"O Forerunner, thou hast proved to be truly even more venerable than the Prophets, since thou wast granted to baptize in running waters Him who was proclaimed."

In This Issue

• Informative

• For the Holidays

• CASA

• Prints of our Church

• Red Cross Dinner

• Philoptochos Update

• The Small One

• Letter of Consolation

• Turkey ~n~ Fixins

Click Here to view the calendar

PANGARI
Nov. 1   - Loretta Siotka
Nov. 8   - Anastasia Spirakis
Nov. 15 - George Moustakis
Nov. 22 - Sam Stathos
Nov. 29 - Nick Katsanos

COFFEE HOUR
Nov. 1   - Demmye Raptis and Anna Kouis
Nov. 8   - Toula Pournaras and Cassandra Beale
Nov. 15 - Penny Politis and Eleni Sourlis
Nov. 22 - Daughters of Penelope
Nov. 29 - GOYA
To host a Coffee Hour, please call Linda Moustakis at 238-1473.

PROSFORON
Nov. 1   - Tim Groza
Nov. 8   - Vonnie Karetas
Nov. 15 - Urania Geladakis
Nov. 22 - Angie Spyralatos
Nov. 29 - Linda Moustakis

Fr. Konstantine would like the prosforon in the office on the Friday before your Sunday. Please call the office to make sure someone will be there. If you want to learn how to make prosforon, or sign up for a Sunday, please contact Linda Moustakis at 238-1473

SUNDAY GREETERS
Nov. 1   - Adrianne Finn & Dorothy Radomsky
Nov. 8   - Lou Kachulis & Anna Kouis
Nov. 15  - George & Linda Moustakis
Nov. 22  - Stella Mislitchi & Teodora Rotis
Nov. 29 - Chris & Amy Castanes

MEALS ON WHEELS VOLUNTEERS
Nov. 9   - Elaine Karavan & Anna Kouis
Nov. 10  - Linda Moustakis & Demmye Raptis
Nov. 11 - Loretta Siotka & Amy Castanes
Nov. 12 - Kalla Szostek & Maria Veselinovich
Nov. 13 - Demitrios Tselides & John Popa
If you are unable to attend on the day you are assigned, please contact Linda Moustakis at 238-1473 as soon as possible.

THEE HOLY NOOK Offers imported Greek items including hand painted ceramic tiles and jewelry boxes, greeting cards, beautiful icon bracelets, pure olive oil soap, Greek coffee, "brikia" and delicious halva, as well as "A Voyage in Greek Cooking," St. John's parish cookbook. Please stop by, or you may contact Adrianne Finn at 903-1901. If you don't see what you're looking for, ask a Board member.

LADIES PHILOPTOCHOS Will hold their November Board meeting on Wednesday, November 4th at 12 Noon, followed by the General Meeting at at 1:00 p.m. at the fellowship hall coffee room.

DAUGHTERS OF PENELOPE - Due to the Dickens Show, the DAUGHTERS OF PENELOPE will hold their next meeting one week later, on Wednesday, November 18th, at 1PM in the Fellowship Hall Coffee Room. The Daughter's will have a booth at this event November 12th – 15th, and will be selling sweets, breads, cookies, etc. (www.dickenschristmasshow.com)

ATTENTION PROSFORA BAKERS - To ensure that your prosfora can be used for the Sunday Divine Liturgy, and to help keep order in the Church, please have your prosfora at the church before the office closes on Friday. Those who wish to bring prosfora with them to Saturday Vespers are kindly asked to first notify Fr. Konstantine. Thank you for your efforts in serving our parish!

GENEROSITY - For those who are able and willing to generously offer to the Church, we are always in need of the following items:
• Large containers of olive oil
• Good incense from the Monastery
• Communion Wine
Note: the following are appropriate for communion wines: "Byzantino Nama", "Mylopotamos Nama", and "Roussos Nama". In addition to these, one may also bring "Commandaria". Please contact Fr. Konstantine or Veatriki Vrantsis for more information on where to purchase these wines.

