22/05/2020
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Sermons & Services
22/05/2020
In
Sermons & Services
Sermon for Ascension Day 21 May 2020: Daniel 7, 9-14; Acts 1, 1-11; Luke 24 44-end.
Leonard Doolan – ST PAUL’S ATHENS!
The UK television series ‘Little Britain’ is not everyone’s cup of tea. You may not even know it. In a series of comedy sketches, ranging from the tasteless through to bad taste (!), there is one recurring sketch with Andy and Lou. Andy is in a wheelchair, Lou is his carer. Whenever Lou goes off to speak to someone Andy is up and running about, or playing football or something energetic, but by the time Lou returns Andy is always back in his wheelchair. In one episode Lou turns away to chat to someone for a few moments – when he looks back to the wheelchair Andy is nowhere to be seen. The camera than pans upwards to discover Andy sitting on a branch way up in a tree. ‘How did you get up there?’ Lou asks naively. ‘I fell’ replies Andy. Watching it you will either find it hilariously funny, or hate it, but you will be left with one question in your mind. How can you fall upwards?
On a rather deeper level this question can be reoriented towards questions that challenge everything we assume as normal and invariable. Science has helped us in our fixed thinking about this. From the perspective of humanity everything on earth must move downwards – gravity dictates this, and gravity equally dictates our spiritual view. All the cosmos also has to be dragged downwards by the gravity created by the human perspective. All comes down to our level, nothing can be raised to God’s level. Man makes God in human image.
Immediately you will see the dilemma here. Philippians 2 rightly reminds us that God gave up everything of himself and entered into human life – kenosis – we call it, self emptying. This kenotic action of God results in a Jesus who lived, preached, performed miracles, suffered, and died on a cross.
St. John tells us that this is the Divine Word, the Logos, that has come among us and has become flesh. This divine action has been shared with us already in a vision of Daniel (Daniel 7), ‘As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven’. It’s a well known passage in Daniel – well known enough for Jesus himself to quote it, much to the shock of the religious authorities.
It ended – all this human playing field – with a death, a crucifixion. As the human race reflected on this we were drawn to think of what this man did for us by dying in such a way. He took away our sin, some say; he paid a price to pay for our purchase, some say; he was sacrificed to appease the anger that God had against us some say; and so the ideas go on in an endless hypothesis with no real conclusion that is finite, because what we all know is that this man’s death on the cross is a mystery, a mystery that touches each and every one of us deeply as we journey, little step by little step, into that mystery. He was on our level, you see, so we can think of what he has done but on our own human terms. We have all fallen – thanks to that Adam and Eve stuff – and of course, we have all fallen ‘downwards.’
20/05/2020
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Announcements, Blog News
The Anglican Church in Greece 7th Sunday of Easter (May 24th 2020)
Welcome to our Eastertide Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom. After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you may be happy to listen in silence.
There is now a Zoom weekly Bible Study and a mid-week evening quiet reflection service. The login address for the quiet evening service is on the website. To join the bible study please contact Fr. Leonard first on his own email. The Sunday Worship login address remains the same throughout May. St. Paul’s is open again for its regular times from May 5th. Please see the website about public services beginning again.
The preacher this morning is the Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan. The preacher next week will be Deacon Christine.
Zoom Sunday worship will continue until end of June, opening at 10.00hrs. From 17th May there will be a short, said, Eucharist at St. Paul’s at 12 noon. We are not back to normal yet!
Priest: Alleluia! Christ is risen
All: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
1 Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia!
to his throne beyond the skies. Alleluia!
Christ, the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia!
enters now the highest heaven. Alleluia!
2 There for him high triumph waits; Alleluia!
lift your heads, eternal gates. Alleluia!
He has conquered death and sin; Alleluia!
take the King of glory in. Alleluia!
3 Highest heaven its Lord receives; Alleluia!
yet he loves the earth he leaves. Alleluia!
Though returning to his throne, Alleluia!
still he calls us all his own. Alleluia!
4 Still for us he intercedes; Alleluia!
his atoning death he pleads, Alleluia!
near himself prepares our place, Alleluia!
he the firstfruits of our race. Alleluia!
5 There we shall with you remain, Alleluia!
partners of your endless reign, Alleluia!
see you with unclouded view, Alleluia!
find our heaven of heavens in you. Alleluia!
13/05/2020
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Announcements, Blog News
The Anglican Church in Greece 6th Sunday of Easter (May 17th 2020)
Welcome to our Eastertide Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom. After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you
may be happy to listen in silence.
There is now a Zoom weekly Bible Study and a mid-week evening quiet reflection service. The login address for the quiet evening service is on the website. To join the bible study please contact Fr. Leonard first on his own email. The Sunday worship login address remains the same throughout May. St. Paul’s is open again for its regular times from May 5th. Please see the website about public services beginning again.
The preacher this morning is the Revd. Dimitris Boukis, secretary of the Synod of the Greek Evangelical Church.
Zoom Sunday worship will continue until end of June, opening at 10.00hrs. From 17th May there will be a short, said, Eucharist at St. Paul’s at 12 noon. We are not back to normal yet!
Priest: Alleluia! Christ is risen
All: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Hymn: What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.
The priest then welcomes the people of God and the deacon leads us into Confession.
Silence
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you raise us to new life.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you forgive us our sins.
Christe eleison
All: Christe eleison
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you feed us with the living bread.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Absolution: May the God of love and power forgive you and free you from your sins, heal and strengthen you by his Spirit, and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.
