Diocesan Assembly
During the first week of this month, clergy and lay delegates from throughout our diocese will gather at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco for our annual Diocesan Assembly.  This year’s Assembly will feature the enthronement of His Grace Benjamin, Bishop of San Francisco and the West.  Hierarchs and other clergy will be so numerous in attendance that the cathedral promises to be packed.  We eagerly anticipated His Grace being with us a month ago, but he could not make it due to illness.  Vladyka Benjamin assures us that he will most definitely come to Pueblo on November 11th, the Sunday after our Altar Feast.  We can count our previous preparations as a “practice run,” and plan to reproduce them once again.  God-willing, Davi Wingate will be ordained a subdeacon at that time.  An interesting feature of this and each Diocesan Assembly is the Delegate Report Book containing snapshots of the life of each institution in our diocese (accessible on ocadow.org, our diocesan website, and soon to be accessible on our parish site.).  The Rocky Mountain Deanery Report, summarized below, shows that on any given Sunday some 500 people attend our Colorado OCA parishes.  This minuscule amount shows just how far we have to go in bringing our region to Orthodoxy.  The following summary of our parish life by our beloved Dean, Archpriest Joseph Hirsch, holds out the hope that we just may be up to fulfilling the task before us.  He writes that St. Michael’s “is astutely and piously pastured by Fr. Barnabas Powell.  Many catechumens, growing attendance and giving […] all show promise of an ancient parish recapturing its potential greatness.”  We have grown over the past year not just in numbers, but in the bonds of community.  Let us keep at it, brothers and sisters, so that the Lord may find in us a suitable instrument of His will: to bring all men to the knowledge of the truth.

September Services
+ Oct. 9th: St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, Enlightener of North America.
+ Oct. 26th: Great Martyr Demetrios.

Calhan Slavic Fest
St. Mary’s Orthodox Church in Calhan presents its annual Slavic Fest on Saturday Oct. 13th from 11am-6pm and Sunday Oct. 14th from 12pm-6pm.

Treasurer’s Report

Please remember to turn in your pledge card by the end of the month.

Welcome, Dino!

If you have not yet had the chance to spend some time with our quiet, unassuming, exchange student from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, you won’t want to delay.  Judy Morley is hosting 18-year old Dino while he finishes high school at Central.  The only child of Zoran and Meri Mojsilovic of Skopje, Dino, who hopes to become a medical doctor, is a student at the Health Academy.  He enjoys soccer, and is impressed with the friendliness of Puebloans: “They say ‘hi’ to you every day even if they don’t know you.”  He also loves yard sales, which they don’t have in Macedonia.  Dino thinks St. Michael’s is “Beautiful.  I don’t have words.  It reminds me of my church in Skopje.”  Dino will be with us until June, but don’t wait until then to meet him.  To honor our visitor, there will be a Macedonian Film Night at the rectory on Friday, Nov. 2nd.  We will watch the 1994 subtitled film Before the Rain (Father’s all time favorite), which is rated R and not suitable for children.  Bring a lenten snack.  Bring a friend!  Showtime is at 6:30.

Parishioner Profile: The Perrys

If you’re wondering what that strange glow is around church these days, at least part of it is probably emanating from Timothy and Jordanna, our newest newly-weds.  A Pueblo native, Tim was born in ’76 and graduated from County H.S.  Although you wouldn’t guess it from his demeanor, he served four years in the army, where he specialized in heavy artillery and did a tour in Colombia fighting narco traffickers.  He’s currently with US Bank, working at the Albertson’s store branch.  Tim was raised without any formal religious formation, other than “as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them” (Lk. 6.31).

Jordanna was born in Boston in ’75 and grew up in a multitude of places.  One experience that was to be a herald of things to come was her 3-year tour serving as a Protestant missionary in Ukraine with her family.  There she “used to go into the (Orthodox) church and light candles.  With all the hustle & bustle outside, you could go in and it was like a different world.  The beauty and tranquility appealed to me.” Years later, she followed the rest of her family into Orthodoxy, being chrismated at a Western Rite Antiochian parish in Denver.  Jordanna has earned several AA degrees – in Russian Studies, Religion and General Ed. – and is currently working at the 4th & Abriendo Starbucks while completing a BA in Literary Comp. at CSU. 