PHILOPTOCHOS HOLIDAY FOOD BASKETS

We are looking for donations of stuffing, gravy, canned corn, yams, green beans, cranberry sauce, fruit cocktail, instant mashed potatoes, lg boxes of mac & cheese, and other Thanksgiving-related items. If you have any questions, please contact Anna Halaris at 293-5984, or Christina Asllanaj at 650-6026. Deadline for Thanksgiving baskets is Sunday, November 22nd. We will continue to accept donations for our Christmas baskets through Thursday, December 17th.

CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEAS: THEE HOLY NOOK has imported Greek items including hand painted ceramic tiles and jewelry boxes, greeting cards, bracelets, olive oil soap, Greek coffee, "brikia" and delicious halva, as well as "A Voyage in Greek Cooking," St. John's parish cookbook. We also have Christmas and Name Day cards and Christmas ornaments -- a gold-foil depiction of our own St. John the Baptist Church -- for ($10). Catalog available online or in the Narthex. Please stop by, or you may contact Adrianne Finn at 903-1901.

POINSETTIAS AND COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS CARD - We will also begin accepting donations for our Christmas Poinsettia plants and Community Christmas card. An order form is included in this newsletter for your convenience, and will also be available at the Pangari.

• The deadline for the Christmas Card is December 1st. 

• You can make your donation online as well

CASA: CITIZENS AGAINST SPOUSE ABUSE

Violence Breaks Up Families... and Ruins Lives

Due the economy, CASA funding has been cut. The safe houses are in need of groceries-- especially food cards from any grocery store, in any amount, will be greatly appreciated.

Since June, our church has donated 31 bags/boxes to CASA, which included clothing, household items, books, and non-perishable food. A big "thank you" to everyone who has contributed.
During this flu season they especially need hand sanitizers for the safe houses, as well as paper products such as toilet paper and paper towels. They also need laundry detergent. Please bring all your donations to church marked CASA. Thank you for your generosity.

WANTED - Your photos
We would like your pictures from our upcoming Greek Festival and other church events to be included in our monthly newsletter and on our parish website.
If you have digital photos you would like to share, please e-mail them to Donna Tripp at office@stjohn-mb.org

Taken from the book: "ASCETICS IN THE WORLD"
Publications of the Holy Hesychasterion of Saint John the Forerunner, Metamorphosis, Chalkidiki

In September of a certain year, there was a great deal of turmoil observed in the Department of Oncology of the University Hospital of Rion. Little Dimitri was asking urgently for the Hospital's priest. He was insisting on immediately receiving Holy Communion...

He was 13. He had been in that specific clinic for about a year and a half. A minor headache had led him there. The doctors had diagnosed brain cancer. His native town was Fieri of Albania; his parents were unbaptized. They had lived in Patras for several years. Shortly after his admission to the Hospital, the young boy had asked to be baptized. He had heard about Christ, and wanted to become a "child" of His. He was baptized, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" - after the necessary catechesis of course.

Everyone in the clinic was extremely fond of him. The cancer had progressed considerably, and had by now deprived him of his sight. He was entirely unable to see, anything and anyone. But he could listen with great and wonderous patience. He never complained. He would say that God loved him very much. He prayed, and would ask his parents to do the same.

All those who visited him could perceive that there was something different in that boy. He spoke constantly about God. He was always courteous and happy. His face shone. He wanted to partake of the Precious Gifts frequently. When his mother would sometimes be in another area of the clinic, he would shout out to her:

"Mother, come quickly! The priest is arrived with Christ! He is coming up the stairs! Come and get me ready!"

And that was exactly what would happen: the priest would come, and he would find little Dimitri sitting upright in his bed, with his mouth wide open and crossing himself with piety. Even though he never knew the exact time of the priest's arrival, he could "see" him coming, with his gift of insight - and despite the two closed doors that came between his room and the corridor that the priest was coming from. This has been verified by the pious Mrs. Maria Galiatsatou, who had volunteered to look after that boy.

