Study Weekend on Prophecy

Join a study weekend on the theme of Prophecy: Amos, Hosea and Micah. This will be held at the Parish of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Bristol, 7-9 February. This will conclude with the Divine Liturgy and lunch on Sunday, and will be followed by a youth event to celebrate World Orthodox Youth Day.

Sign up for £40 including main meals on Eventbrite. You will need to book your own accommodation.

  • Friday 7 February: 19:00 Evening meal; 20:00 introductory talk; 21:00 Little Compline
  • Saturday 8 February: 10:00 3rd Hour, 6th Hour, Typika; 10:45 tea/coffee; 11:15 Hosea; 12:30 lunch; 13:30 Amos; 14:45 tea/coffee; 15:15 Micah; 16:30 break; 17:30 Vespers; 18:30 evening meal
  • Sunday 9 February: 10:30 Divine Liturgy; 12:00 lunch; 13:00 youth gathering

Sign up for the youth gathering separately.

Metropolitan Kallistos 1934-2022

Metropolitan Kallistos, President and founder of the Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist died peacefully in the early hours of 24 August 2022, having earlier received the Holy Mysteries. His support for the Fellowship, for its associated activities such as the Youth Festival and Mosaic Choir, was generous and unstinting.

A memorial service will be held at the forthcoming summer conference in Walsingham 25-29 August, where Metropolitan Kallistos is pictured below, preaching during our 2015 conference on pilgrimage in the same place.

Memory Eternal! Christ is Risen!

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia preaching in the Church of the Transfiguration, Great Walsingham

Summer conference – booking open!

Booking is now open for the OFSJB conference on Angelic Beings. 25-29 August 2022 in Walsingham, Norfolk UK. Please register as soon as you can, places are limited! This is our first in-person conference in 3 years.

As well as talks, services and time to socialise, there will also be time to explore Walsingham and the surrounding area. We will celebrate the Divine Liturgy twice, on Sunday and for the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist on Monday.

We are happy to announce our main speaker, Father Stephen De Young from the Parish of the Archangel Gabriel, in Lafayette, Louisiana in the United States. Father Stephen is well-known for his podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio, the Whole Counsel of God, and the Lord of Spirits podcast with Father Andrew Stephen Damick. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary, a Master of Arts from the University of Balamand, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University.

We will also welcome Tamara Penwell from the Parish of St John of Kronstadt in Bath. Tamara is an experienced iconographer.

Fees: Full adult fee £315; OFSJB member £280; child 5-16 £120; child under 5 free. Attendees are asked to declare if they are willing to share rooms in the accommodation of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. If you have any concerns about the fees, please email the Chair, Margaret Haig to discuss how the Fellowship can help you attend financially.

The timetable will be confirmed in due course, but we will assemble in the afternoon of Thursday 25 August and depart after the Divine Liturgy on Monday 29 August.

Sign up now!

Summer Series – it’s back!

Following successful virtual visits last summer and winter, the Fellowship is delighted to announce:

Summer Series: Through the Prayers of Our Holy Fathers and Mothers

Come and listen to talks about these wonderful saints and witnesses who can teach us so much in living the faith in the modern world. Come and see!

Taking place every Monday, 19 July-23 August, 19:00-20:30 BST (London, UK) on Zoom.

  • 19 July: Dr Razvan Porumb, speaking on Fr Nicolae Steinhardt – recording
  • 26 July: Sister Magdalen, speaking on St Silouan and St Sophrony – this session was not recorded
  • 2 August: Subdeacon Ian Randall, speaking on St Maria of Paris – recording
  • 9 August: Dr Elena Sadovnikova, speaking on Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh – recording coming soon
  • 16 August: Dr Alexei Tsvelik, speaking on Fr Alexander Men – recording
  • 23 August: Dr Evi Voulgaraki-Pissina: St Porphyrios and Mother Gavrilia – recording

Sign up here whether you want to attend one or all of the series. See you there!

You can download the poster below to further advertise with your parish and community. Right mouse click on the jpeg image and ‘save image as’ or download the pdf file.

International Conference on Orthodox Church Music

Our friends at the International Society for Orthodox Church Music have published the programme for the ninth international conference being held in Joensuu, Finland – Church Music and Topography: City, Village, and Monastery

Academics and practitioners from a wide variety of musical disciplines attend and give papers on their latest research. Even if you are not a specialist, you can learn an enormous amount about musical traditions from the presentations from across the Orthodox world and beyond.

Joensuu is a wonderful place, a town where everything is in walking distance, with two Orthodox Churches, a seminary and a university teaching theology from both the Orthodox and Lutheran traditions, with Valamo/New Valaam and Lintula (pictured) monasteries close by. It is well worth a visit in person, but in these uncertain times, the conference organisers have also made it possible to participate virtually! Online attendance can be booked until 31 May, 40EUR for ISOCM members, 60EUR for non-members.

Why not attend virtually and think about attending in person in two years’ time?

More opportunities to learn about the faith…

The Women’s Ministries Initiative has teamed up with the Centre for Applied Theology to run a monthly series of events January-June 2021 on Living Christianity Today – Loving Christianity Today. These sessions will be on Zoom and a link is on the WMI events page.

This year’s OFSJB Study Weekend has been moved online, so more of you can attend! It will be hosted by the Parish of St John the Theologian in Cambridge. This is a wonderful opportunity to dive into the Psalms in depth and find out why they are so important. There will be prayers and a chance to meet the Orthodox communities in Cambridge, as well as the talks set out below. An Eventbrite link will be available very soon to register – keep a look out!

  • Friday 26 February: Fr Ian Graham, Introduction to the Book of Psalms
  • Saturday 27 February: Fr Raphael Armour, The Psalms in liturgical life
  • Saturday 27 February: Dr Elizabeth Theokritoff, ‘The Lord has sent deliverance to His people’: reading Christ’s work through the Psalms
  • Saturday 27 February: Fr Maximos Constas, Praying the Psalms in monastic life, and the commentaries of Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

A Facebook Event has been created and an Eventbrite link will be available very soon to register – keep a look out!

Behold now, what is so good or so joyous as for brethren to dwell together in unity?

Psalm 132:1

Lebanon and the monastic revival

In our final virtual visit, this week we will be considering the monastic revival in Lebanon in two locations, Kaftoun and Hamatoura. Our guide will be Amal Morcos who wrote her Master’s Thesis on the revival of monasticism in the Church of Antioch.

Thursday 3 September, 19:00 BST (7pm UK time).*

Register for Zoom details (if you have not done so already) on our dedicated web page, which also has links to the recordings of previous sessions.

Come and See!

* Time zones: For those joining from the US: 2pm EDT; 1pm CDT; 12pm MDT; 11am PDT. Check out the time zone converter if you need it.

Monasticism in the New World!

In this week’s virtual visit, we will be guided around Transfiguration Monastery, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, USA. And even though it will be geographically placed in the New World, there are links back to Europe. Well-known in the US, the monastery deserves to be better known in the UK! Mother Seraphima, choir director at the monastery, will be our guide.

Come and join us on Thursday 27 August, 19:00 BST (7pm UK time)!*

Register for Zoom details (if you have not done so already) on our dedicated web page, which also has links to the recordings of previous sessions.

* Time zones: For those joining from the US: 2pm EDT; 1pm CDT; 12pm MDT; 11am PDT. Check out the time zone converter if you need it.

Autumn colours at Transfiguration Monastery

What are you up to on Thursday?

This is a reminder that we are in the middle of our six virtual visits to monasteries around the world, taking place on Zoom each Thursday evening at 19:00 (7pm UK time).

To get the login details if you have not done so already, please register on our dedicated page. You will also find links to recordings of the sessions there (some have been edited).

We still have some great places to visit:

  • 13 August: Putna Monastery, Romania
  • 20 August: Optina Monastery, Russia
  • 27 August: Transfiguration Monastery, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, USA
  • 3 September: Kaftoun and Hamatoura Monasteries, Lebanon

Come and see!

Photo by Geboiu Dumitru Mihai, used under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA

Online series on monasteries

Since we have not been able to hold our usual summer conference, the Fellowship committee have planned a six week series of presentations about different monasteries around the world. We are so excited to share the history, spiritual life and the work of these wonderful, holy places!

These will be held on Thursday evenings at 19:00 BST (London time), 30 July-3 September on Zoom, and if you can’t make the date for any reason, we hope to eventually make recordings available on the website.

If you would like to attend these sessions, please register on our dedicated page. Come and see!

And don’t forget that we also have a page with other resources, including spiritual talks and live streamed services.