09/05/2020
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Sermons & Services
Sermon for 5th Sunday of Easter – 10 May 2020: Acts 7, 55-end; John 14, 1-14.
Sermon preached by Fr Leonard Dooland at the Zoom Liturgy
You may never have visited St. Paul’s Athens, and I know that we have some participants in our Zoom service from other parts of the region or as Nicholas Parsons says when he introduces ‘Just a Minute’ on Radio 4 , ‘and throughout the world’.
Since the middle of March even stalwart regulars at St. Paul’s have not been able to attend the building so maybe the memory is not serving so well. Let me remind you of the four windows at the east end above the altar.
There are four saints in stained glass. One is St. Paul of course, responsible for many of the letters in the New Testament, and along with St. Peter whose missionary journeys are narrated by St. Luke in his second book, the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was martyred in Rome.
The second is Andrew, one of those called by Jesus to be a disciple turned missionary after the great event of Pentecost. Andrew of course is closely linked to Greece, as a patron saint, and whose remains are in the Metropolis at Patra. There is a tradition that in ancient days a monk stole a fragment from one of the bones and sailed to what we now know as Scotland, establishing a shrine there in a place now called St. Andrews,
where there was once the largest ecclesiastical building in Scotland before the Reformation. There is, of course, still the finest University in the world there, founded in 1413. Andrew received his crown of glory in the first generation of believers.
In the lower level we then have two deacons of the church. Like Paul and Andrew, both of these deacons were martyred for their faith. The first is Lawrence. He was a deacon in the church at Rome and received his crown of martyrdom in the year AD298. Usually Lawrence is shown holding a grid-iron, the assumed instrument of his death.
09/05/2020
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Announcements, Blog News
The Anglican Church in Athens 5th Sunday of Easter – 10th May 2020
Welcome to our Eastertide Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom. After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you may be happy to listen in silence.
There is now a Zoom weekly Bible Study and a mid-week evening quiet reflection service. The login address for the quiet evening service is on the website. To join the bible study please contact Fr. Leonard first on his own email. The Sunday worship login address remains the same throughout May. St. Paul’s is open again for its regular times from May 5th. Please see the website about public services beginning again.
SERMON
Priest: Alleluia! Christ is risen
All: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
1 Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
Fresh from the Word!
2 Sweet the rain’s new fall
Sunlit from Heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where his feet pass.
3 Mine is the sunlight,
Mine is the morning,
Born of the one light
Eden saw play.
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God’s re-creation
Of the new day!
The priest then welcomes the people of God and the deacon leads us into Confession.
Silence
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you raise us to new life.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you forgive us our sins.
Christe eleison
All: Christe eleison
Deacon: Lord Jesus, you feed us with the living bread.
Kyrie eleison
All: Kyrie eleison
Absolution: May the God of love and power forgive you and free you from your sins, heal and strengthen you by his Spirit, and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.
07/05/2020
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Sermons & Services
Homily preached at the 18.00hrs Zoom Evening Prayer Service. (Login details on the St. Paul’s website) Fr. Leonard
Wednesday 6th May – Fr Leonard Dolan
On Sunday in our Anglican tradition the theme for the 4th Sunday of Easter focuses on the powerful and well known theme of the Shepherd. This theme is always linked to one of the Sundays in Easter, and sometimes it spreads over two Sundays – it depends which year we are in because our Sunday readings are on a three year cycle. It is a great image of the Christ who is our chief pastor.
The metaphor runs through a lot of normal church language. We speak of pastors, the Latin word for a shepherd. Even the word congregation comes from the Latin greges meaning a sheep. When priests are ordained that same image is used of a shepherd/sheep relationship as we are exhorted to place the image of the Good Shepherd before us – the Bonus Pastor.
It is a beautiful teaching from Christ – I am the Good Shepherd.
In the Orthodox tradition the same Sunday has a different focus. The second Sunday after Pascha is the Sunday of the Myrrh Bearers των Μυρόφερων. This is also a very beautiful theme, and one that isn’t given enough attention in the Anglican tradition. It tells of those women who came to Joseph of Arimathea’s garden to tend the body of Christ in the tomb. This couldn’t be done on the day of the burial, because it was both Sabbath and Passover.
Each of the gospels supplies different details about these faithful women. In total there are 8 that the Orthodox tradition names – Mary of Magdala, Mary (the Theotokos), Joanna, Salome, Mary the wife of Cleopas, Susanna, Mary of Bethany, and Martha of Bethany. All women who had been close to Christ, who had ministered to him in life, or who had received from him a ministry of compassion. One of them had of course brought expensive perfumed gum to anoint Christ’s feet at Bethany, a sign that was used to foretell death, and which resonates with one of the gifts brought by the Magi to the crib of Christ.
07/05/2020
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Announcements, Blog News
Pastoral Letter from Fr Leonard
The Anglican Church in Greece (Church of England) St. Paul’s Church
6th May 2020
Dear Friends at St. Paul’s,
You will be sad to hear of the death of Mr. John Day, a former Churchwarden of St. Paul’s. John died on Monday 4th May. He requested a cremation, but also a service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s. Information about the Thanksgiving will be sent out in due course. May he rest in peace.
Greece has been remarkably fortunate, ‘blessed’, by having very low numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths. This has been due in large part to two factors; firstly quick and decisive action and advice from the Government, and secondly the responsible way in which citizens and residents of Greece reacted to the situation.
Gradually we are experiencing an easing of ‘lockdown’ restrictions, but with a constant mantra of behaving sensibly, continuing with hand hygiene, social distancing, and the wearing of masks on public transport and in shops. Fines are still in place!