Celebrating the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy in Anderson California
Saint Andrew Fool-for-Christ Serbian Orthodox Church in Anderson, California is blessed by The Visit of His Grace Bishop Maxim
On July 25th, Saint Andrew’s welcomed His Grace with bread. salt and singing. It was a joyous occasion to receive His Grace into our humble but increasingly crowded church! He joined us for vespers which was beautifully served with the current priest, Fr George Elliott and Fr Deacon Philip Mayer. We were blessed to have a good crowd of 52 people for the service and the dinner that followed.
After the dinner, His Grace patiently listened to the concerns of the parish council and a few other members fo the parish who have been witnessing our incredible growth. We have baptized 1w0 people in the past two months and we have currently 25 catechumens. Our church is running out of physical space to conduct services and especially to hold trapeza meals. His Grace offered some concrete and spiritual guidance to our issues which we hope to implement soon. It was also good that Fr Deacon Dragon was present with us who helped His Grace drive up from Jackson, CA.
Sunday morning came and we continued our blessed time together with welcoming His Grace to the service of the Sacred and Divine Liturgy where he was the main celebrant along with Fr Deacon Dragon who helped us with the hierarchal liturgy immensely. The whole service was completed with prayer and worship and the crowd of over 80 felt spiritually refreshed by the words of His Grace during the homily and the tenor of his serving the liturgy.
We continued our worship with the liturgy of fellowship during the trapeza meal and we were regaled with the singing of a traditional folk song by His Grace, Fr Dragon and our Serbian parihsioner, Petar. It was a simple enough song that even some of the rest of the congregation joined in. Our own choir sang two beautiful American spirituals which His Grace enjoyed. The meal was concluded with prayer and we bade good-bye to His Grace and Fr Deacon Dragon as the headed to St Xenia Skete in Wildwood.
