SATURDAY 29 AUGUST / 11 SEPTEMBER: Archpriest Paul Elliott, Chancellor of the Diocese, travelled to Northern Ireland on Friday afternoon to visit the Mission Parish of St John the Wonderworker in Belfast. During his visit, Fr Paul and representatives of the parish visited an unused 18th-century church building in the city, dedicated to the Apostle Mathias, which is being prayerfully considered as a possible new home for the parish’s Divine Services, which are currently celebrated in a beautiful but small chapel.
The evening Divine Services were well attended, with the faithful desirous to make their confessions and prepare for the reception of Holy Communion. The following morning parishioners gathered in the early hours for an adult baptism, which, as is the custom in the parish, took place in the countryside just outside Belfast, the baptism performed in the ‘living waters’ of the Irish landscape.
Clergy and faithful returned to church for the newly-illumined Deborah to be chrismated and attend her first Liturgy as a full member of the Orthodox Church, joining the other faithful of the community in reception of the Divine Mysteries and benefitting from the fellowship that followed the Liturgy.
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