"Mrs. Maria, I want to tell you something", he said to her one day. "When the priest comes together with Christ, I can see him approaching as he walks up the stairs, and next to him are two tall, beautiful people with pure white garments, who lean towards the Holy Chalice, and with their arms outstretched, they protect it."

One time, when the doctor asked him: "How are you, little Dimitri? How's it going?"

He replied: "Mister Doctor, can I tell you something privately? I am just fine. But you shouldn't worry so much that your wife left. God will be with you, because you are a good person."

The doctor remained frozen for an instant. No-one else knew about the grievous incident that had occurred the previous day at his home: that his wife had left him, to be with another man.....

"This is a child of God" was what all who had met him would say.

The last time that he received Holy Communion, he was unable to sit up in his bed, but he did receive Christ with joy and longing as he lay there.

"Thank you very much", he whispered and then fell asleep in the Lord. When the priest went to the morgue the next day to read the Trisagion over little Dimitri, he remarked:

“This is the first time in my life that I have seen such relics. His face is smiling...glowing.... and it has the color of amber*”.

His parents came to love Christ very much, and they now want to be baptized also....

* Among the signs that the Orthodox Church acknowledges as proof of a saintly person is the color of the skin, which takes on a translucent amber appearance.

Click here to read this in Greek

+ BISHOP AUGOUSTINOS
Metropolitan of Florina, Greece

My Beloved,

Today, a member of your family has departed from this transitory and imperfect world. Your loved one was with you for many years. You had unforgettable days together, days of joy and days of sorrow. You would have wanted to be together longer, but even if you had been together for a thousand years, it would not have been long enough. Time passes quickly and death comes, it cannot be avoided. Who lives and will not face death? So death came and your beloved one has been taken from your loving embrace. There is a new grave in your family's burial ground and you now mourn at the graveside. Your beloved one no longer exists.

What did I say? No longer exists? NO! That is not true! Your beloved one whose funeral was conducted, and who was buried today with the prayers of the Church, does indeed exist! You ask, how? An ancient Greek philosopher – indeed the greatest philosopher of all - Socrates, spoke with his followers shortly before his death. He told them not to grieve over his forthcoming death and not to be overly concerned with where and how they would bury him, because that which will be buried is not Socrates, but only his body. “Socrates,” he told them, “is a spirit which will never die. At the time of death the immortal soul will depart, just as the imprisoned bird flies away when the door to the cage opens. The Socrates over whom you would weep will, at that time, be experiencing great joy. He will have left this world of injustice and will have gone to another world where righteousness prevails. The justice which has been denied him here on earth, he will find in the heavens…”

These were the words spoken by the philosopher moments before he died. Socrates, even though he lived four hundred years before Christ, believed in the immortality of the soul. He faced death with courage and offered comfort to his followers.

And we who live after Christ, if we do not believe that the soul is immortal and that there is another life beyond the grave, we are totally self-condemned by our faithlessness. For it wasn't a philosopher, who being human can be in error, but God Himself who become man – our Lord Jesus Christ the God-Man, the Fountain of Truth, the essence of Truth itself – who assured us concerning these things. He preached in the most explicit manner that we have an immortal soul. “For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? For what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37). And not only did Christ preach immortality of the soul, he verified this fundamental truth with miracles, by raising the dead. He resurrected the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow from Nain, and Lazarus. The resurrection of Lazarus is described in detail in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. As soon as you return home from the funeral of your dearly departed, open your Gospel and study this chapter. Read it, not only once but several times. There are no more comforting words than those in the Gospel. What happened to Lazarus will happen to everyone. The Lord who raised Lazarus will resurrect all the dead. The Lord's command, ‘Lazarus, come forth!' – this almighty command which caused his soul to return to the dead body and Lazarus to emerge from his tomb – this same command will be heard by all who have died. In every tomb the voice will be heard, ‘O dead, come out of your tombs!' Their souls will return and everyone will appear again, not with the bodies they have today, bodies subject to sickness, death and decay, but with bodies that are incorrupt. We are not capable of imagining what we will be like when we raise from the dead.

