MOTHER’S DAY LUNCHEON AND FASHION SHOW

This is our 49th annual Mother’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show. It will take place in our Korinthias Hall on Saturday, May 10. Our theme this year is Pretty in Pink. Tula Kallas is our chairman, assisted by Mariam Arsinoos and Christina Mandanis, as Co-chairs. On this day, we name a Mother of the Year, as we honor all mothers, past and present. Reserve your seat at the Mother’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show by completing and returning the reply card which was mailed out with your invitations.

ELAINE MAKRAS NAMED WOMAN OF THE YEAR

March 25th saw our chapel packed to capacity, as His Eminence Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the occasion of the Feast of the Annunciation, also the “Name Day” of the Cathedral. He was assisted by Metropolitan Nikitas, and several clergy, and also presided over a doxology marking the anniversary of Greek Independence. Following the Divine Liturgy, a capacity crowd filled the Cathedral’s Korinthias Hall, where Elaine Makras was proclaimed 2008 Woman of the Year. Congratulations were extended by Angie Leventis, Philoptochos President, Tom Nuris, Parish Council President, Father Stephen Kyriacou, Cathedral Dean, and Consul General of Greece, Xenia Stephanidou. Following a superb luncheon of Scottish salmon, prepared by Ted Leventis and his team, Ted Laliotis, President of UHAS, introduced a power point presentation on the Parthenon Marbles.

Elaine Makras was born to John and Thalia Makras, in San Francisco. She has been a member of the Annunciation Cathedral all her life, from the time she was brought for her 40 day blessing. She is the oldest of five children, and is Godmother to Christina, Tommy, Nikolas, and Spero. Elaine has taught Sunday School at the Cathedral for many years, teaching different grades along the way. Her first Sunday School teaching experience was as an assistant to the First Grade class of the late Effie Vellis. Elaine participates in the TGI Pascha program on Good Friday and works at the Sunday School Icon booth at the Food Festival. She is a member of the Ladies Philoptochos and has volunteered in various capacities at the annual festival. In the past, she also worked with Community Link. Elaine has been a member of the Daughters of Penelope, where she has held various offices, for a number of years. She is an avid gardener, as evidenced by the beautiful rose bushes in her garden and is also a great cook. Axia! (Worthy!)

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING In the COMMUNITY STUDY

The Cathedral thanks the 160 plus individuals who have, so far, completed and returned the questionnaires, which are part of our current parish study. We wish to encourage all 825 individuals, members of the Cathedral, who were invited to participate in the study, to return your completed questionnaires, in the envelopes provided, as soon as possible. Those parishioners requiring assistance should either call the Cathedral or bring their questionnaires to church with them on Sunday, May 18. Following the Divine Liturgy that day, the questions will be translated into Greek, to enable those who are more comfortable in Greek to complete the questionnaire. The study, funded by the Cathedral’s Ladies Philoptochos, aims to develop a parish profile to assist with projecting future program, and even facilities, development. In order to make most meaningful sense of where our faithful are, with respect to the Church and our Faith, and to their programmatic and other concerns, in context, we need to hear from as many of our parishioners as possible. Once again, your participation is totally anonymous. Please feel free to answer the questions, accordingly.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY MAY 4

Members of the Cathedral, who are in good standing, are invited to participate in the Cathedral’s first Parish Assembly for 2008. The Assembly will be convened immediately following the Divine Liturgy, and will take place in the Kytherian Room (the smaller room adjacent the gym). It is scheduled to last about an hour. The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

Please note: “members” of the Cathedral are those who are contributing stewards of the parish, and who are current with respect to their financial support of the parish. “In good standing” means adherence to the tenets of the Orthodox Faith. Both are defined more fully in the Regulations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (2005), Article 18, pages 33-34.

A quorum for the purposes of enacting business is either 12 members of the Parish Council, 12 other parishioners, and the Dean of the Cathedral or, if there are fewer than 12 members of the Parish Council present, a total of 75 parishioners, plus the Dean of the Cathedral

NEW ALTAR BOY ROBES

Thanks to the efforts of Georgia Papadakis, Vicky Tsalamasidou, and Evangelia Kanakis, who donated their services, our altar boys have new robes. Eight robes, in fact, were completed in time for Palm Sunday. Fabric and all the trims for twenty robes, in fact, were purchased through the generosity of Billie Salevouris, Despina Kokalis, Pete and Voula Koutoulas, Pope Zakis, Marie Cardellini, and Pat Destein. We hope to have the remaining twelve robes sewn by summer. Thank you to all for this beautiful gesture.

