Holy Trinity Byzantine Catholic Church

09/01/2026

Happy (Byzantine) New Year 7535!

(We need all the new beginnings we can get.)

09/01/2026

Mother Cecilia and Mother Gabriella will be guests on the EWTN show, "Living Right with Dr Ray," and you are invited to the filming! The filming will be in Avon Lake, OH. Sign up for the 7PM to 8:30PM slot on Wednesday the 23rd of September to be at the filming with the nuns.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4FA9A822A0F5CF8-64859105-living #/

09/01/2026

08/01/2026

August 1 is the FEAST OF THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS

Archpriest David Petras writes of the feast day:

According to the Synaxarion, the feast celebrates the veneration of the Holy Cross in Constantinople. The early days of August were dangerous in antiquity. Because of the heat, many diseases became strong, and so the Cross was displayed in various places in the city for fourteen days. This feast was then introduced into Rus in the fifteenth century.

Today it announces the coming of the great feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14, approximately forty days from now. I think in may ways we misunderstand the Cross, we equate it with pain and suffering, as a negative sign that Christians were made to be miserable. That is not what St. Paul says in today’s epistle, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)” St. John calls the Cross the glory of Jesus, not because of its ugliness, but because it witnesses to the infinite love of God for his people. Because of love the cross is a “trophy of victory.”

In the Ambon Prayer of the Feast of the Exaltation, we pray, “You are glorified by the exaltation of your venerable Cross and by it accomplish our purification from the pride of demons.” As the people of Constantinople centuries ago looked to the Cross for deliverance from illness, we look at it today as our hope for deliverance from sin and evil.

08/01/2026

Today, Saturday, August 1st, Byzantine Christians begin the fast to honor the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary in preparation for the celebration of her death and bodily assumption in into Heaven.

"Among the saints, a special position belongs to the blessed virgin Mary. Orthodox Christians, like Roman Catholics, venerate or honor the Mother of God, but in no sense do members of either Church assign to her the worship due to God alone. In Orthodox services, Mary is often mentioned as Theotokos. This title was assigned to her by the Third Ecumenical Council held in Ephesus in 431 AD. We do not honor the Virgin Mary in isolation but because of her relationship to Christ. Thus, the reverence shown to Mary, far from eclipsing the worship of God, has exactly the opposite effect: the more we esteem Mary, the more vivid is our awareness of the majesty of her Son, for it is precisely on account of the Son that we venerate the Mother. We honor the Mother because of her Son. The Fathers of the Council of Ephesus insisted on calling Mary the Theotokos, not because they desired to glorify her as an end in herself, apart from her Son, but because only by honoring Mary could they safeguard a right doctrine of Christ’s person.

Anyone who thinks out the implications of that great biblical phrase from the Gospel of John that “The word was made flesh” cannot but feel a profound awe for her who was chosen as the instrument of so surpassing a mystery. When people refuse to honor Mary, only too often it is because they do not really believe in the incarnation. But Orthodox Christians honor Mary not only because she is Theotokos, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God but also because she is the supreme example of synergy or cooperation between the purposes of God and human freedom. God, who always respects our freedom of choice, did not wish to become incarnate without the willing consent of His Mother. He waited for her voluntary response: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me as You have said” (Luke 1:38). Mary could have refused: she was not merely passive, but an active participant in the mystery. If Christ is the new Adam, as the Apostle Paul has written, Mary is the New Eve, whose obedient submission to the will of God counterbalanced Eve’s disobedience in Paradise."

- Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (1934-2022)

07/22/2026

In June Mother Marija celebrated her 97th birthday. Today, July 22nd, we celebrate with her 80 years of monastic life. To God we give thanks for the grace of this vocation. And we thank her for her witness of fidelity to God's will. May God grant her many more years!

07/21/2026

Today the Byzantine Catholic Church honors Blessed Paul Peter Gojdich. He led the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in Slovakia, and defied the communists' demands to break with the Holy See and join the Russian Orthodox Church. He suffered grievously in prison, dying today in 1960, but forgave all who harmed him.

Blessed Paul asked God for the grace of final absolution and to die on his birthday, both of which took place.

07/19/2026

On the Sunday between July 13-19 the Byzantine Church remembers the holy fathers of the first Six Ecumenical Councils.

07/19/2026

Happy feast day!