The Fellowship is delighted to announce that we will be holding another series of Virtual Visits this winter, this time to Saints and Holy Places. We hope that the current restrictions will feel a bit lighter when you can attend these talks, find out about inspiring saints and places of pilgrimage, and ask questions of our great speakers!
30 November: St Nicholas and Bari, Italy – Fr Stephen Platt
7 December: St Spyridon and Corfu, Greece – Fr Themistoklis Mourtzanos
14 December: St Herman of Alaska and Spruce Island, USA – Dr S. A. Mousalimas
21 December: the Nativity of Christ and Bethlehem, Holy Land – Dan Koski
28 December: the Mother of God and Walsingham, UK – Mother Melangell
4 January: St Seraphim of Sarov and Diveyevo, Russia – Alevtina Tanu
As before, we ask you to register for details of the events using our dedicated page. See you there!
Thank you! To everyone who attended our summer series of virtual visits to monasteries; to our wonderful speakers who shared their experiences so freely; to those who generously donated; and to those who have watched the recordings of the sessions they could not attend (available here). With a top-up donation from the Fellowship, each monastery we featured will receive £425 towards their life and work.
And thank you to everyone who completed our feedback questionnaire. There was a clear wish to have some more sessions that people could join. We are currently working on the precise programme, but here is advance notice that we will be holding a winter series of virtual visits to saints and holy places. Look out for more details and registration on the website!
As we face changing restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic, please remember we have some resources collected together for you. If have something you would like us to add to the list, let us know in the comments!
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.
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.
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
Last week the Fellowship’s summer series of virtual visits to monasteries began with a session on Holy Dormition St Nicholas-St Basil Monastery in Nikolskoe, Donetsk Region in Ukraine.
This week on Thursday 6 August, join professional storyteller Anna Conomos for a visit to Annunciation Monastery, Ormylia, Greece. Discover for yourself why this place is so special by attending: register for Zoom details on our dedicated page.
If you cannot join us on the day, we hope to post a recording shortly after the session. Come and see!
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.
Fellowship activities have been affected like everyone else in this time of uncertainty. We have compiled a list of resources for your use: live streamed services, talks and sermons, other information and even events. Please take a look and we hope this will be helpful. It is not an exhaustive list so you can make suggestions for additions by emailing us.
We have limited stock remaining of our 2020 Calendar and Lectionary, now reduced to £4 per copy including postage. While you are at home, this might be a useful resource to keep up with daily readings, if you do not have other means. You can ask for a copy via the contact form on our calendar page.
We are also thinking about future Fellowship events. There will be no summer conference this year, and how we hold events over the next months and years may need to be different. For example, our popular annual Youth Festival was due to be the usual residential event at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex, the place where St Cedd built a monastery. The youth committee was able to change the format to an online conference, with more people able to participate than ever: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Australia, USA, Georgia, Romania, Russia and more. It may be that the Festival and other events continue to incorporate an online element, even when we can meet in person again.
God bless you and keep you in these testing times.
God permits tribulations and adversities to befall people – even the saintly – so that they may persist in humility. But if we harden our hearts against adversities and tribulations, he also hardens these tribulations against us. On the other hand, if we accept them in humility and with a contrite heart, God will mingle tribulation with mercy.
St Isaac the Syrian
Fresco of St John the Baptist, Optina Monastery, Russia
Could you give your time to help us?For over 40 years the Fellowship has been organising conferences and publishing calendars, directories and its journal. More recently we have added the youth festival to our events. We send information to members and manage our funds in accordance with charity law. We respond to current issues in the Church and try to keep our website and social media up to date! All of these things require time, some require some skill – and we would love to have more of both on the team!
This Lent, please consider whether you could give some time to the Fellowship to help build up our strength. The more people we have, the less you might have to do! There are many opportunities. You could join the committee and help the direction of the Fellowship, or you could just take in a specific task. All help welcome!
Please contact us if you are interested in helping, either through the comments below or email OFSJBDirectory@gmail.com.
The Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist 