St Haralambos Greek Orthodox Parish Templestowe and Doncaster

09/09/2026

https://youtu.be/rmVh-kmKyb0?si=wJQ865DyAbDtZCtv

Orthodox SoundAcoustic Wisdom of Orthodox Saints and Holy Fathers...

07/09/2026

Με ιδιαίτερη λαμπρότητα και κατάνυξη τελέστηκε το εσπέρας της Δευτέρας, 7 Σεπτεμβρίου, ο Μέγας Πανηγυρικός Αρχιερατικός Εσπερινός επί τη μεγάλη...

07/09/2026

Join us for fellowship group on Tuesday 8 September, 7-8.30pm in the lower hall.
Bible studies runs 6-7pm every Tuesday also. Come for one or both!

31/08/2026

CAKES • BOOKS • PLANTS
This Sunday we will have a Father's Day Stall selling delicious sweets, Orthodox books and plants! So come and get something for your Dad/Παππού or yourself and support our Parish fundraising efforts.
🍰📚🪴🎁

31/08/2026

{ FEAST DAY OF PANAGIA GORGOEPIKOOS MONASTERY }

31/08/2026

30/08/2026

GO TEEN TEMPLESTOWE - Saturday 5 September, 3.30-5pm
Join us as we learn about the saint who helps us find things! Come for discussion and to learn the Orthodox tradition of baking Fanouropita!
All highschoolers welcome!

28/08/2026

⬇️ English transcript below. By popular demand, and with gratitude to His Eminence, we share an English translation of Archbishop Makarios’s tribute to the late Fr Elias Kentrotis on Sunday 23/8/2026.

———

The reason I am here among you today is not only to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. You know that the Holy Archdiocese has 300 parishes. I could have gone to other parishes, celebrated the Liturgy and spent the Sunday there. I could have remained at the headquarters of the Archdiocese, which is in Sydney, and not needed to travel to Melbourne, or I could have stayed in Adelaide, where I was yesterday afternoon, celebrated the Liturgy there and spent more time with the people of South Australia.

But I felt the need, a heartfelt need, a sense of duty, to come here today to celebrate the Liturgy. Why? So that we might remember someone very dear to us and hold the memorial service in memory of this person who, as you all know, is the late Father Elias, beloved by us all.

This blessed Levite, who offered so very much to the Holy Archdiocese of Australia generally, particularly here in the Melbourne area, and more specifically to this parish.

Father Elias truly was a very blessed person. He was, as we say in Scripture, “set apart from his mother’s womb.” What does this mean? That God chose him and said: I want you to be my own soldier. I want you to be my clergyman. I am taking you, and I will use you as an instrument of the Holy Spirit.

And this is precisely what happened with Father Elias, who from a young age showed that he had a calling to the priesthood and loved Christ and the Church.
He had many blessings in his life. He was born and raised in Queensland. He was born here. He was among the first clergy we had who were bilingual and knew both Greek and English very well.

The Archdiocese sent him to the Theological School of Thessaloniki to study theology. At that time, we did not have our own Theological College, as we do now, and so whenever we wanted to provide a clergyman with further education, we would send him to the motherland, Greece, to study. And so Father Elias found himself in Greece, where he studied the sacred science, and there he was ordained at the Holy Monastery of Vlatadon, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Afterwards, he came here and ministered throughout the wider region.

I can say that he began, and here brought to completion, two large parish churches. One is the Presentation of Our Lord, which you know, and the other church, the other parish, is here, St Haralambos. We can say that Father Elias is the founder of this parish and this church.

Because a parish is one thing. There are parishes that do not have churches and make use of one place or another, or worship in other premises. It is one thing to establish a parish, which is important and significant for our Church, and another thing also to build churches. Father Elias did both, and for this we are grateful.

But I will not stop there.

Father Elias was poor, in the sense described in today’s Gospel. Why? Because he was not attached to material possessions. He had an ease about him, he had a freedom. He knew how to handle what we today call “material wealth,” and by that I do not mean only money. Anything that keeps you bound to this earth, anything that keeps you bound to this world, to this false and fleeting age, had lost its hold over Father Elias. All these things had been stripped of their power over him.

Let me tell you something else about Father Elias that I witnessed personally. Even health, which is the most precious of human goods, can itself become a kind of wealth. You see, we all say, “May we have our health,” and we place such emphasis on health. No one says, “May we have Christ.” Everyone says, “May we have our health,” and we Greeks even do something, I do not know whether it is right, but I will say it. We raise our glass and say, “To your health.”

What use is health if you do not have Christ? It is Christ whom we need.

