.

Historical Factoid

It is clear from population statistics that the growth of Islam in Bosnia was the result of Serbian apostasy rather than Turkish immigration. From the Turkish conquest of Bosnia to 1520, there was not a significant increase in the overall population.  The earliest statistics, circa 1468, list 185,000 Christians and 1,700 Muslims.  Those from 1520 show 98,000 Christians and 84,000 Muslims.  The numerical strength of Islam increased in inverse proportion to the diminishing faithfulness of the Christian population.