Pastoral Visit
On Sunday 17 2006 the long awaited day finally arrived. His Emminence Bishop Mercurius visited Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Baltimore MD. With him came Protodeacon Michael from Philadelphia and Protodeacon Igor from New York and two subdeacons. I was more in contact with Sergei than the other subdeacon.
Nicholas and I are experienced in serving with bishops. I used to be one of Metropolitan Theodosius' "Roving Subdeacons." Our experience along with the expertise of those who came with the bishop enabled the service to run very smoothly. There were a few hitches, but nobody knows about them and I'm not telling.
After the Liturgy the bishop presented the parish with a relic of Saint Barbara and told us that now her feast day will be our "second altar feast" since it is difficult for the clergy in the area to get together to celebrate Pentecost Sunday. It is now hoped that every year we will have a service on the feast of Saint Barbara and most of the clergy in the Baltimore area will come to Holy Trinity to celebrate with us.
The bishop also gave out well deserved awards to members of the parish who have been extremely active. They are David and Selina Eichelberger, Arthur Blazak, Art Liskowski, Michael Mickel, Kay and Jacob Pakowitz. We were sorry to learn that Jacob is in the hospital and obviously unable to be with us.
After the service we had a wonderful dinner served by the usual dinner crew. They demonstrated why they received the awards.
I took over 325 photographs. Thank God for digital cameras! With a standard 35mm camera, that would had been almost ten rolls of film. I hate to think how much it would had cost me to buy the film and process it.
The picture gallery for this event has been divided into three pages. The first page is the photographs taken by Natalie with my Kodak EasyShare camera. Then are the photographs taken by Sarah with my Canon Rebel dSLR camera and finally are the photographs which I took. I believe very strongly in developing our teenagers and we have two girls who are very interested in photography and I want to encourage them as much as I can. If you enjoy their photographs, I am sure that they will be happy to hear any complements that you might have. Just send them to me and I will pass them on to the girls.
All the photographs will also be available to the diocese. I will be sending them a CD with copies of the original images.
Natalie's photographs with my Kodak Easyshare camera
Sarah's photographs with my Canon Rebel dSLR camera
My photographs with my Nikon D50 camera
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