And Father Elias had moved beyond this. When I came to know him, after my election as Archbishop and my arrival here, I realised that he was a very remarkable person. He had freed himself from attachment even to the idea of health. He would say that what is important, what saves us, is not health or illness. What saves us is Christ. And what matters, at the end of the day, is not whether we are healthy, or whether we live many years or only a few, but that we are united with Christ and attain the Kingdom of Heaven.

We heard this question in today’s Gospel reading. Many times I look at the icon of the Prophet Elijah. As you know, the Prophet Elijah was in the wilderness. He had withdrawn there and was living a life of asceticism. And a raven would bring him food, a piece of bread. I do not know whether you have noticed this in the icon of the Prophet Elijah. But you will see it; I am sure you have seen it.

There is a message there. The raven brings food to a prophet. The raven, you know, is a bird that takes; it does not give. Here, a miracle takes place. The raven continually goes to the prophet and gives him food. This is something extraordinary.

In a way, Father Elias was like this. He was an extraordinary person, a blessed person, a sacred person, and his defining characteristic was that he gave. He gave from his wealth, he gave from his material possessions, he shared, he gave his time, he gave whatever was most precious in his heart.

Even when he was ill, he would sit there and hear confessions. Why? In order to give, to share, to help another person, to do the very best he could for Christ and the Church.

For all these things, which are only a few of the many things I could say, but which I fear would tire you if I began speaking even more, and I have already spoken at length.

For all these reasons, then, I considered it my duty to come here today and to celebrate the one-year memorial service of this blessed man. May we pray that God grant him rest among the Saints and the righteous. I wish once again to offer my condolences to his beloved Presvytera, to his children, whom I know personally, to Maria, to the rest of his relatives and friends, and to his spiritual children.

His spiritual children, because Father Elias left behind a spiritual legacy. I offer my condolences to his spiritual children, and I join my own humble archpastoral prayers with the prayers and supplications of all of you, that God may grant him rest among the Saints and the righteous.

I also wish to convey to the family the prayers and blessings of His All-Holiness, our Ecumenical Patriarch, with whom I had spoken. I told him that today I would be holding the memorial service for Father Elias, and he said to me:
“Convey my prayers and my love to my fellow countrywoman, Father Elias’s Presvytera, because she comes from there, to my fellow countrywoman, and to his children. But tell them that I knew Father Elias and held him in very high regard.”

The Patriarch says: “I knew Father Elias and held him in very high regard.”

This is what I convey to you. And I pray that you may remember him for many years to come and, above all, that you may have his blessing.

May God bless you. May God grant him rest.

26/08/2026

Synaxarion of Saint Phanourios the Great-Martyr and Newly-Revealed
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/08/synaxarion-of-saint-phanourios-great.html

The following account of the life of Saint Phanourios was written by St. Nikephoros of Chios and included in the Kollyvades text known as the New Leimonarion.

On the 27th of August, commemoration is made of the Holy, Glorious, and Great-Martyr Phanourios the Newly-Revealed
Phanourios bestows light upon all the faithful,
Even though he long lay in the darkness of the earth.

From whence Phanourios, the splendid athlete of the Lord and invincible martyr, came, and of what parentage he was, and even in what age he lived and under the reign of which emperors he waged his struggle and fought his fight, we have been unable to ascertain, for the account of his life has been lost owing to the vicissitudes of time, as many other things also have been lost or become obscure or unclear. This only do we know, that when the Hagarenes ruled the renowned island of Rhodes, having conquered it because of our sins, he that became ruler of the island wished to rebuild the ramparts of the city that past sieges had ravaged. On the outskirts of the fortress were several ruined dwellings that had been abandoned by reason of their association with the old fortress, which was located a furlong to the south. From these ruins the Hagarenes were wont to gather stones for their construction.

It so happened that, while excavating and reinforcing that place, they discovered a most beautiful church, which was partly buried in ruins. Excavating as far as the floor of the temple, they found many holy icons, all decayed and crumbling, yet the icon of the holy Phanourios was whole and entire; indeed, it seemed as though it had been painted but that very day. And when this all-venerable temple was uncovered, together with its sacred icons, the hierarch of that place, Nilus by name, a man of great sanctity and learning, came and read the inscription of the icon, which said, "The Holy Phanourios."

The Saint was depicted upon the icon as follows: He was shown as a young man, arrayed as a soldier, holding a cross in his right hand, and at the upper part of the cross there was a lighted taper. Round about the perimeter of the icon were twelve scenes from the holy one's martyrdom, which showed the Saint being examined before the magistrate; then in the midst of soldiers, who were beating him about the mouth and head with stones; then stretched out upon the ground while the soldiers flogged him; then, stripped naked while they rent his flesh with iron hooks; then incarcerated in a dungeon; and again standing before the tyrant's tribunal; then being burned with candles; then bound to a rack; then cast amidst wild beasts; then crushed with a great rock; then standing before idols holding burning coals in his hands, whilst a demon nearby wept and lamented; and finally he is shown standing erect in the midst of a fiery furnace, his hands, as it were, uplifted towards Heaven.