But the greatest proof that we will be resurrected and that we who believe and live in accordance with the will of God will not simply be resurrected, but will live a life of unimaginable beauty and gladness – the greatest proof of the resurrection of the dead and the life to come is the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes! Let the faithless materialistic ones say what they will. It is true, it is an historic event, the greatest even in the history of the world, that Christ conquered death. He rose from the dead! And as the greatest of the Apostles proclaimed, “Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Corinthians 15:20). And just as Christ arose, so shall all the dead arise. This is our faith, the very foundation of our faith.

When people believe, death is not a calamity that plunges them into an extended sadness, melancholy or despair. Believers weep, certainly, at the death of a loved one, but it is not the same as the wailing of pagans, idolaters and disbelievers. The death of a Christian who had lived and witnessed Christ used to be celebrated like a birthday. For it was recognized that we are born twice – once when we emerge from the darkness of our mother's womb to face the sweet light of the sun, and again when we leave the darkness of the present life, which is like a mother's womb, to face the blessed light of eternity. The person who emerges from the mother's womb is not harmed, for a new life is gained, far better than that within the womb.

Similarly, the person who by death leaves this world is not harmed, for a new life is gained, infinitely superior to the present one. According to Christian belief, death is gain, not a loss or calamity (Philippians 1:21). That is what the Christians of the first centuries believed, when the death of a believer was celebrated as a birthday. They sang hymns of the Resurrection and said to the ‘traveler,' “Blessed is the way on which you go today, for a place of rest has been prepared for you.” But where is the faith today? Alas, today, faithlessness reigns. Today the people – most people - do not believe in the Lord who was crucified and raised for us, who ascended into heaven, and who will come again to judge the living and the dead. They do not believe in the immortality of the soul. They live without faith, and they die without faith. And so death terrorizes them. They weep and they wail over relatives who have died as though they no longer exist. Then, when someone speaks to them about the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead and the life to come, they laugh and mock his seriousness. In order to believe, they say they want proofs, they want miracles.

They want miracles and proofs! Well, miracles and proofs concerning the resurrection exist not only in Holy Scripture, but also in another book written by our All-wise and Almighty God. This book was written so that it can be read by, and so that it can provide lessons to, even the most unschooled. And this book is nature. In this book we find beautiful images of the Resurrection.

Consider the sun. Someone seeing the sun set for the first time, seeing it disappear over the horizon, seeing the darkness of night spread across the earth, would lament and cry: ‘The sun has died!' Assurances that the sun will rise again would not be believed. But even though the sun appears to be extinguished every evening, it isn't so. It is rising in another part of the world and it is continuing to spread its sweet light. The rising and the setting of the sun are a single icon of life and death. As the poet says, ‘What we see as the setting of the sun has the sweetness of dawn ahead; and instead of night without sunrise, the day dawns which will have no sunset.'

