SAINT CATHERINE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH. 

Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas. 

120 W. Seneca St. Ithaca N.Y. 14850 

June 21, 2026 

/607/ 273-2767 Fr. Zenoviy Zharsky stcatherinegoc@gmail.com  

Welcome all visitors, please come again.  

“Changing ourselves in Christ, we are able to change the world around us” 

Please let Father know who is in need of visiting and prayers. 

Saints for the day, liturgical schedule, news from the parish life, please read the Sunday Bulletin on the parish website: www.stcatherine.ny.goarch.org

Please submit to the parish priest all announcements for the church bulletin website before Thursday evening. Thank you.

Follow us on Facebook: St. Catherine Greek Orthodox Church of Ithaca, NY 

Scripture Reading: Matins: Gospel Reading: Mark 16:9-20. Divine Liturgy Epistle: Romans 5:1-10. Gospel Matthew 6:22-33 

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

We pray for those who celebrate their birthday. Хρόνια πολλά & ευλογημενα! June - 20 Evan Hart, 22 Eleni Georgiou, 23 Sophia King, 24 Jimmy Nestopoulos, 24 Paul Karakantas, 27 Evan Lambrou, 27 Maria Georgiou Nicolaides, 28 Thaddeus Wolff. 

When you write your will, won't you please remember St. Catherine's Church? Such a gift will live forever as our church minister to our spiritual needs and others it's an investment in the Gospel of our  Lord and life eternal. 

Memory Eternal! Αιώνια η μνήμη του! June - 23 Radmila Bradic.

Those who build a house of God on earth build for themselves a house in heaven. Please support St. Catherine church. 

Sunday, July 19 - Memorial service in memory of John Besirganian. First Anniversary of repose. Memory to him Eternal!                                 Monday, July 20 -3:00PM Trisagion at John' s grave on the cemetary 
The Apostolic Fast continue until June 29^th.

Philoptochos Notes: Thank you to the Community Restaurant in Cortland for their warm hospitality during our Spring Dinner last Saturday. A great time was had by all!
During the month of July and early August, coffee will be available after Divine Liturgy. Feel free to bring a snack to share or to sign up for coffee hour 

Liturgical Schedule: Daily 3:00 PM. Let's pray Jesus Prayer for 10 minutes straight saying,“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner” 

Monday, June 22 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

Tuesday, June 23 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

Wednesday, June 24 - 10:00AMDivine Liturgy. Nativity John the Baptist 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 6:00 PM. Prayers near Miraculous Icon Mother of God “The Tender Heart” St. George's Orthodox Church in Taylor, PA. Every Wednesday we commemorate when Judas betrayed Christs. 

Thursday, June 25 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

Friday, June 26 - 3:00 PM JesusPrayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Every Friday we commemorate Christ's Crucifiction. 

Saturday, June 27 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on mea sinner.” 

Sunday, June 28 - 8:45 AM Orthros/Confession. 10:00 AM Divine Liturgy. Every Sunday we commemorate Christ's resurrection.

Announcement:If you didn't give names and date of your birthdays and your families birthdays please provide them. Also please give the names and dates of your family members who fell asleep in the Lord. We will pray for them. The list of the names located near the Sunday Bulletins. Thank you. 

Wednesday, June 24 - 10:00 AM Divine Liturgy. The Nativity of the Holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, John. The Gospel (Lk. 1: 57-80) relates that the righteous parents of Saint John the Baptist the Priest Zachariah and Elizabeth, lived in the ancient city of Hebron, and reached old age being childless, since Elizabeth was barren. One time, Saint Zachariah was making Divine services at the Jerusalem Temple and saw the Archangel Gabriel, standing on the right side of the incense offertory. He predicted, that Saint Zachariah would father a son, who would announce the Saviour the Messiah, awaited by the Old Testament Church. Zachariah was troubled, and fear fell upon him. He had doubts that in old age it was possible to have a son, and he asked for a sign. And it was given to him it appeared at the same time as a chastisement for his unbelief: Zachariah was struck speechless until the time of the fulfillment of the archangel's words.
Saint Elizabeth came to be with child, and fearing derision over the lateness of her pregnancy, she kept it secret for five months, until there came visiting her distant relative the All-Blessed Virgin Mary, to share with her Her own joy. Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, was the first to greet the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. And together with her Saint John also in the womb of his mother Righteous Elizabeth did greet "with leaps as in song" the Most Holy Virgin Mary and the Son of God incarnated within Her. It became time, and Saint Elizabeth gave birth to a son, and all the relatives and acquaintances rejoiced together with her. On the eighth day, in accord with the law of Moses, was made the circumcision. His mother named him John. Everyone was amazed, since no one in their family had been named such. When they asked Saint Zachariah about this, he motioned for a tablet and wrote on it: "John is his name" and immediately the binding of his tongue at the prediction of the archangel was unbound, and Saint Zachariah, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, glorified God and pronounced the words of prophecy about the Advent Coming into the world of the Messiah, and about his own son John the Forerunner of the Lord.

After the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the worship of the shepherds and the Magi, wicked king Herod gave orders to kill all the infants. Hearing about this, Saint Elizabeth fled into the wilderness and hid in a cave. Saint Zachariah as a priest was at Jerusalem and was doing his priestly service in the Temple. Herod sent soldiers to him to find out the abode of the infant John and his mother. Zachariah answered, that their whereabouts were unknown to him, and he was killed right there in the Temple. Righteous Elizabeth continued to live in the wilderness with her son and she died there. The lad John, protected by an Angel, dwelt in the wilderness until such time, when he came preaching about repentance and was himself vouchsafed worthy to baptise the Lord Who was come into the world. 

Ἀπολυτίκιον Γενέθλιον του Ιωάννου Προδρόμου: Προφήτα καί Πρόδρομε, τής παρουσίας Χριστού, αξίως ευφημήσαί σε ουκ ευπορούμεν ημείς, οι πόθω τιμώντές σε, στείρωσις γάρ τεκούσης, καί πατρός αφωνία, λέλυνται τή ενδόξω, καί σεπτή σου γεννήσει, καί σάρκωσις Υιού τού Θεού, κόσμω κηρύτεται. 

Κοντάκιον Γενέθλιον του Ιωάννου Προδρόμου: Η πρίν στείρα σήμερον, Χριστού τόν Πρόδρομον τίκτει, καί αυτός τό πλήρωμα, πάσης τής προφητείας, όνπερ γάρ, προανεκήρυξαν οι Προφήται, τούτον δή, εν Ιορδάνη χειροθετήσας, ανεδείχθη Θεού Λόγου, Προφήτης Κήρυξ ομού καί Πρόδρομος

The Church of Christ. 

"The all-merciful God desires happiness for us both in this life and in the life to come. To this end He established His Holy Church, so that she might cleanse us from sin, sanctify us, reconcile us with Him and give us a heavenly blessing. The embrace of the Church is always open to us. Let us all hasten their more quickly, we whose consciences are burdened. Let us hasten, and the Church will lift the weight of our burdens, give us boldness before God, and fill our hearts with blessedness." (St. Nectarius of Aegina)

“The Church of Christ is One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic a single spiritual body, whose head is Christ. The local parts of the Church are members of a single body of the Universal Church, and they, like branches of a single tree, are nourished by one and same sap from a single root. She is called holy because she is sanctified by the holy word, deeds, sacrifice and suffering of her founder, Jesus Christ, to which end He came in order to save human beings and lead them to holiness. The Church is called universal because she is not confined by place, not by time, nor by nation nor language. The Orthodox Church is called apostolic because the spirit, teaching and labors of the Apostles of Christ are entirely preserved in her.” (St. Nicholas of Serbia)  

“We know and are convinced that falling away from the Church, whether into schism, heresy, or sectarianism, is complete perdition and spiritual death. For us there is no Christianity outside of the Church. If Christ established the Church, and the Church is His Body, then to be cut of from His Body is to die.” (St. Hilarion Troitsky)  

“One should not seek among others the truth that can be easily gotten from the Church. For in her, as in a rich treasury, the apostles have placed all that pertains to truth, so that everyone can drink this beverage of life. She is the door of life.” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies) 

“The Church is holy, although there are sinners within her. Those who sin, but who cleanse themselves with true repentance, do not keep the Church from being holy. But unrepentant sinners are cut off, whether visibly by Church authority, or invisible by the judgement of God, from the body of the Church. And so in this regard the Church remains holy.” 

Our Lord Jesus Christ told numerous Parables about the Kingdom of God. In each one He gave us a glimpse into that Kingdom a kingdom whose values are quite different than our own where the first are last and the last first, where due to the master’s generosity all workers get the same pay no matter how long they worked, where judgment is not based upon sin but upon goodness, where human power and authority are excluded as belonging to the pagan and fallen world.Jesus spoke to us about the Kingdom of Heaven while ministering on earth, and He used earthly images to help us get a sense of what God’s Kingdom is. While Jesus spoke to us about the Kingdom of Heaven and in His teachings as well as His life revealed the Kingdom to us one temptation we have is to project onto the Kingdom of Heaven what we think it will be like. We project onto the Kingdom all that we want in this world, and imagine that everything we dislike in this world will be absent in the Kingdom. The disciples James and John clearly did this when asking Jesus if they could sit next to Him at his right and left sides and Jesus rejects their thinking entirely. Instead of us shaping the Kingdom of Heaven into our ideas of what it will be like, we are to allow the images of the Kingdom of God to shape our thinking, our imagination, but more importantly how we live day by day. It is not what we imagine the Kingdom of Heaven to be like which is important, but how we allow it to shape our daily lives our taking up the cross daily to follow Christ. Our vocation as Christians is not to form and shape what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like, but rather to allow the images of the Kingdom and the thinking of the Kingdom to shape and form our hearts and lives. The Kingdom of God is not a mere abstraction, pie in the sky, future place to which we will go. In the Incarnation, Christ made the Kingdom of God present on earth and in our lives. We are to bring that Kingdom into our hearts for that is where the transfiguration of the world begins. The Kingdom of God takes root in our lives today, this side of the grave, not just in the life after death.  Jesus said, “For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”  (Luke 17:21)