Church Phone: (781) 585-8907

Church Email: stmarkofephesuskingstonma@gmail.com

Administrator and Dean: Archpriest Vasily Lickwar 

Parish Council President/Warden: Catherine Condrick 

Divine Liturgy: 2nd and 4th Sunday of every month. Divine Liturgy begins at 10:00 AM; please arrive at the church between 9:30 and 10:00 AM. 

St. Mark of Ephesus is blessed with a small, but actively participating congregation. We are a warm, family-oriented body of faithful believers and our members are of all age groups and we embrace many cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The parish conducts a regular and traditional cycle of Orthodox liturgical worship throughout the course of the year. The St. Mark parish participates regularly in several community charitable ministries such as on-going charities to aid local shelters, grocery collections for our on-going food pantry, and visiting the ill and shut-ins in our community. All these inititatives are supported by the free-will offerings and volunteer assistance of the parishioners. 

Sunday, November 1 - Holy Wonderworkers and Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Mesopotamia

The Holy Wonderworkers and unmercenary Physicians Cosmas and Damian and their mother Sant Theodota were natives of Asia Minor (some sources say Mesopotamia). Their pagan father died while they were still quite small children. Their mother raised them in Christian piety. Through her own example, and by reading holy books to them, Saint Theodota preserved her children in purity of life according to the command of the Lord, and Cosmas and Damian grew up into righteous and virtuous men. 

If you would like to read further about the Holy Wonderworkers and Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Mesopotamia, please click on this link: www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/11/01/103133-holy-wonderworkers-and-unmercenaries-cosmas-and-damian-of-mesopo

Sunday Scripture Readings: John 21:1-14, Galatians 2:16-20, Luke 8:26-39

Next Divine Liturgy at St. Mark: Sunday, November 8, 2020 (Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers

All are welcome to attend Divine Liturgy at St. Mark. If you wish to attend, you must sign up beforehand; please email us and we will send you an attendance form to fill out. Masks are mandatory and if you are ill we ask that you stay home until you are well. You may email us at stmarkofephesuskingstonma@gmail.com

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Parish Council Meeting: TBA

Food Pantry: We will resume collecting food items for distribution to the needy via a local food pantry. You may leave the items you would like to contribute in the special collection receptable located in the nave of the church. It is important that we continue to care for the needy, especially during these unusually difficult times. 

Children's Holiday Fund: This Christmas Season, our parish will participate again in the Children's Holiday Fund, through the Plymouth Area Coalition for the Homeless. This is a wonderful and easy opportunity for us to help families that are less fortunate than us. We hope you all will participate in this annual almsgiving initiative. Further details will be provided once we receive more information about the family we will be sponsoring. 

Please remember in your prayers: the ill and shut-in: Tony (Longinus Nikolai), Gregory, Marya, Gina, Alban, Eleanor, Antony, Diana, Eugenia, George, Alexandra, the kidnapped hierarchs Metropolitan Paul (Boulos Yazigi) & Archbishop John (Yohanna Ibrahim); the suffering Christians of Egypt/Syria; those who suffer from terrorist attacks, fires, storms, floods, earthquakes, pestilences and for an end of the present pandemic; Catechumen: Daniel; Maura, Edwin, Martha, Paul; Andrei, Katherine, Elizabeth, Kiril, Marina, Anastasia; Peter, Nicholas, Catherine, Norma, Nicholas, Alexandra, Peter, Nicholas and Sascha; Departed: Wayne, Martha, Katie; Anastasia, Sergei, Alexander, Vladimir, Igor; Lybov, Peter, Theo, Anna, Catherine, George, Mary, Bessie, Demetri, Sophia

Special Petition: "Again we pray that the Lord our God, in His mercy and providential care for us, will call forth our Diocese of New England, a true shepherd of wisdom and strength, blessing us with an Archpastor to care for the well-being of our Diocese, and to unite His faithful people in a zealous confession of the Orthodox faith, in loving service to one another, and a bright witness to the glory of His Holy Name.

Prayer in Time of Affliction: "O God Almighty, Lord of heaven and earth and of all creation visible and invisible, in thine ineffable goodness, look down upon us, thy people gathered in thy Holy Name. Be our helper and defender in this day of affliction. Thou knowest our weakness. Thou hearest our cry in repentence and contrition of heart. O Lord who lovest mankind, deliver us from the impending threat of the coronavirus. Send thine angels to watch over us and protect us. Grant health and recovery to those suffering from this virus. Guide the hands of physicians and preserve those who are healthy. Enable us to continue to serve our suffering brothers and sisters in peace that together we may glorify thy most honorable and majestic name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

A New Message for Hope and Encouragement:

Seek God, Such is the unalterable rule of all spiritual advancement. Nothing comes without effort. The help of God is always ready and always near, but it is only given to those who seek and work, and only to those who put their own powers to the test, then cry out with all their heart: Lord, help us. So long as you hold on to even a little hope of achieving something by your own powers, the Lord does not interfere. It is as though He says, "You hope to succeed by yourself - very well, go on trying. But, however long you try, you will achieve nothing." May the Lord give you a contrite spirit, a humble and contrite heart. - St. Theophan

"Our whole environment - our education from earliest childhood, the struggle for survival - teaches us self-respect. But if any of us can put himself in the place of the publican - and may God help us all to feel that way - let him rejoice, for he is the stray sheep, that lost piece of silver, for the sake of which Christ came; his salvation causes more joy in heaven than that of a hundred just souls." - From "The Diary of a Russian Priest" by Alexander Elchaninov

Psalm 137 - In our exile from God:

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! Remember, O Lord, against the Edmomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, "Raze it, Raze it! Down to its foundations!" O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

(Note: in translation the "little ones" refers to the small temptations, the petty demons, the little sins, seemingly so innocent, insignificant and harmless, must be dashed upon the Rock of Christ. Otherwise they grow big and become strong and destroy the heedless and negligent with their lethal power. - Fr. Thomas Hopko "The Lenten Spring"