Consider another image from the book of nature. When it is wintertime the trees are bare, the mountains are covered with snow, and the birds have gone far away. Nature seems to be dead. But spring comes, the snows melt, trees blossom, seeds planted in the mud come to life, they sprout, fields turn green, gardens become fragrant and the nightingales sing. Spring! God's joy! Resurrection! God, who provides the energy that enables a dead nature to emerge in new life at springtime, God, the All-wise and powerful, will use His unlimited power to resurrect all dead bodies to a new life, as He has assured us. “The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall rise, and those on earth shall be joyous,” said the Prophet Isaiah (26:19). Yes, the dead will rise, ‘For with God nothing is impossible' (Luke 1:37). Why then do you not believe? Do you need another example? Are you a father or a mother? When you see your beloved child fall asleep, in bed or in your arms, you don't start crying, you don't say your child is dead. You know that in a few hours the child will awaken, and then be more lively and happier than before falling asleep. Similarly, the person over whom you are mourning is not dead, only sleeping. Yes, sleeping. Because according to the teaching of Scripture, death is sleep, a prolonged sleep which will eventually end, and then the bodies of the dead will reawaken as they are reunited with their immortal souls. Saint Paul refers to the dead as ‘Those who have fallen asleep,' and tells us that Christians must not grieve at the death of their beloved ones as unbelievers and idolaters. Listen to his words: “I do not want you to be ignorant brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (I Thessalonians 4:13-14). Saint Cosmas Aitolos, consoling those grieving over the deaths of their loved ones, said, “Do we not clearly see the resurrection? When we fall asleep, are we not like the dead? What is sleep, but a small death; and what is death, but a great sleep. And as the grain of wheat which falls to the ground will not grow if there is no rain to decay it and make it pulpy, so we who die and are buried would not receive the water of eternal life and resurrection if Christ had not first been buried in his tomb. Don't you clearly see how God raises the plants from the soil each year?”

In accordance with what has been written above, in accordance with the words of the true philosophy, in accordance with the examples and images of nature and above all, in accordance with the testimony of Holy Scripture and the unchallengeable Logos of God in which we must have absolute confidence, your love one has not disappeared, is not lost, has not become zero. Don't say that! It is blasphemy. And don't mourn disconsolately. That is a sin. We ask you, do you mourn and cry without comfort when a relative leaves for Australia or America? Of course not. You know that there your relative will have a happier life and you hope to meet again. Similarly, your love one, whom death has today taken from your side, lives, although in another world. Never doubt that this other world exists! As surely as Australia and America exist, you can be certain, you can be ever more certain, that there is other life, eternal life.

If a voice could be raised from that other world where your beloved now is, what would you hear? “My dear ones, don't weep for me. I live. I am here in another world which is beyond your imagination. It is as terrible place only for those who did not believe during their life on earth, who did not live according to the will of God. For those who believed in Christ and lived in accordance with His Gospel it is a world far more beautiful than you can envision. Its beauty is beyond description. And so please hear me. Do not listen to the unbelievers; close your ears to their words. There is Paradise. There is eternal life. Believe in Jesus Christ, study His Gospel, carry out His holy commandments, repent and weep only for your sins, for in Hades there is no repentance.”

Death does not break the connection between those living on earth with those who have passed on to the other world. Preserve these bonds. Commemorate those who have gone to the world of eternity. Maintain the sacred memorial services in which they are remembered. And do not celebrate them idolatrously, but as Christians, as we have advised you. Above all, remember that the greatest offering that you can make for the souls of those who have fallen asleep is your almsgiving, your charity to the poor and the suffering.

Dear friends, as your bishop, I share your sorrow on the death of your beloved one. I would have preferred to visit you in your home, to personally express my condolences, and try to comfort you with the immortal teaching of the Gospel, but since this is not manageable, I am sending you this letter through your parish priest. I ask that you neither ignore it, nor destroy it. Please read it attentively and keep it as a remembrance, bound with the memory of your beloved, who this day has departed for Heaven. ‘A blessed reunion,' shouts the soul of your beloved from beyond, where it has gone from the present vain life. ‘Let us all have a blessed reunion, my brothers and sisters, in eternity.'

Through the intercessions of our most holy Theotokos and all the Saints who have pleased God throughout the centuries, may the end of our lives be Christian, without suffering, unashamed, and may we have a good account to present of ourselves at the awesome judgment seat of our Lord Jesus, when he comes to judge the living and the dead.

This year, St. John's parish will participate in the
5th Annual Christmas Turkey ~n~ Fixins Food Drive

Monetary donations are also being accepted
Checks should be payable to:
St. John Greek Church

with a notation for “Turkey & Fixins” in the memo line,
and mailed to:
ATTN: ANASTASIA SPIRAKIS
St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church
3301 33rd Avenue N.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577