OCF @ UofT Year 2009-2010 a.k.a. “summer is almost over”

Hello friends,

I would like to remind you that a new school year is coming up really soon. OCF officers are in process of developing a new program for this oncoming year. It is our greatest desire to have more interesting events and attract more people this year. This is why if you feel like you have energy to help us as an organizer and not as an occasional guest only – please get involved!
Happy rest of the summer to you all!

Christ is risen!

Brothers and Sisters:

Christ is risen! Le Christ est réssuscité!

We would like to wish you all a blessed Bright Week, celebrating the third-day Resurrection of Christ our God!

As we continue to celebrate Great and Holy Pascha, we would like to remind you that we have scheduled a Vespers service in the usual place (Wycliffe College Chapel, 5 Hoskin Ave) on next Thursday (Apr 30), followed by talk from Fr. Nicholas to reflect on this most glorious of feasts. It is a special time for all of us as Orthodox Christians. And since it is our last such gathering of this academic year, we would love to see you there:

Orthodox Christians call Pascha, the Feast of Christ’s Resurrection, the Feast of Feasts. We celebrate the destruction of both the power of sin, and the power of death. Christ God entered into death so that it would no longer hold anyone captive, so that nothing at all should separate any of us from God. Death came into the world through sin, but Christ destroys its consequences and frees the human race to unite ourselves with Him. When Christ rose from the tomb, so did all the creation that had been living in darkness and shadow.

Volunteering

This coming Saturday, April 11th, we will have our final volunteering session for this term at St. John the Compassionate Orthodox Mission, on Broadview just north of Queen. We will arrive at 10am to help prepare and serve lunch for people who have fallen on hard times. We usually bring about six people, so if you’re interested in joining us please let us know ASAP.

Vespers and Talk about the Feast of Christ’s Transfiguration

This Thursday we will have a Vespers and Lecture, (6:30pm, usual location of Wycliffe College Chapel, 5 Hoskin Ave). For the talk we are honoured to welcome a guest speaker, Peter Brubacher. Peter is a convert to Orthodoxy, who received his Master of Divinity in 2005 from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary. For Thursday’s lecture, he will be discussing the Feast of our Lord’s Transfiguration. This event is celebrated on August 6th, but we decided to include it in our schedule of talks for this 2008-2009 school year due to the importance, for Orthodox Christians, of “[Christ's] face shining like the sun, and His clothes becoming white as the light”. Everyone is encouraged to attend and hear this most interesting talk!

OCF Dinner at Ethiopian Restaurant

The Orthodox Christian Fellowship will be meeting for dinner at Ethiopian House, where we will try the delicious cuisine. It is located at 4 Irwin Ave, 2 blocks north of Wellesley on Yonge St. For more information about the restaurant, see their website http://www.ethiopianhouse.com/ We will meet there at 6:30, on Thursday, April 2nd.

Hope to see you there!

Talk: The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts has become the Lenten Service of the Orthodox Christian Church par excellence. Including Old Testament readings and penitential prayers, this liturgy helps Orthodox Christian believers to prepare themselves for the celebration of Pascha (Easter). We examine the Fall of Mankind in our readings from the Book of Genesis, and aniticpate Christ’s Passion and Resurrection that saves us from the consequences of the Ancestral Sin. The particular feature of this service is that the Holy Gifts of the Eucharist are held over or reserved from Sunday, hence the name ‘Presanctified Gifts’.

Father Deacon Alexei Vassiouchkine, of Christ the Saviour Orthodox Catherdral in Toronto, will explain the basic structure and theology of this Lenten rite. His talk will take place on Thursday, Mar 26, 2009, during our OCF meeting at 6:30pm, immediately following the Daily Vespers service. As usual, the meeting will take place at Wycliffe College Chapel, at 5 Hoskin Ave.

Monastery Visit and Akathist

This Thursday, March 19th, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship will visit Holy Cross Orthodox Monastery, (Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America and Canada). There, we will read an Akathist prayer at 7pm, and at 7:30 we will join the monks for their Jesus Prayer service (largely in English, with some Romanian and Greek).

You are invited to join us for this spiritually edifying visit, which will especially help us to prepare for the third Sunday in Lent, the Sunday of the Cross.

The Monastery is located at 12 Blackstone (main intersection Lawrence at Jane). You can meet us there, and for directions see the very bottom of this page, and see the map. If you would like to go down with us, we will meet at the exterior entrance of St. George Station (at Bedford Rd.) between 6:00pm and 6:10pm. We will be leaving St. George Stn at 6:10pm sharp.

See you Thursday, and have a blessed Lent in the meantime!

March 12 Vespers and Discussion: Vocation

On March 12, 2009, at 6:30 pm, Fr. Nicholas Young will be serving Vespers, a short evening prayer service, and following this, he will deliver a talk about Vocation. The question of what occupation to choose is often on the minds of university students, and Fr. Nicholas will give us the Christian Orthodox approach to the question of what career to follow in life.

The meeting will be held in the Chapel of Wycliffe College (5 Hoskin Ave), at 6:30 pm. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Volunteering at St. John the Compassionate

On Saturday, March 7th, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship will be volunteering at St. John the Compassionate Mission, located at 155 Broadview Ave. We will be preparing and serving a meal for underpriviliged citizens of the city. If you wish to participate, please email us at OCFUofT@gmail.com.

Vespers and Discussion: Forgiveness

Our next OCF meeting will be on Thursday, February 26th, at 6:30pm. We will have a short evening prayer service, followed by a talk by Fr. Nicholas and a discussion, which, this time, will be on the topic of Forgiveness. This discussion comes in time for the beginning of Great Lent, and will, God willing, help us along our Lenten journey to spiritual growth.

This meeting will be held at the usual Wycliffe College Chapel, at 5 Hoskin Ave. Everyone is welcome to attend, and after the meeting, we will all be going out for a drink at a nearby pub (location TBA).