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Sunday E-Bulletin of St. Gregory the Illuminator
Armenian Apostolic Church of Granite City


Sunday, March 12th, 2023

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent

DURING GREAT LENT
Sunrise Hour Service: 9:45 am
Badarak: 10:15 am
St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church
1014 W. Pontoon Road, Granite City, IL 62040
(618) 451-7884

stgregorychurchgranitecity@gmail.com


Rev. Fr. Taniel Manjikian, Pastor
Cell Phone: (617) 599-8277
Email:
manjigianbedros@gmail.com


Please click here to receive an invitation for you 
and your child/children to participate!


Virtual Morning Services & Badarak from our parish and parishes
across the Eastern Prelacy can be found
here!
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Weekly Lenten Services at 6:00 pm beginning Friday, Feb. 24th and continuing every Friday through
March 31st. Please join us!
SAVE THE DATES

Friday night weekly Lenten Services 6:00 pm
Feb. 24th - March 31st


March 26, 2023 - Annual Church Membership Meeting

April 1, 2023 - Lazarus Saturday - Church Clean up
sponsored by the Fellowship Club and Holy Seraphim Choir 
Spring Retreat for Holy Seraphim Choir: 10:30- ??
(Holy Week Music Review)
All volunteers welcome

April 2, 2023 - Palm Sunday
ARS Anniversary Luncheon 

April 4 - 8 - Holy Week Services - Details coming soon

April 9, 2023 - Easter Services
Ladies Guild Easter Choreg Sale


April 23, 2023 - Joint Commemoration of the Armenian Saints
Badarak at Holy Virgin Mary & Shoghagat Armenian Church
with reception following

 

Over 45,000 fatalities reported so far from the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the region of Cilicia and northern Syria, with epicenter in the province of Gaziantep (Aintab), in southern Turkey, on early Monday, February 6.

Following the devastating earthquake, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I has remained in constant contact with the spiritual and lay leadership of the Armenian community in Syria to closely monitor the aftermath. According to the latest update, the Armenian community in Aleppo had four victims. It also bore the most substantial structural damage, including the historical church of Forty Martyrs, while Latakia and Kessab suffered relatively mild damage. 

The local Armenian leadership has set up seven shelters for those in need to find refuge. The Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia has allocated financial assistance to procure food for the sheltered families. 

His Holiness Aram I has also sent a letter of condolences to the president of Syria Bashar al Assad and expressed his solidarity with its citizens.  

According to the report of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, a couple from the Armenian community of Malatya perished amid the collapse of their home and the church of Forty Martyrs in Iskenderun also suffered damages. 

PRAYER REQUESTS

Armenians of Artskakh 
All those affected by the Syrian/Turkish Earthquake 

Requested by: Pastor and Board of Trustees

Pam Asadorian, Takouhie Kakligian
Requested by: Raffi Ovian

Stephanie Hagopian
Requested by: Steve and Susie Hagopian

REQUIEM REQUESTS

Der Vartan Kassabian, Richard McClintock
Requested by: Keeney and Asadorian Families 

Der Vartan Kassabian
Requested by Yeretsgin Pauline Kassabian


Carol Chambers (40 Days)
Requested by: Asadorian and McCoy Families

NOTE FROM THE PRELACY:

FOUR ARTSAKH MARTYRS' CHILDREN NEED SPONSORS

We are looking forward to new sponsors taking care of the four orphans left in the current waiting list of the St. Nerses the Great Organization in Yerevan who are children of heroes from the Artsakh war. 

We have 415 individual and institutional sponsors from the United States, Canada, France, and Armenia who have taken care of 1,447 minors and university students currently enrolled in our Orphan Sponsorship Program, administered by the Prelacy through the St. Nerses the Great Organization of Armenia. The overwhelming majority of sponsors come from 26 states of the United States. Since 1993, a total of 3,601 orphans in Armenia and Artsakh have been sponsored.  
    
We are grateful to all the sponsors who support our efforts with an annual contribution of $250 per child, as well as with additional amounts as special gifts. The contribution brings much needed relief to the financial burdens of the recipients and their families, and also boosts their morale.    
 
Children from the waiting list are admitted into the Orphan Sponsorship program only when a sponsor is secured for them. They remain a beneficiary until the age of 18 or longer (if they decide to pursue higher education in a university of their choice). Sponsored children are not dropped from the program even if their sponsors cannot continue their initial commitment, submit their payment late, or have to skip a year of their contribution for any reason. They continue receiving their bi-monthly stipend on a regular basis until another sponsor is secured for them or they reach the age of 18. This is possible thanks to our program’s General Fund, which consists of one-time donations, in-lieu-of-flowers donations, and the incredible generosity of some of our sponsors.   
    
If you cannot make a long-time commitment but would like to contribute to the Orphans General Fund, please visit https://armenianprelacy.org/programs/orphans-fund/ and choose the option “Other” for your tax-exempt charitable donation to the program.  
    
You can always contact the Prelacy by email (sophie@armenianprelacy.org) or telephone (212-689-7810) for the sponsorship of both minors and university students. It is also possible to make donations of shares or IRA contributions.  

Click here for online sponsorship of minors up to the age of 18.

Click here for online sponsorship of orphans who become students at a higher education institution upon turning 18.

Bible readings for Sunday, March 12, Fourth Sunday of Great Lent, Sunday of the Steward, are: Isaiah 56:1-57:21; Ephesians 4:17-5:14; Luke 16:1-31. 

Ephesians 4:17-5:14

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant and sacrifice to God. But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints. Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be associated with them. For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light—for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”   

***

Luke 16:1-31 

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” 

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. 

“The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped. 

“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. 

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” 

Please reach out to our NRA Delegates, Janet Haroian or Andy Asadorian to purchase the NRA Raffle Tickets! 
Just a reminder that all prayer and requiem requests must be submitted via the church email by Thursday noon in order to be included in the weekly E-bulletin.
Thank you.
Join us for the coffee hour sponsored by the Board of Trustees. 

If anyone wishes to host a future Fellowship hour, please notify Takouhie Kakligian via the church email.
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