From the Chair Return to Welcome

Fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory forever!

In 1988 I had the blessing of traveling across this country, from parish to parish with Archbishop Seraphim. It was on this trip that I realized two important things. The first was that I wasn’t just a kid from rural Eastern Ontario, but that I was a Canadian. Those forests, prairies, mountains, and coastlines were as much a part of my heritage, as they were my future. I also (and more importantly) realized that I belonged to a diocese of many parishes, not just my parish in Ottawa (Annunciation Cathedral). That the parish in Star Alberta (Holy Transfiguration) was as much a part of my heritage, as the English speaking mission in Yorkton (St. Mark the Evangelist) was a part of my future.

This was also expressed to me in the backyard of Dr. Edward and Vivian Hartley, beside the tiny chapel which served as the home of the St. Herman’s Mission in Surrey BC at the time. Sitting around with new found friends, their was general astonishment that Orthodoxy was not just an abstract concept from “somewhere else”, but that it was real and alive in the same country, and the same diocese. All with the same people, trying to live their lives as Orthodox Christians.

That trip and in particular that night, really impressed upon me that I was apart of something much bigger, and that I made a difference as much as the next person, in witnessing the Orthodox faith here in Canada. That together we carried the same cross, planted on this continent by St. Herman, and cultivated in this country by Sts. Tikhon and Arseny, and many others.

We as a diocese have grown so much in twenty three years, almost beyond recognition. Some of those people I met all those years ago, are now priests, deacons, and leaders in their parishes, and tiny missions like St. Herman’s (now in Langley), are now centers for the witness of Orthodoxy. We also now have a program like the St. Tikhon Archdiocesan Stewards.

In the same way that I realized that I was apart of something much bigger then my home parish, STAS has shown that many Canadians have come to feel that way as well. Their support of the Archdiocese, above and beyond the support of their home parishes, is simply amazing, to which I thank God, and his Saints.

But to think, what could be done if STAS was to be carried by a few more members of our parishes. We could ensure a stable, and transferable administration, we could support the deans and their work of building up the Church, we could so importantly provide debt relief to our future priests and their families.

For the price of a coffee a day, these aspirations could be made real, making our witness as Orthodox Christians in Canada a source of unity, from St. Johns NL to Whitehorse YK, to Victoria BC, and points in-between. That I am as much a part of some mission, thousands of miles away, as I am in my home parish.

By the prayers of Sts. Tikhon and Arseny, and all the Saints known and unknown, who ministered in this country.

Dn. Gregory Scratch
STAS Chair person.

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