Adult Religious Retreat – What better way to start the New Year off than by rekindling our spiritual life.

For more information: http://www.greekboston.com/event/religious-retreat-woburn-ma/

We will be offering Byzantine chanting classes. Instruction will be in English and in Greek, if necessary. With simple steps we will learn the basics of byzantine chanting. The school will offer classes for beginners in a) the theory of Byzantine music b) its practical application and c) the proper behavior at the Analogion (Chanter’s Stand). The mission statement of the programs is to teach, preserve and present the rich history and tradition of Byzantine Music of our Eastern Orthodox Church, to inspire persons to learn and serve the Church by participating in the Analogion during church services and to transmit Byzantine hymnology into the English language by enabling the chanter to effectively chant in English.

For more information: http://bulletinbuilder.org/SNC-SanJose/current#NewsandEvents

Combining the rich traditions of the Russian Music School with the best of European and American music, founder,
artistic director, and conductor Peter Trofimenko has created a unique American orchestra. Each concert season the American Balalaika Symphony performs a stunning range of music— from beloved Russian folk melodies to classical
favorites to rarely heard symphonic masterpieces, often with prominent virtuoso soloists from around the world.

For more information: http://absorchestra.org/

Theme: “Happiness and Spirituality: Health”

A six-session guided meditation workshop presented by V. Rev. Fr. John Bakas, Dean of Saint Sophia Cathedral, Maria Baltazzi , Meditation Teacher and Purveyor of Happiness, and John Kopatsis, Huffington Center Director

Workshop: Wednesdays from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm (with a 15 minute break). Time will be given at the end for everyone’s questions and feedback.

For more information: http://www.stsophia.org/herald/herald_2015-11.pdf

Alison Locke Perchuk (Art, California State University Channel Islands) considers the production of individual and communal identity as a complex process operating at the intersections of exterior and interior, of physical environment and mental structures, of bodily comportment and spiritual and intellectual practices. Through research in art and architectural history, political and social history, theology, liturgy, literature, and memory and landscape studies, Professor Perchuk’s book project offers a new understanding of this process at work within a medieval European monastery. It reveals a community deeply invested in dominant political and social discourses emanating from Rome, yet also engaged in establishing its own sense of place and identity, rooted in its landscape and its sacred patrons, including the prophet Elijah. It also offers an example of how to tell history in the absence of texts, and indicates how seemingly peripheral monuments can offer ways through scholarly impasses concerning objects and events deemed more central.

Alison Locke Perchuk is a specialist in the art and architecture of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean basin. She has written and spoken on such topics as tenth-century Iberian manuscript illumination, eleventh-century Byzantine bronzes, and twelfth-century architecture and wall painting near Rome. She holds a BA in Art History from Williams College, an MA in Medieval Studies from the Catholic University of America, and a PhD in Art History from Yale University. Prior to her appointment at CSU Channel Islands, she taught at the University of California, Riverside, and Occidental College. She currently serves as the treasurer of the Italian Art Society.

For more information: http://cmrs.ucla.edu/event/monastery-of-elijah/

Above image: Apse frescoes, church of S. Elia, Castel S. Elia (VT). Photo: Alison Locke Perchuk

The book of hours is one of the most familiar of medieval manuscript genres, and yet it has not played a large part in most histories of medieval reading. In this talk, Jessica Brantley (Associate Professor of English, Yale University) will explore the importance of the book of hours for English literary history. These wildly popular prayerbooks played a central role in many of the dramas of late-medieval literary culture: the rise of private reading, the development of lay literate piety, the emergence of female readers, and the growing influence of the vernacular as the language of literate practice of all kinds. The book of hours often shaped medieval readers’ fundamental understanding of how a person should engage with a book, with enormous consequences for our sense of how medieval literary culture worked. The hours’ multiple languages and systems of images made a rich hybridity of representation central to the most common reading experience of the late Middle Ages.

Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum; “Initial E: David Playing the Harp” by the Bute Master (Franco-Flemish, active about 1260 – 1290) in tempera colors, gold, and iron gall ink on parchment.

In one of the smaller initials in the Bute Psalter, the initial E of Psalm 44, King David sits before a city. Singing as he plays the harp, David appears not only as the author of the psalms but also as their performer. Angels clustered nearby accompany him with musical instruments, including a vielle (fiddle), a buisine (straight trumpet), and percussion.

At the bottom of the page, a queen and her court of noblewomen pray from open books. Through such images, the original owner of this manuscript, most likely a noblewoman, could recognize the importance of her own devotional act of reading the psalms.

For more information: http://cmrs.ucla.edu/event/history-of-the-book-lecture-brantley/

“Preparing for the Journey of Marriage” is a workshop for couples marrying in the Orthodox Church.
Register Online Here

For more information: http://www.familylifeministry.atlanta.goarch.org/upcoming-events-2/ or   http://www.familylifeministry.atlanta.goarch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jan-16-2016-TARPON-Pre-Marital-Seminar-Information.pdf

ZOE for Life! will sponsor a pan-Orthodox “Akathist for the Unborn”. The Very Rev. Andrew Harmon, the priest at St. Matthew, will conduct the prayer service. A free-will offering will be collected, and a speaker and refreshments will follow the service.

