SAINT CATHERINE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH. 

Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas. 

120 W. Seneca St. Ithaca N.Y. 14850 

August 9, 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: John 21:1-14. Divine Liturgy Epistle: 1 Corinthians 4:9-16. Gospel Matthew 17-14:23 

We pray for those who celebrate their birthday. Хρόνια πολλά & ευλογημενα! August - 6 Nico Karantzoulis, 9 Andreas Stephanou, 11 Andreaja Bradic, 12 Costandinos N. Lambrou. 

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! August - 12 Christos Nikolakis, 12 Peter B. Nickles, 15 Alexandra Lambrou.

Philoptochos news: Please note that during the month of August, coffee will be available after Divine Liturgy. Feel free to bring a snack to share or to sign up for coffee hour.

August 15, 2026                                                  Beloved Faithful of the Metropolis of Detroit,          This Feast of the Dormition marks the last major Feast of the Church's liturgical year. At first glance, we may be confused why the liturgical year begins with the Nativity of the Theotokos (September 8th) and ends with her Dormition (August 15th). But, like everything the Church does, there is a profound reason for this: the Church, like the Virgin Mary herself, contained Christ in her womb, so the liturgical year is structured to reflect this reality. The Theotokos serves as a profound model of perfect obedience and love. In her humility, she consented to bearing God Himself in her womb. She nurtured and raised the Lord, showing us an icon of pure motherhood. Her Dormition mimics that of Christ's own death and resurrection, with her being in the tomb for three days and her body being raised up on the third day. The Feast of the Dormition illustrates the fundamental reality of the Christian faith: the Resurrection. This is what awaits all of us. This is what should inspire us to keep praying for our beloved friends and family who have reposed in the Lord. Like the Apostles gathered around the Theotokos, today we gather together to honor our mother whom Christ gave to the whole Church while He was raised on the Cross(John 9:25-27) May the Theotokos protect and guide our beloved Metropolis, and intercede for us all! 

With love in the Lord,                                 Metropolitan Nicholas of Detroit.

Thank you Paul and Katherine Karakantas for hanging up the photos of all the priests who served at St. Catherine church at the entry of the church. 

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. 

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

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, August 10 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Dormition Fast. 

Tuesday, August 11 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Dormition Fast. 

Wednesday, August 12 - 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Dormition Fast. 6:00 PM. Prayers near Miraculous Icon Mother of God “The Tender Heart” St. George's Orthodox Church in Taylor, PA. Day of Fasting. Every Wednesday we commemorate when Judas betrayed Christs. 

Thursday, August 13 - 10:00 AM. Paraklesis to the Theotokos.  3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Dormition Fast. 

Friday, August 14 - 10:00 AM. Paraklesis to the Theotokos.  3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Dormition Fast. Every Friday we commemorate Christ's Crucifiction. Day of Feasting. 

Saturday, August 15 - 10:00 AM. Divine Liturgy. Dormition of the Theotokos. 3:00 PM Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

Sunday, August 16 - 8:45 AM Orthros/Confession. 10:00 AM Divine Liturgy. Every Sunday we commemorate Christ's resurrection. 

Dormition Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary. Concerning the Dormition of the Theotokos, this is what the Church has received from ancient times from the tradition of the Fathers. When the time drew nigh that our Savior was well-pleased to take His Mother to Himself, He declared unto her through an Angel that three days hence, He would translate her from this temporal life to eternity and bliss. On hearing this, she went up with haste to the Mount of Olives, where she prayed continuously. While these things were taking place, clouds caught up the Apostles from the ends of the earth, where each one happened to be preaching, and brought them at once to the house of the Mother of God, who informed them of the cause of their sudden gathering. As a mother, she consoled them in their affliction as was meet, and then raised her hands to Heaven and prayed for the peace of the world. She blessed the Apostles, and, reclining upon her bed with seemliness, gave up her all- holy spirit into the hands of her Son and God. With reverence and many lights, and chanting burial hymns, the Apostles took up that God- receiving body and brought it to the sepulchre, while the Angels from Heaven chanted with them, and sent forth her who is higher than the Cherubim. But one Jew, moved by malice, audaciously stretched forth his hand upon the bed and immediately received from divine judgment the wages of his audacity. Those daring hands were severed by an invisible blow. But when he repented and asked forgiveness, his hands were restored. When they had reached the place called Gethsemane, they buried there with honor the all-immaculate body of the Theotokos, which was the source of Life. But on the third day after the burial, when they were eating together, and raised up the artos (bread) in Jesus' Name, as was their custom, the Theotokos appeared in the air, saying "Rejoice" to them. From this they learned concerning the bodily translation of the Theotokos into the Heavens.                       Ἀπολυτίκιον ΚΟΙΜΗΣΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΥΠΕΡΑΓΙΑΣ ΘΕΟΤΟΚΟΥ. Εν τή Γεννήσει τήν παρθενίαν εφύλαξας, έν τή Κοιμήσει τόν κόσμον ού κατέλιπες Θεοτόκε, Μετέστης πρός τήν ζωήν, μήτηρ υπάρχουσα τής ζωής, καί ταίς πρεσβείαις ταίς σαίς λυτρουμένη, εκ θανάτου τάς ψυχάς ημών.                             Κοντάκιον: Τήν εν πρεσβείαις ακοίμητον Θεοτόκον, καί προστασίαις αμετάθετον ελπίδα, τάφος καί νέκρωσις ουκ εκράτησεν, ως γάρ ζωής Μητέρα, πρός τήν ζωήν μετέστησεν, ο μήτραν οικήσας αειπάρθενον.

The Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God - which combines two events: Her death and Her resurrection in the body on the third day - has indeed, from the very beginning of the existence of the Orthodox Church its Feast, its joy, its glory.  The Mother of God has not been a passive instrument of the Incarnation; without Her 'Amen' the Incarnation would have been as impossible as without the will of God. She is the response of the whole creation to God's love and to God's gift of self not only to mankind but to the whole Cosmos He has created. And in that we rejoice, because Her word is our word. Her word was perfect, as Her trust was, Her faith was, Her gift of self was. Ours is imperfect, and yet our voices resound within Hers, weakly, hesitantly at times, but with faith and also with love. She is the glory of all Creation; the Mother of God: one might have expected that death could not touch Her; but if death and a death so cruel could touch Her Divine Son, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the Son of God and the Son of man - of course She had to pay the tribute of all the earth to the sin of man and also die. But according to Orthodox Tradition, death could not keep Her prisoner. She had given Herself unreservedly and perfectly to God, and it was to God, no longer to the earth that She belonged. And on the third day, when the Apostles came and reopened Her grave for one of them to be able to venerate Her, who had not been present at Her burial, it was found empty: She had risen because the bonds of death could not hold Her, and corruption could not touch a body which had been the body of the Incarnation. What a wonderful joy to think that now, side by side with the risen and ascended Christ, one of us, of mankind, a woman of flesh and blood is enthroned and in Her we can see the glory which will, we believe, be ours if we are faithful to God as She was. So, let us rejoice with the whole Orthodox Church, and with all those who belong to it and with the Mother of God, worshipping the Lord with all there is in us and seeing in Her the image of the whole Creation in adoration before the Living God.

WISDOM OF THE SAINTS.

“This, my son, is how you should begin your life according to God. You should continually and unceasingly call to mind all the blessings which God in His love has bestowed upon you in the past, and still bestows for the salvation of your soul. You must not let forgetfulness of evil or laziness make you grow unmindful of these many and great blessings, and so pass the rest of your life uselessly and ungratefully.” /St. Mark the Ascetic/

“The Lord also sends temptations: he who belongs to God will be sent sorrows; the one for whom things go smoothly, like spreading butter, belongs to the devil. And when the Lord wishes to remove someone from the devil, he is charged with sorrows. Sorrows are Christs chalice on the earth. Whoever is a partaker of this chalice on the earth will also partake of this chalice in Heaven.” /St. Paisios of Mount Athos/

“We have already established that self-assertive pride is the guiding force in the life of modern man. This pride has rejected God and declared that man is god unto himself. There is no sin; anything is lawful and allowable for man. Any restriction, any constraint upon his sinful will seems to him to be a violation of his freedom. He understands freedom as the right and the opportunity to do anything that he desires. No one may restrain the man-god in his freedom. "I want, I have the right," became the slogan of modern man. These slogans became the guiding principles of modern life” /Archbishop Averky/

“In the words of St. Isaiah the Solitary (fA.D. 490): When a man severs himself from evil, he gains an exact understanding of all the sins he has committed against God; for he does not see his sins unless he severs himself from them with a feeling of revulsion. Those who have reached this level pray to God with tears, and are filled with shame when they recall their evil love of the passions.” /Hieromonk Damascene/