Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

Services for Pentecost Sunday Liturgy 9:30Am followed by Vespers with kneeling prayers.

12/10/2025

Speaking of the most holy Theotokos, St. Maximus the Confessor writes that, “She was blessed by all and was full of all grace, and I will say even further that she was supremely worthy of every grace, intelligent with respect to images and words, a scrutinizer of divine visions, completely removed from all restlessness, wrath, and gossip, beautiful in soul and body and ordinary in measure of stature, full of every goodness and every good deed. Nevertheless, she was in this way holy by nature and truly a virgin to the point that not even the slightest desire of any passion that would be corrupting of spiritual holiness ever came upon her.” What could we possibly add to the saint’s sublime description of the perfect holiness of the Mother of God? Marveling at his words and even more at her indescribable goodness and sanctity, we have but to cry out:

Most holy Theotokos, save us!

03/22/2024

Remeber to RSVP for our lenten retreat next Saturday March 30 at 10am-3pm. Vigil will follow at 4pm.
Please RSVP by tomorrow at [email protected]

01/01/2024

During these last hours of the year, many people settle on their resolutions for the new year. Though we may benefit from Dry January, losing weight, a new morning or evening routine, we should take our primary resolution for the coming year from this late medieval carol: “The old year now away is fled, / The new year it is entered; / Then let us all our sins down tread, / And joyfully all appear.” As we renew our calendars, let us renew our lives in Christ. The end of the year should remind us of the end of all years, and the new year of the age to come. Let us use dedicate each new year to Christ, putting sin behind and striving toward the good things to come, so that, at the end of time, we may joyfully appear in the presence of the Lord of eternity and take our place in the assembly of his elect, abiding with him and glorifying his goodness always, beyond all years and seasons, unto never-ending ages.

10/09/2023

In general, saints are associated with a single place and belong to a single “rank”: they are either righteous priests, or holy confessors, or venerable monastics, or one of several other types of saints. Though we call him St. Innocent of Alaska and venerate him as a holy hierarch, St. Innocent’s long life saw him show forth holiness in many places and in many ways. He was a husband, father, priest, monk, and bishop. He was a missionary, a translator, a writer, a preacher, an administrator. For all his tribulations in preaching the Gospel, and for his steadfastness in his calling despite the untimely death of his wife, he could justly be called a confessor. He served in Siberia, Alaska, eastern Siberia again, and finally Moscow. In him were truly fulfilled the words of St. Paul, insofar as St. Innocent became “all things to all men that by all means some might be saved” (1 Cor. 9:22).

09/04/2023

My son, Fr Steve Mathewes, told me that once a man came to him interested in Orthodoxy, but he couldn't understand our relationship to Mary. That's true of many Protestants.

Then he had a dream. He was in a meadow on a mountaintop, and across from him he saw Mary standing in the air. She spoke to him and said:

“Here I am.
I am your Mother.
ASK ME.”

He did begin to try asking Mary to pray for him and some things in his life, and came to understand how she fits the Orthodox Christian life.

Fr Steve says that not everything can be understood about Orthodoxy just from studying it. Some things you can only understand by putting it into practice. Once you experience it, it all falls into place. When you try out taking Mary as your prayer partner, she turns out to be an extraordinary gift, a gift Jesus gave us from the Cross itself when he said, "Behold your mother".

08/06/2023

08/04/2023