The speaker will be Lisa Palivoda, a member of St. Matthew and a former co-coordinator of the post-abortion recovery program at the Oasis of Hope Pregnancy and Parenting Center in Medina who will join the ZOE staff in January. She will share her personal experience in the program and “God’s compassionate, loving and faithful promise of redemption, restoration and renewal.”

The public is invited to attend the service.

Lecturer: Georg Fischer, Visiting Fellow at the Program of European Union Studies at Yale University

Theme: “North-South Convergence and Divergence in the European Union”

Description: Georg Fischer is the 2015-16 European Union Fellow. He is on leave from his job as the analysis/evaluation Director at the Employment and Social Policy Department of the European Commission. He is a labor economist who, before joining the EU, worked for the Austrian Finance and Labour ministries in Vienna, the OECD in Paris, the Social Science Center Berlin and the Economic Cooperation Foundation in Tel Aviv.

Mr. Fischer’s main research interests are integration and divergence in the US labor market and welfare system as a source for reflection on how the EU can achieve a higher degree of labour market and social convergence – increasingly seen as condition for the long term sustainability of the European Economic and Monetary Union. He is also interested in EU and US relations and in exchanges with students and scholars on European affairs and developments.

For more information:alendar.yale.edu/cal/hsp/month/20151203/All/CAL-2c9cb3cd-4f8fd29e-014f-d256737c-00005833bedework@yale.edu/

“The Diaconate in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches” is hosted by St. Nicholas Cathedral.

Orthodox Speaker: Fr. Deacon Maxime Najim, St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, San Diego, CA

Roman Catholic Speaker: Deacon David J.Estrada, Director of Diaconate Formation, Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Public welcome. A freewill Offering will be taken

Organizer: Society of St. John Ch rysostom-Western Region
Phone:760-212-4888, Email:Anne Petach <apetach@sbcglobal.net>
Website:http://lightoftheeast.org

“Art and Papal Politics in Twelfth-Century Rome” is the featured presentation at this Annual Hammer Art History Lecture. Art and architecture were important vehicles of communication for medieval patrons, including popes. In this lecture, Dale Kinney (Eugenia Chase Guild Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Research Professor, Bryn Mawr College) presents a range of papal images thought to convey political messages, some of which caused international scandals in their own day while others are mentioned only for being pretty. Professor Kinney explores both the twelfth-century context of this art as well as the…

For more information: http://cmrs.ucla.edu/events/

Plan on joining the Mothers, Sisters, Priest and others from the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery as they come to St. George to celebrate evening Vespers and visit with us.

This year’s presentation theme will be on: Obedience: Individual & Family, Parish and Monastic Life. Mother Abbess Gabriella will be the keynote speaker. This event is for the benefit  of The Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery.

Seating is limited! We have grown by 20% or more each year so register NOW!  Good drinks, appetizers, main course and dessert all fit for a cold winter night – along with our signature hot wine!

For more information: http://www.saintgeorgeflint.org/news_151204_4.html

Click HERE for flyer and registration form!

For more information: https://9586.thankyou4caring.org/pages/milwaukee-tailgate2016

The Reverend Dr. John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, will be the presenter at the 33rd Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture. The lecture is titled, “Toward the Holy and Great Council: Retrieving a Culture of Conciliarity and Consensus,” and will be held in the Metropolitan Philip Auditorium of the John G. Family Rangos Building on our campus.

Prior to the lecture, the seminary Board of Trustees and Faculty will award a Doctor of Divinity degree honoris causa to Fr. John. It will also award a Doctor of Canon Law degree honoris causa to former Trustee Charles Ajalat.

For more information: 
http://www.svots.edu/events/33rd-father-alexander-schmemann-memorial-lecture-toward-holy-and-great-council

Theme: “Pentecostalism”. Pentecostalism, the Charismatic Movement, Word of Faith and the Prosperity Gospel.

Speaker: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, the popular lecture/podcast series (and book), is going to be presented in anewly revised, expanded and updated form at St. Paul’s in Emmaus.  This series began in Nov. 2015.

Vespers at 6:30 preceding the lecture.

Time for Q&A will follow each talk, which will be roughly an hour at most. The talks (but not Q&A) will be recorded and uploaded to Ancient Faith Radio.

For more information: http://saintpaulemmaus.org/2015/09/29/orthodoxy-heterodoxy-nov-11-mar-9-what-are-the-differences-between-orthodox-christianity-and-other-religious-traditions/

First Thursday Lectures presents Rev. Stefanos Alexopoulos, Ph.D whose presentation is entitled: “The Power of the Word: Preaching and Iconography in a Greek Orthodox Church”.

http://www.byzarts.com/lectures/