From these twelve scenes depicted upon the icon, the holy hierarch perceived that the Saint was a martyr. Then straightway that good and pious man sent deputations to the rulers of that place, asking that they consign to him that temple for restoration, but this they declined to do. Therefore, the hierarch travelled to Constantinople alone and there obtained a decree empowering him to rebuild the church; thus it was restored to that state in which it can be seen even to this day, outside the city. And it has become the source of many miracles, of which I shall relate one for the profit of many, that all who love and venerate the Saint may rejoice.

At that time the isle of Crete had no Orthodox hierarch, but a Latin bishop, for it was ruled then by the Venetians, who had shrewdly refused to permit an Orthodox hierarch to be consecrated whenever one died. This they did with evil intent, thinking that with time they could thus convert the Orthodox to the papal doctrines. If Orthodox men wished to obtain ordination, they had to go to Kythera. It came to pass that there went forth from Crete three deacons, travelling to Kythera to be ordained priests by the hierarch there; and when this had been accomplished, and they were returning to their own country, the Hagarenes captured them at sea and brought them to Rhodes, where they were sold as slaves to other Hagarenes. The newly consecrated priests lamented their misfortune day and night.

But in Rhodes, they heard tell of the great wonders wrought by the Great Martyr Phanourios, and straightway they made fervent supplication to the Saint, beseeching him with tears to deliver them from their bitter bo***ge. And this they did each separately, without knowing ought of what the others were doing, for they had each been sold to a different master. Now, in accordance with the providence of God, however, they were all three permitted by their masters to go and worship at the temple of the Saint; and, guided by God, they came all together and fell down before the sacred icon of the Saint, watering the ground with the streams of tears, entreating him to deliver them out of the hands of the Hagarenes.

Then they departed, somewhat consoled, each to his own master, hoping that they would obtain mercy, which in fact did come to pass; for the holy one had compassion upon their tears and hearkened unto their supplication. That night he appeared to the Hagarenes who were the masters of the captive priests, and commanded them to permit the servants of God to go and worship in his temple lest he bring dreadful destruction upon them. But the Hagarenes, thinking the matter sorcery, loaded them with chains and made their torments more onerous.

Then the Great Martyr Phanourios went to them that night and brought them forth from their bonds, and encouraged them, saying that the following day he would, by all means, free them. He then appeared to the Hagarenes and, reproaching them with severity, said: 'If by tomorrow you have not set your servants at liberty, you shall behold the power of God!' Thus saying, the holy one vanished. And, O, the wonder! As many as inhabited those houses all arose blind and paralyzed, tormented with the most dreadful pangs, the least with the greatest. But, though bedridden, with the help of their kinfolk they considered what to do, and finally decided to send for the captives. And when the three priests were come, they inquired of them if they were able to heal them; and they answered: 'We shall beseech God. Let His will be done.'

But the Saint appeared again to the Hagarenes on the third night and said to them: 'If ye do not send to my house letters of manumission for the priests, you shall have neither the health, nor the light [of sight] which you desire.' And when they had again conferred with their kinfolk and friends, each one composed a letter of emancipation for his own slave, which was left before the icon of the Saint. And O, the wonder! Even before the messengers sent to the temple returned, those who before were blind and paralyzed, were healed; and marvelling, they set the priests free and dispatched them to their homeland amicably. The priests, though, had a copy of the icon of St. Phanourios painted and took it with them to their own country, and each year the memory of the holy one is piously celebrated amongst them. By the prayers of the Martyr may Christ God have mercy upon us. Amen!

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
A heavenly song of praise is chanted radiantly upon the earth; the company of angels now joyfully celebrateth an earthly festival, and from on high with hymns they praise thy contests, and from below the Church doth proclaim the heavenly glory which thou hast found by thy labours and struggles, O glorious Phanourios.

Kontakion in the Third Tone
Thou didst save the priests from an ungodly captivity, and didst break their bonds by divine power, O godly-minded one; thou didst bravely shame the audacity of the tyrants, and didst gladden the orders of the angels, great martyr. Wherefore, we honour thee, O divine warrior, most glorious Phanourios.
Source: Orthodox Life, Vol. 32, No. 4 (July-August 1982). Translated by [Father] George Lardas from the Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church (in Greek), 4th Ed. (Athens, 1974), Vol. VIII, pp. 470-474.

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/08/saint-phanourios-resource-page.html