YOGA AND ORTHODOXY

Yoga has become a very popular form of exercise. Coupled with other exercise, it contributes to physical and emotional wellness. This is why the holding of yoga classes at the Cathedral’s Korinthias Gym is under consideration. Although it originated in India and, thus, is rooted in Hinduism, the yoga exercises to be offered will not have anything to do with religious meditation. This having been said, the Orthodox Christian tradition treasures a practice known as hesychasm. From the term hesychia, which means “quiet” or “silent,” the practice of mental and physical askesis, developed by St. John of Sinai in his Ladder of Divine Ascent, was practiced extensively by monastics in the 14th century and was vigorously defended by St. Gregory Palamas. The affinities with yoga should not be overstated, however. We will keep you posted

FESTIVAL PLANNING UNDER WAY

This year’s Food Festival will take place on the Cathedral’s grounds Friday, September 26, Saturday, September 27, and Sunday, September 28. Plans are under way to make this year’s festival as memorable as those in the recent past, with good food and fellowship, and also as beneficial as possible to the Cathedral. The Food Festival is, after all, the Cathedral’s largest fund raiser and, as such, is vital to the support of the Cathedral’s many programs. A number of planning meetings have been held since the beginning of the year. Most recently, a meeting of Festival co-chairs was held on April 30 to work out the logistics for this year’s event, under the chairmanship of this year’s chairmen, Tula Kallas and Michael Canellos. The bottom line of the success of the Festival, of course, depends upon the people who volunteer. Therefore, the entire community is being invited to become a part of it. Please speak with Tula or Mike, and offer your time.

NEXT COMMUNITY LINK MAY 17

Please join us for the next Community Link, on Saturday, May 17. We will meet at the Cathedral for prayer at 9 a.m. and begin our visits, usually in pairs, to homebound parishioners by 10 a.m., concluding at noon. We invite you to share God’s love, and our own friendship and support to those in our community who are experiencing loneliness, isolation, hardship or illness. Many of the seniors we visit need rides to doctor appointments and to church. Would you be willing to help? If so, please contact Caroline Pappajohn, cpappajohn@yahoo.com. For the remainder of 2008, Community Link will meet on May 17, June 21, July 19, August 16, September 20, October 18, November 15, and December 20.

THE CATHEDRAL CHOIR: OUR OWN CHORUS OF ANGELS

Below is a photograph of our 2008 Choir, under the direction of Nick Tarlson, taken following the Palm Sunday Divine Liturgy. Never in the last twenty years did we see as many choir members as we did during this year’s Holy Week and Pascha services. A vital part of the services this year, under the direction of our head chanter, Nick Tzafopoulos, included Eirinaios, Panayiotis, George, Ted, Soterios, and Kostas Haralambopoulos.

ANGELS: THE HEAVENLY BODILESS POWERS

On more than one Sunday during the Great and Holy Lent, we read from the Letter to the Hebrews, specifically chapters 1 and 2, which have to do with angels. What are angels? Do they really exist? This has been the study of our Sunday morning class, An Introduction to the Orthodox Church, led by Alexander Kozåk. On the fourth Sunday during Lent, the text used was by St. John of Damascus. (St. John of Damasus is the one who clarified the veneration due to icons, the subject of the Seventh and, for us Orthodox, the last Ecumenical Council.) Here is what St. John of Damascus says about angels: “He [God] is Himself the maker and creator of the angels, for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire. In the words of the divine David, ‘He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.’ …An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with free will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature… The angel’s nature is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free will, changeable in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is uncreated is unchangeable. Also, all that is rational is endowed with free will… They are secondary intelligent lights derived from that first light which is without beginning, for they have the power of illumination. They have no need of tongue or hearing, but, without uttering words, they communicate to each other their own thoughts and counsels. Through the Word, therefore, all the angels were created, and through the sanctification by the Holy Spirit were they brought to perfection, sharing each in proportion to his worth and rank in brightness and grace. They are circumscribed. For, when they are in Heaven, they are not on the earth, and when they are sent by God down to the earth, they do not remain in the Heaven. …Further, apart from their essence, they receive the sanctification from the Spirit. Through divine grace they prophesy. They have no need of marriage, for they are immortal. Seeing that they are minds, they are in mental places, and are not circumscribed after the fashion of the body. For they have not a bodily form by nature, nor are they tended in three dimensions. But to whatever post they may be assigned, there they are present after the manner of a mind and energize, and cannot be present and energize in various places at the same time. Whether they are equals in essence of differ from one another, we know not. God, their Creator, who knows all things, alone knows. But they differ from each other in brightness and position, whether it is that their position is dependent on their brightness, or their brightness on their position, and they impart brightness to one another, because they excel one another in rank and nature. …They govern all our affairs and bring us assistance. And the reason surely is because they are set over us by the divine will and command, and are ever in the vicinity of God. With difficulty they are moved to evil, yet they are not absolutely immovable. But now they are altogether immovable, not by nature, but by grace and by their nearness to the only God. They behold God according to their capacity, and this is their food. They are above us, for they are incorporeal, and are free of all bodily passion, yet are not passionless: for the Deity alone is passionless…Moreover, as that most holy and sacred and gifted theologian, Dionysios the Areopagite, says, ‘All theology, that is to say, the Holy Scripture, has nine different names for the heavenly essences.’ These essences that divine master in sacred things divides into three groups, each containing three. And the first group, he says, consists of those who are in God’s presence and are said to be directly and immediately one with Him, viz. the Seraphim with their six wings, the manyeyed Cherubim, and Those that sit in the holiest thrones. The second group is that of the Dominions and the Powers and the Authorities. And the third, and last, is that of the Rulers and Archangels and Angels. Some, indeed, like Gregory the Theologian, say that these were before the creation of other things. He thinks that the angelic and heavenly powers were first, and that thought was their function. Others, again, hold that they were created after the first heaven was made. But all are agreed that it was before the foundation of man. For myself, I am in harmony with the Theologian. For it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first created, and then that which can be perceived, and, finally, man himself, in whose being both part are united. But those who say that the angels are creators of any kind of essence whatever are the mouth of their father, the devil. For, since they are created things, they are not creators. But He Who crates and provides for and maintains all things is God, Who alone is uncreated and is praised and glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

