25/03/2023
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Sermons & Services
Audio Sermon for Passion Sunday – 26th March 2023
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
22/03/2023
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Sermons & Services
Service for the 5th Sunday in Lent – Passion Sunday – 26th March 2023
Welcome to St. Paul’s Athens especially if you are here for the first time or visiting Athens. There is coffee in the garden after the liturgy. This will be followed by the Annual Meeting. Printed reports are available to read during coffee.
We have a POS for card transactions, and you can follow the service online – ask for the password.
The presiding priest and preacher is Fr. Leonard. The deacon is Deacon Christine.
At the door (please turn)
[Priest: Give us true repentance; forgive us our sins of negligence and ignorance and our
deliberate sins: and grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit to amend our lives
according to your holy word.
All: Holy God, holy and strong, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.]
Entrance Hymn 86 (omit *verses) My Song is love unknown
Priest: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
The Lord be with you.
All: and also with you
The priest then welcomes the people of God and then the deacon leads us into Confession.
Silence and stillness follows
Deacon: We confess to you our selfishness and lack of love: fill us with your Spirit.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
All: Christe eleison
Deacon: We confess to you our stubbornness and lack of trust: fill us with your Spirit.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Absolution: Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and bring to everlasting life. Amen.
Collect: Let us pray (remain standing as the priest prays the Collect of the Day)
Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross we may triumph in the power of his victory: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
19/03/2023
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Sermons & Services
Sermon for Mothering Sunday – 18th March 2023: 1 SAMUEL 1:20-28, 2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-7, JOHN 19:25b-27
Deacon Chris Saccali – St Paul’s Athens
Cast your minds back, if you can, to the first film you saw at the cinema as a child. I remember my mother taking me to see Mary Poppins and the following year the Sound of Music at the cinema in Worcester- mid sixties the age I now am – in the Midlands, central England, where I am from. These films and the whole occasion of it made a huge impression on me. Also, it was a happy event and in my teens my mother’s health declined so that I became the main carer and housekeeper until we lost her when I was aged seventeen.
So I do understand the mixed feelings we may have or bring with us surrounding the feast of Mothering Sunday or the more commercial Mother’s Day. Some of us may have lost mothers over the past year or a parent who cared for us.
Let’s look at the origins of the feast. Traditionally, the fourth Sunday of Lent was kept as light relief in the austere Lenten fast. For this reason it is also known as Refreshment Sunday, fasting rules were slightly relaxed and even weddings were permitted to cheer the congregation and encourage them in their fast.
Inevitably the return to the ‘mother’ church became an occasion for family reunions when children as young as ten years old who were working away, in service maybe- think Downton Abbey or as apprentices learning a trade, returned home on a Sunday off.
14/03/2023
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Announcements, Blog News
A Tale of Two Cities – A Blog by Bishop Philip of Truro
The two cities we normally associate with that phrase are, of course, London and Paris. Both are cities in which I have been privileged to minister, and which I hold in great affection. But I want to write about my recent trip to two quite different cities – to Hull and Athens.
I grant you that, unlike London and Paris, Hull and Athens aren’t normally paired in people’s minds. But they might have more in common than you might think (and not just because I recently visited them). But first, let me explain I was doing in them both.
In both, I was responding to long-delayed invitations to speak on the subject of Freedom of Religion or Belief, following the work I did a few years ago for the Foreign Office on the persecution of Christians. That work both led (to my great surprise) to a change in government policy, and has become an enduring passion of mine – a cause which I believe God has laid on my heart to continue to champion.
In Hull, I was invited to deliver the William Wilberforce Lecture, in honour of Hull’s greatest son: the great champion of the cause of the abolition of slavery. It was good to be back in the city not only where Wilberforce was born, and which he represented in Parliament, but in which I myself used to live. Indeed I worked out that the last time I had been in the room in the Guildhall where I spoke was in the early 70s for a children’s fancy dress party!
And it was, I felt, a very fitting subject to speak on there. Today, many, many people the world over are having their rights compromised, and their livelihoods – and their very lives – threatened, simply because they belong to religious minorities. Their lives and livelihoods are threatened through oppressive governments which combine, to varying degrees, a toxic mix of authoritarianism, nationalism and fundamentalism. Look at the fate of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the Uighurs in China, and Christians in the Middle Belt of Nigeria – to cite just three examples. The fate of religious minorities in the world’s two most populous countries, in India and China, is much more precarious than it was a decade ago.
14/03/2023
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Sermons & Services
Service for the 4th Sunday in Lent – Mothering Sunday – 19th March 2023
Welcome to St Paul’s Athens, especially if you are here for the first time or visiting Athens. In the Anglican Tradition this Sunday in Lent is observed as Mothering Sunday.
We also welcome to this service the family of Mary Rosamund Taylor who died recently aged 101yrs. Mary was a long-standing member of this congregation. The flowers were donated in her memory by Shirley Poulakis and the rest of the flowers in memory of Ann Bliss, Alison’s mother.
The service is led by Deacon Chris Saccali, and flowers donated ‘in memory’ by the family of Shirley Poulakis. We have a POS – you can make your donation to St. Paul’s by card. Please come to coffee and refreshments provided by Mary Taylor’s family in the garden after the Liturgy. Follow the service sheet online – wifi password gu5uX8mmtgb8egak
Opening Hymn: 368 (a hymn set to a Welsh tune called Cwm Rhondda)
Minister: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you
All: and also with you.
Minister: O Lord, open our lips
All: and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Minister: Give us the joy of your saving help
All: and sustain us with your life-giving Spirit.
