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Festival Dates on May 13, 14, 15

Bio of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral and its Greek Festivals

Saint Sophia was founded in 1904. In the early years, we held services in rented rooms in the 9th Street area of D.C., N.W. In 1924, it completed construction of its first Church building.

In 1955, the community moved to its present location at 36th Street and Mass., Ave., N.W., President Dwight D. Eisenhower laid the cornerstone of the Building.

Since that time, the Cathedral has been visited by other Presidents, the Patriarchate from Constantinople, Ambassadors and other dignitaries.

Four years ago, the community completed construction of its beautiful Educational Center.

In 1944, Saint Sophia held its first "Greek Bazaar" at the Pythian Temple on 9th Street. N.W. It then held the Bazaar at the old Uline Arena and the DC Armory.

It was the first event of its kind. All the other Greek as well as Non-Greek Churches in the area started holding annual bazaars.

In 1956, the event was moved to the Gaithersburg Fair Grounds and consisted of a one day "Picnic."

Since 1964, Saint Sophia has held annual "Festivals" at its present location. It first featured Authentic Greek food and pastries in its indoor auditorium.

In 1973, the Festival expanded to use its outdoor grounds. A Large tent and several smaller tents offered
arts and crafts vendors and grilled foods.

In 1990, its then and current Chairman, James G. Charles, Esquire, dramatically expanded the affair to
include a huge 100-foot tent, a wider selection of Greek food specialties and pastries, more arts and crafts vendors, youth activities and increased publicity and promotion.

Saint Sophia Greek Festivals have become the most popular ethnic and cultural events in the greater
Washington Metropolitan area.

If you have further questions please visit our web site at www.saintsophiawashington.org or call Mr. James Charles at 202-255-5516 or Pete Panagiotopoulos at the Cathedral office at 202-333-4730

U.S. Navy Chaplains Give Priest Accolades

Akron raised Navy Chaplain Captain William J. Bartz was chosen to be the 2010 recipient of the John H. Craven Servant Leadership award: http://www.ohio.com/news/116044944.html

NEW YORK - Ionian Village Family Camp, a collaboration of the offices of Ionian Village and the Center for Family Care of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, is currently accepting registrations for its inaugural Family Camp to be held July 17-26, 2010.


Families who participate in Ionian Village travel across Greece venerate the relics of saints, walk in the footsteps of the Apostles, and visit significant sites of Greek history and culture. At the end of the program, families return to their homes with strengthened faith and a greater appreciation for the Church and Greek culture.


Participants are encouraged to take advantage of new early registration fees, discounts for large families, and children under 12. To qualify for the early registration, participants must register online by March 31, 2010 .

For more information about the program or to register for Summer Camp 2010 visit www.ionianvillage.org or contact the Ionian Village Family Camp at 845.424.8175 or the Center for Family Care at familycare@goarch.org .

NEW YORK - The video presentation of "Pascha: The Resurrection of Christ," a program highlighting Orthodox Christian Pascha, or Easter, will broadcast on NBC affiliates nationwide this April. The program, produced by Greek Orthodox Telecommunications and sponsored by FAITH: An Endowment for Orthodoxy and Hellenism, highlights Holy and Great Week, focusing on the deeply moving and ancient services that recount the Gospel narrative leading to the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Archbishop Demetrios of America leads a procession of the faithful around the church and outside where, following the reading of the Gospel of the Resurrection, they proclaim the joyous hymn "Christ is Risen!"

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is working with affiliates nationwide, urging them to broadcast the program within their local area. Broadcast information will be posted as soon as it becomes available from affiliates. Below you will find a listing of NBC affiliates by state. Please check the listing for exact date, time and station. Please contact the Department of Communications if you need assistance. You may also contact the Program Manager locally to request coverage.

For more information on coverage please log on to www.goarch.org/special/paschatv

Archpastoral Reflections - February 2010

In our previous reflections, we have focused on the theme "Gather My People to My Home," as it relates to our calling to reach out to all people and invite them to come and see the power and beauty of faith and experience the love of God within our communities. As we have examined, this calling is to reach out to those wh o have become disassociated from their Orthodox faith, to the unchurched, and to others who are struggling to find answers to the questions of life. Another group of people that we need to engage with the truth and love of the Gospel consists of those who openly profess that they do not believe in God. An initial response to people in this group may be to avoid them altogether or to dismiss their claims. In either case, however, we are facing a real challenge. How do we meet this challenge and provide a faithful and loving witness to those who deny the existence of God?

First, we have to ask if such a position can be a firm one. The goal here is not to enter into great philosophical disputes over the existence of God. While this has its place in applying intellectual principles to the question, such exercises are often far removed from the realities of our human condition and needs. Our approach in gathering people to t he Church should be from our own experience of the divine, the transforming presence of Christ in our lives, and the strength, joy and peace we find in communion with Him and one another. We also need to recognize that statements of disbelief often mask deep struggles and insecurities, tremendous questions about the purpose and meaning of life, or even challenging experiences of the past.

When we have this awareness of the underlying issues that may have led someone to express disbelief in God, we can equip ourselves for a ministry of compassion that is a witness of God's love. Souls in this state probably will not find Christ through arguments over truth and faith. The proof of God's existence will be love. This is the love that our Lord revealed and taught. This love, Christ's love that is in us, is revealed when we are ready and willing to reach out to anyone in need. For a brother or sister in Christ, we may act with no he sitation. Our challenge and our calling is to give to and love those who deny the existence of God. This represents true faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring truth and grace into the life of any person.

Second, in our ministry of compassion and witness of faith to those who do not believe in God, we need to be confident in our own faith and relationship with Him. In the face of adversity this can be challenging. But we have to be strong, even bold. This is not a boldness that is directed at another person in hostility, but it is the characteristic fruits of the Holy Spirit, i.e., love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the attributes that should also characterize our relationships with those who do not believe in God. Through our bold and constant witness of faith and love in friendship and in response to crisis or needs, the souls of those who deny t he existence of God may be illumined with the light of truth.

A third aspect of our calling to gather unbelievers into God's home is that this is a ministry of prayer and patience. Regular prayer for those who deny the existence of God is necessary as we seek His guidance and as we keep our hearts and minds prepared for every opportunity to show His love. He will hear our petitions for the soul of another and will ensure that a witness of His presence and love will be revealed. Our life of prayer will also nurture patience. Souls filled with disbelief are not always brought to faith through miraculous events. For many it is the careful nurturing through our witness that will lead a person to abandon his or her denial and open their heart to the mercy and blessings of God.

Our efforts to bring unbelievers to God are decisively facilitated by the display of our unity as believers and as community. Our Lord prayed that t he believers may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You; that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent me (John 17:21). We are bound together in Christ, brothers and sisters of faith, gathering to God's home, to worship Him, receive His grace, and proclaim the Gospel of salvation. All of this unites us in a beautiful and blessed way. In our witness to all, and especially to unbelievers, it is our unity of love and mission that will affirm the presence and power of God. As parishes of love and faith, we live and serve in this world as the embodiment of true communities that reveal the peace and unity of the kingdom of God.

May our good and gracious God make us worthy to be strong witnesses to unbelievers, and lovingly lead them to Him and to the ineffable joy of life and truth granted by Him.

With paternal love in Christ,

†DEMETRIOS Archbishop of America

AN EXPOSITION OF THE GREEK ORTHODOX FAITH

(5 Weeks - 10 Sessions)

Mondays and Wednesdays 7:30 P.M. until 9:30 P.M.

Beginning Monday February 1^st and ending Wednesday, March 3, 2010

We greet the beginning of this new year and the end of the first decade of the new millennium in the grace and strength of our Lord. The coming of the New Year is always accompanied by a variety of emotions and concerns, as well as goals and plans. It is a time for reflecting on the past and anticipating what the year may bring. As we look back and forward in our thoughts, it is essential that we be mindful of the centrality of Christ and our spiritual well-being in all that we do. For reflection and anticipation are both characteristics of our lives as Orthodox Christians.

NEW YORK - His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians who constitute the second largest Christian Church in the world, was featured on the CBS News program 60 Minutes broadcast last evening throughout the United States, and globally on the Internet at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Archbishop Demetrios of America, The First Decade 1999-2009"

NEW YORK - A new book entitled "Archbishop Demetrios of America, The First Decade 1999-2009" will be presented to the public Thursday Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cathedral Center of the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Manhattan.

As we gather together again with family and friends on this day of Thanksgiving, we offer our gratitude to God for His abundant grace and assuring presence which fill our hearts with joy and bring meaning and salvation to our lives.

Encyclical of Archbishop Demetrios for the Feast of the Holy Unmercenaries - November 1, 2009

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Presides Over Ninth Annual Prayer Service for the U.N. Community

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's Visit to the United States

As we come again to the changing of the Church year, we reflect once more on the state of God's creation. We think about the past and repent for all that we have done or failed to do for the earth's care; we look to the future and pray for wisdom to guide us in all that we think or do.

These last twelve months have been a time of great uncertainty for the whole world. The financial systems that so many people trusted to bring them the good things of life, have brought instead fear, uncertainty and poverty. Our globalised economy has meant that everyone - even the poorest who are far removed from the dealings of big business - has been affected.