From his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 2, Chapter 3.

HUMANITIES WEST INVITES YOU TO ATHENS IN THE GOLDEN AGE, THE TIME OF PERICLES

All events will take place at the Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3. On Friday, May 2, 8 p.m. to 10:15 p.m., the keynote address will be offered by Josiah Ober (Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Professor in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis and Professor of Political Science and Classics, Stanford University. Professor Ober will speak on Democracy, Innovation and Learning. On Saturday, May 3, beginning at 10 a.m., a number of lectures will be offered, including The Akropolis and its Impact by Margaret Miles (Professor of Art History, Classics and Visual Studies, UCIrvine); The Politics of War, Empire, and Freedom in Democratic Athens by Kurt A. Raaflaub (David Herlihny University Professor, Professor of Classics and History and Chair of Ancient Studies, Brown University); and Greece and Persia: A Clash of Cultures? By Erich Gruen (Emeritus Professor of the Graduate School—Wood Professor, UC Berkeley). Tickets are on sale at the City Box Office, at 415 392-4400 or www.cityboxoffice. com.

TO BOOK A COFFEE HOUR

Forever, it seems, the coffee hour was being coordinated by the late Effie Vellis and her husband, Andrew Vellis, to benefit the Sunday School. To sponsor a coffee hour, people called Effie and she took care of everything. Now that Effie is asleep in the Lord, the coffee hour is being coordinated by Andrew Vellis (thank you, Andy, ke perastika), Mike Canellos, Bonnie Grampsas, Paula Kitses, and with the ongoing assistance of Angelus and Chris Karas. People are not quite sure how to sponsor a coffee hour. Simply, call the Cathedral office, at 415 864- 8000. If one prefers to do so in person, Mike Canellos can be approached during the coffee hour and asked about sponsorship. Sponsoring the coffee hour is a wonderful thing to do, in honor of someone’s birthday or anniversary (or other occasion), or in memory of a loved one. Your sponsorship continues to benefit the Sunday School. In the end, it helps our children.

Sacraments & Services

B A P T I S M S
Danait, daughter of Musie Temelso and Azieb Afework, was baptized at the Cathedral March 30. Her sponsor is Winta Yemane

Haralambos, son of Roy G. Sonne and Minetta Switton, was baptized at the Cathedral April 26. His sponsor is Michael Vriheas.

C H R I S M A T I O N
Erin Elizabeth Peterson was received into the Orthodox Faith through the Sacrament of Holy Chrismation on April 26. Her sponsor is Caroline Pappajohn. Na mas zisoun! (Long life!)

F U N E R A L
Alexander Argendeli, who fell asleep in the Lord on March 17, was buried March 28. He is survived by his niece, Beverly Meyer, and his children Gregory and Janene.

The Cathedral extends condolences and prayers to the Paponis family upon the falling asleep in the Lord of Marguerette S. Paponis.

Aionia I Mnimi! (Eternal memory!)

May 2008 Herald
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral.