On Sunday, Nov, 20th, the St. Archangel Michael parish was blessed and honored with the Archpastoral visit by His Grace Bp. Maxim from Los Angeles.

His Grace presided the Divine Hierarchical Liturgy together with visiting Bay Area Clergy, Very Rev. Vasilije Cvijanovic from Moraga, Very. Rev. Djurica Gordic from San Francisco,

Deacon Dragan Stojanovich from Jackson, CA and the host priest Very. Rev. Vidoslav Vujasin. Altarboys were Mirko and Marko Macura, Vladan Bunjevic and Rafailo Stankovic.

Many faithful from the parish and many parishioners from the Bay Area parishes attended the service.

In his sermon about the demon possessed man In Gadarene, His Grace pointed out that the evil is related to death and that Christ with his presence is healing and protecting us from the idles of the evil.

Further he said that we pray that God’s Kingdom come, and reminded us of an old aramaic expression used in the early days of the church “Maran ata” which means “Lord is coming”, or “O Lord come quickly”.

Christ is restoring the human dignity through his healing presence and power in our lives. He wished all a blessed Slava and protection form every evil through Christ and Archangel Michael and all Bodiless powers.

Many children and faithful were united with Christ receiving the Holy Eucharist. At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy our Bishop blessed the wonderful decorated Slava bread made by Radenka Minic and Beba Radomirka Petrovic.

After the service His Grace went to the new church which construction is finally close to be finished, to have a look on the newly installed marble floor, expressing His gladness about the visible progress.

In the last year many remaining tasks on our new church were finished for what we thank our Lord and God.

During the festive banquet lunch with a filled church hall close to capacity the master of ceremony Bill Davidovich eloquently led the program and  thanked all for coming and all volunteers for their help and support.

Bill also thanked the Kolo, Women’s auxiliary under the presidency of Susan Pavich for all their tremendous work, support of the church, Bake Sales and their donation.

In His speech the church board president Chris Milosovich thanked all for coming, expressed his joy about having again gatherings inside the hall and gave a short report about finished and future projects.

Fr. Vido in his address thanked His Grace, the Clergy and the special guest from Belgrade, Prof. Miodrag Zec for celebrating with us.

He also greeted and thanked Slobodan and Magaret Galeb for their tremendous support of our parish and reminded everyone that the Galeb family donated all the lime stone and marble tiles for our church.

Father Vido also expressed His gratitude to Mary and Eli Bogdanovich, Miladin Malisic, Radomir and Dorina Vukadin, Angie Gill (Ćuk) Millie and Charlie Fleskes, the Vukcevich families and all others for their huge donations towards the building fund, but also to every parishioner who is coming, helping and supporting the church in numerous ways.

His Grace Bishop Maxim awarded two parishioners of our parish, Tanja Vrcelj and Theodore Ted Miljevich with Episcopal citations for their love and support of our parish in many capacities.

All attendees gave a big applause to the recipients of these awards from the hand of His Grace and congratulated them.

One of the joyous highlights was the performance of the Iskra Choir under the direction of the very talented musician and singer Nena Lovre. Everybody loved the music and songs which brought much joy to all of us.

We celebrated a wonderful Slava gathered around our Bishop and protected by the Archangel Michael and all Bodiless Hosts praying that our merciful and loving God blesses us with many years until Christ comes again! Maran ata!

Very Rev. Protopresbyter Vidoslav Vujasin
Saratoga parish priest