The present crisis offers an opportunity for us to deal with the problems in a different way, because the methods that created these problems cannot provide their best solution. We need to bring love into all our dealings, the love that inspires courage and compassion. Human progress is not just the accumulation of wealth and the thoughtless consumption of the earth's resources. The way that the present crisis has been dealt with has revealed the values of the few who are shaping the destiny of our society; of those who can find vast sums of money to support the financial system that has betrayed them, but are not willing to allot even the least portion of that money to remedy the piteous state the creation has been reduced to because of these very values, or for feeding the hungry of the world, or for securing safe drinking water for the thirsty, who are also victims of those values. On the face of every hungry child is written a question for us, and we must not turn away to avoid the answer. Why has this happened? Is it a problem of human inability or of human will?

We have rendered the Market the centre of our interest, our activities and, finally, of our life, forgetting that this choice of ours will affect the lives of future generations, limiting the number of their choices that would probably be more oriented towards the well-being of man as well as the creation. Our human economy, which has made us consumers, is failing. The divine economy, which has made us in the image of the loving Creator, calls us to love and care for all creation. The image we have of ourselves is reflected in the way we treat the creation. If we believe that we are no more than consumers, then we shall seek fulfilment in consuming the whole earth; but if we believe we are made in the image of God, we shall act with care and compassion, striving to become what we are created to be.

Let us pray for God's blessing on the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, so that the industrially developed countries may co-operate with developing countries in reducing harmful polluting emissions, that there may exist the will to raise and manage wisely the funds required for the necessary measures, and that all may work together to ensure that our children enjoy the goods of the earth that we leave behind for them. There must be justice and love in all aspects of economic activity; profit - and especially short-term profit - cannot and should not be the sole motive of our actions.

Let us all renew our commitment to work together and bring about the changes we pray for, to reject everything that is harming the creation, to alter the way we think and thus drastically to alter the way we live.

Beginning of the Ecclesiastical New Year
Day for the Protection of our Natural Environment:

To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America.

OCN (The Orthodox Christian Network) and Icon New Media join forces to create larger media network.

On July 28, 2009, Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry, the official prison ministry of SCOBA, the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, convened its first convocation for Orthodox prison workers in Denver, Colorado.

NEW YORK – The Seventh Inter-Orthodox Young Adult Retreat, will take place September 25-27, 2009

NEW YORK - Ionian Village, the travel abroad camping program of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has begun another summer in its camp facility in Greece, promising to continue the tradition as one of the strongest and most exciting youth ministry programs of the Archdiocese.

Archbishop Demetrios of America with Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago and the group of the Oratorical Festival participants

Archbishop Demetrios of America was born Demetrios Trakatellis in Thessaloniki, Greece on February 1, 1928. In 1950 he graduated with distinction from the University of Athens School of Theology.  In 1960 he was ordained a deacon and in 1964, a priest.

Ft Lauderdale, FL - OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship) is pleased to announce another Real Break trip to Constantinople. Real Break Constantinople serves God and other people while participating in the life of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 

On February 18, 2009, the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Holy Archdiocese of America convened in a Special Session, in its capacity as Spiritual Court of Second Instance in order to review the case of the Very Reverend Archimandrite Gabriel Karambis.

NEW YORK – The President of Fordham University, Fr. Joseph M. McShane, S.J. announced Tuesday Feb. 17, a Jaharis Family Foundation gift establishing the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture as part of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program of this renowned Roman-Catholic Jesuit University.

The Department of Youth and Young Adult Ministries announced the National Young Adult Pilgrimage to Russia, April 24-May 2, 2009.

Archbishop Demetrios of America has appointed the Rev. Deacon Jason C. Roll as the new Camp Director for Ionian Village....

NEW YORK – The Office of Greek Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America will honor and celebrate the Feast of the Three Hierarchs as the Day of Greek Letters and as it has done in the past, will hold a series of events, Jan. 30-31 as follows:

The early spring wind carries an inviting scent of Mediterranean spices and incense into the neighborhood surrounding St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, telling of the luncheon to follow the Sunday service. It's the morning before Great Lent, which Orthodox believers celebrate a week later than other Christians, and the parking lot is packed.
Latecomers buy candles, cross themselves and kiss the icons.
The ushers wait for the Rev. John Tavlarides to break his chanted dialogue with the choir – as the Orthodox service goes - and let the worshippers join in.

Saint Sophia in Washington, DC serves as the Greek Orthodox national cathedral, and its history illustrates the development of the church in the United States. The celebration of the cathedral's 100th anniversary and the consecration of its magnificent new education building in 2004 are soon to be followed by the recognition of its priest's remarkable 50-year tenure at Saint Sophia.

In Little-Changing Greek Orthodox Church, a Celebration of a Cathedral's Centennial.
2004 is but a blip on the timeline of Orthodox Christianity, which traces its beginnings to the apostles, its unification to the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century and its liturgy to St. John Chrysostom 200 years later. As it happens, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Washington area's oldest Orthodox congregation, St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Northwest Washington.