It was through work that Tim and Jordanna met.  She would make Starbucks’ deposits at Tim’s bank, and he would frequent Starbucks for coffee and small talk.  Eventually, he started coming for more than just the double shot mocha lattes.  One day, Jordanna’s manager got tired of the dilly-dallying and set them up.  Their first date was a success and more followed.  After a few months, they began to talk of marriage.  Meanwhile, Tim attended his first Orthodox service on Pascha and liked what he saw: “I was intrigued.  What was amazing was to see everyone at that hour so coherent, energetic and joyful.”  In being open to the paschal joy, Tim passed an important test insofar as he would have to be baptized before the couple could wed.  This was a surprise to them, but one they embraced.  Tim was baptized August 11th and the two were married 8-days later.  In marrying Tim, Jordanna also became a mother figure to Riley, his 8-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.  A blending like this is always challenging, but Tim and Jordanna were prepared for the challenge, which was made significantly easier by Riley’s well-behaved disposition.  “I could not imagine having a better child,” Tim says of her.  In that case, may God grant them children who are just as great.

Recommended Reading
This month’s title is Church, World, Mission, by Fr. Alexander Schmemann (SVS Press, 1979), a book dealing with the struggle to define Orthodoxy’s approach to the modern world.  Such a description raises eyebrows insofar as it may sound like code language for modernism.  This could not be farther from the case, however, as Schmemann’s goal is not innovation, but rediscovery of our authentic vocation.  Some intriguing principles of his presentation include the following.  That we view the present status of Orthodoxy, without a Byzantine Empire to support is, as a temporary interlude.  We thus fail to accept that the Church has lost its “official” status and that we have returned in this sense to something like the 3rd century, pluralistic scene, in which the success of Orthodox witness depended more on the strength of apologia and less on the backing of civil legislation.  That Byzantium had the Church as its soul and locus of orientation, whereas now the Church looks back to Byzantium as its locus of orientation.  That “traditionalism,” while seeking to defend Orthodoxy, actually sells out our universal witness by giving in to the pluralistic categories of the world and walling us off as one more sect among others. If this is the diagnosis, then the remedy lies in refusing to allow Orthodoxy to be a religion.  On the contrary, we must, through a rediscovery of our own sacramental, liturgical and ecclesiological theology as it was prior to the influence of Western Scholasticism, come to the understanding that Orthodoxy is not a religion but rather a way – the only true way – of life.  We must stop thinking of the Church as an institution (and a historical one in which bishops have the titles of cities that no longer exist), and see it as our vocation to the world.

Parish Contact List
In order to make it easier to contact you regarding prayer requests and special events, Father would like the email address of every parishioner who has one.  Please email him at barnabaspowell@yahoo.com.  In the subject line, write “address.”  Father would also like to put together a parish directory for the coming year to facilitate your interaction outside of church.  Parishioner email addresses will be included along with your name, address and phone number.  Please, let’s not spam each other, either. 

Investment in Heaven
There is an old story about a very wealthy man who died and went to heaven.  An angel guided him on a tour of the celestial city.  He came to a magnificent home.  "Who lives there?" asked the wealthy man.  "Oh," the angel answered, "on earth he was your gardener."  The rich man got excited.  If this was the way gardeners live, just think of the kind of mansion in which he would spend eternity.  They came to an even more magnificent abode.  "Whose is this?" asked the rich man, almost overwhelmed.  The angel answered, "She spent her life as a missionary."  The rich man was really getting excited now.  Finally they came to a tiny eight-by eight shack with no window and only a piece of cloth for a door.  It was the most modest home the rich man had ever seen.  "This is your home," said the angel.  The wealthy man was flabbergasted.  "I don't understand.  The other homes were so beautiful. Why is my home so tiny?"  The angel smiled sadly.  "I’m sorry," he said, "We did all we could with what you sent us to work with."

Serbian Synaxarion
St. Zlata of Meglen (commemorated Oct. 13th) was a peasant girl kidnapped by Muslims because of her beauty.  When one of them tried to force her to accept Islam and become his wife, she refused, saying Christ alone was her bridegroom.  Furious at being conquered by a woman, her kidnappers then hung her from her feet in a tree and proceeded to dismember her body.  She was martyred in 1795.

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