The minister then welcomes people informally.
Prayer for Mary Taylor
Father in heaven, we praise your name for all who have finished this life loving and trusting you, for the example of their lives, the life of grace you gave them, and the peace in which they now rest. We praise you today for your servant Mary and for all that you did through her. Meet us in our sadness and fill our hearts with praise and thanksgiving, for the sake of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
All: Amen
Prayers of Penitence
Minister: The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite spirit God will not despise. Let us come to the Lord who is full of compassion, and acknowledge our transgressions in penitence and faith.
All: Lord God, we have sinned against you;
we have done evil in your sight.
We are sorry and repent.
Have mercy on us according to your love.
Wash away our wrongdoing and cleanse us from our sin.
Renew a right spirit within us and restore us to the joy of your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Minister: May the Father of all mercies cleanse us from our sins, and restore us
in his image to the praise and glory of his name, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
All: Amen
10/03/2023
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Announcements, Blog News
OUR TREE OF LIFE AND HOPE
As we follow in the footsteps of Our Saviour Jesus Christ on his journey to the Cross, unlike those who did so more than two thousand years ago we do so knowing of His Glorious Resurrection. Throughout the year we remember our brothers and sisters of every nation who also suffer hardship and loss at the hands of others. Help us to support them by donating an egg – symbol of birth, life and hope – to our Easter tree.
You can speak to our Treasurer, Nelly, in church or donate on our website – www.anglicanchurchathens.gr – via e-banking or Paypal. Make sure to include your name, email address and the description “TREE”. If you wish to remain anonymous, your name and “TREE ANON”.
Join us in love and thanksgiving as we prepare to welcome the resurrected Lord into our lives.
10/03/2023
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Announcements, Blog News
Easter Lilies – In Memorium
EASTER LILIES
In Memoriam
Once again we can remember our loved ones at this special time of year by donating beautiful lilies to be placed in church and having their names recorded in our Book of Remembrance. You can do this personally, in church, by speaking to Noelle Barkshire. You can do so via e-banking or Paypal on our website: www.anglicanchurchathens.gr – just click on Support St. Paul’s – Donations – for details and give your name and “Lilies”. Then email our Treasurer Nelly at nelly.parask@gmail.com with names for our Book.
Easter blessings to everyone and thank you for your support.
10/03/2023
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Announcements, Blog News
March Events at St Paul’s
STRINGLESS AND MOONMOTH
Saturday 11th March 2023, 21:30
at St Paul’s Anglican Church, 27 Filellinon street, Syntagma, Athens
Two musical ensembles from two different aesthetic worlds, will compose a contradictory but at the same time harmonious evening concert where the female voices will play a dominant role.
Information and booking: viva.gr
THE EVENT IS SOLD OUT
Organized by: George Georgakopoulos
EMI PATH and MARVA CON THEO
Saturday 18th March 2023, 21:30
at St Paul’s Anglican Church, 27 Filellinon street, Syntagma, Athens
The two Athenian ensembles collaborate and compose an immersive, atmospheric evening at St Paul’s Anglican Church. Emotionally charged vocals, ambient and dreamy soundscapes, electronic sounds will accompany the presentation of Emi Path’s new album entitled VOID together with Marva con Theo’s Atmospheres project.
Information and booking: viva.gr
Organized by: George Georgakopoulos
08/03/2023
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Sermons & Services
Lent 3 Liturgy of Baptism, Confirmation and ‘Reception’ into the Church of England – 12th March 2023
Welcome to St. Paul’s Athens especially if you are here for the first time or visiting Athens. Our prayers are especially asked today for those who are being baptised and confirmed or ‘Received’ into the Church of England by Bishop Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro, with the consent of the Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe. We have a POS so you can make your donation by card. Follow the service sheet online – wifi password gu5uX8mmtgb8egak
The president and preacher is The Rt. Revd. Philip Mounstephen. The deacon is The Revd. Deacon Christine Saccali.
Entrance Hymn: 476 Ye servants of God
The Greeting:
Bishop Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
All Blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.
Bishop There is one body and one spirit.
All There is one hope to which we were called;
Bishop one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
All one God and Father of all.
Bishop Peace be with you
All and also with you.
The bishop then greets the people informally and introduces the service
Presentation of the Candidates The candidates are presented to the congregation.
Sponsor: Bishop Philip, I present Danielle to be baptized
Sponsor: Bishop Philip, I present Mabel to be confirmed
Sponsor: Bishop Philip, I present Vassilis, James (Dimitrios), and Vassilis to be Received
into the Church of England
The bishop asks Mabel:
Bishop Have you been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit?
Mabel: I have.
Bishop Are you ready with your own mouth and from your own heart to affirm your
faith in Jesus Christ?
Mabel: I am.
The bishop addresses the whole congregation
Faith is the gift of God to his people.
In baptism the Lord is adding to our number those whom he is calling.
People of God, will you welcome these candidates and uphold them in their
life in Christ?
All With the help of God, we will.
04/03/2023
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Announcements, Blog News
Martha Von Theo Live at St Paul’s
Come join us for an immersive, atmospheric, almost ritualistic evening.
On Sat 18 March, we will make a one-off performance of our project “Atmospheres” along with Emi Path’s new album presentation. We will perform selected songs from our discography, as well as new, unreleased songs, orchestrated exclusively for Anglican Church Athens Greece
Ethereal synths, dreamy, cinematic soundscapes will flow reverently throughout the space of the church and will be contrasted with our eerily dark electronic sounds, in a poetic confrontation between light and darkness, love and death.
Tickets are available on viva[.]gr. Limited seats.