Christ the Savior Orthodox Church
All Saints Orthodox Church Ministries
A Dearborn/Downriver Orthodox Parish for Everyone
Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

Christ Is Born! - Glorify Him!

On Sunday, January 7, 2018, Christ the Savor Orthodox Church celebrated our first Holy Day Divine Liturgy as a parish.  Over 25 people came to witness Fr. Joshua Genig celebrate this special day with Great Vespers (with Litya) Saturday evening, and a full Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. 

Congratulations to several of our members who partook in Confession and Holy Communion, and many people who came to witness Orthodoxy at its finest went away with wonderful feelings and a desire to come visit us again.

We want to especially Thank Matushka Abigail and her small choir for a beautiful job singing prayers and responses.  Please enjoy our special message from Fr. Joshua and a few photos we want to publish.

.

 

Eve of the Nativity Great Vespers with Litya .  .  .  .

.

.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

A Special Nativity Greeting from Fr. Joshua Genig -

 

"All the Angels in heaven are of good cheer and greatly rejoyce today. The whole creation leaps with Joy for the Savior and Lord is Born in Bethleham."

Dear Friends,
We heard these words sung during Litya on Christmas Eve, and we entered more deeply into the realty of these words as we received the mystery of Christ's body and blood during the Divine Liturgy on the morning of the Nativity.

Indeed, the entire comos - both heaven and earth - rejoice in the babe in the manger, the very icon of hope and peace and love and fresh starts!

May you, too come to know this child, this Jesus, as he wishes to be known.  May you come to see in Him, who made Himself small for us, that our God is a God who is for us and not against us.  May you come to experience His love and His embrace, joyfully loving and embracing Him in return.

That is my prayer for you during this most holy and life-giving Feast!
Fr. Joshua Genig

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ Divine Liturgy .  .  .  .

.

.

.

Merry Christmas (or how would YOU say it)

For the Nativity of our Lord, there is a specific greeting we hear throughout the community and in various languages. Try to find yours.

RUSYN
Christos Razdajetsja! - Slavite Jeho!
Christ is Born! - Glorify Him!

UKRAINIAN
Khrystos Razhdajetsia! - Slavite Yoho!
Christ is Born! - Glorify Him!

SLOVAK
Vesele Vianoce a Stastlivy Novy Rok!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

POLISH
Wesolych Swiat! Radosnych Swiat i
Blogoslawienstw Bozych w Nowym Roku!
Merry Christmas! - A Joyous Christmas and
Many Blessings in the New Year!

RUSSIAN
Pozdrevlyayu s Prazdnikom Rozhestva is Novim Godom!
Good Wishes of a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

HUNGARIAN
Kellemes Karacsonyt es Boldog Uj Evet!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

CZECH
Vesely Vanoce a Stastny Novy Rok!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

.

.

Holy Theophany - The Blessing of Our Water!!

On Saturday, January 20, Christ the Savior Orthodox Church was able to celebrate the Holy Theophany  - Blessing of the Waters at our little building.  Fr. Joshua Genig celebrated the Divine Liturgy and subsequent service, then we all got a special blessing (yes, that means we got WET!) followed by taking a few moments and Blessing our new Building.  He braved the stacks of stuff still everywhere (while we are renovating) and was able to Bless Both Floors.  It was truly a Blessed Day for all of us (too many puns?).

Thank  you to all of the folks who braved the weather on a Saturday morning to help us celebrate such a wonderful inspiring Holy Day for our little Misson.  Please take a little time and enjoy some photos and we may have a videographer in our midst - and will post it if it works out (hint hint)

.

.

 

.

.

.

 
Kursk Root Icon 
 

With the blessing of Archishop PETER (ROCOR - Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America), the Wonderworking Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God came to visit our Christ the Savior Orthodox Church (All Saints Mission) Parish on Friday, March 9, 2018 in River Rouge, where will are able to share it with several of our neighbors, community and special guests.
 
Fr. Gregory Joyce, along with our new Interim Rector, Fr. Daneil Shirak led a procession into our building and up to the Chapel as few of us witnessed and participated, then were inspired as we celebrated with an Akathyst and each of us were allowed private moments to adore, pray and feel the positive force that it has been known for many centuries before us.  As Fr. Gregory described some of the history of this Holy Relic, many felt the actual power of miracles and sensations of pious love and energy.  It was such a phenominal experience!   We followed with a small reception, where the conversations were exciting, yet mysterious.  It was a wonderful event, and we all received a small momento of a replica card to take home that was blessed.                                                    Kursk Root Icon
                                                     
This was a very significant event and extreme honor in the life of our small mission parish. Not many Orthodox communities have an opportunity to host the Kursk Root Icon, and  many people come to venerate the Icon and bring their cares, troubles, and even thanks to the Mother of God. We know from the Church’s tradition that she is the greatest intercessor before her Son on our behalf and thus there is great veneration for her among the Christian people.
 
____________________________________________________________________
 

The Kursk Root Icon (also Our Lady of Kursk) (Russian: Богоматерь Курская Коренная, Bogomater Kurskaya
Korennaya, literally Theotokos of Kursk, Found Among the Roots) is an icon of Theotokos of the Sign, apparently painted in the thirteenth century and discovered in a forest near Kursk ca.1300.

The icon was preserved in the Black Hermitage of the Roots
(Chornaya Korennaya Pustyn), an abbey founded on the spot of its discovery. It was regularly brought from the abbey to Kurskin a great procession involving thousands of peasants and pilgrims. This ceremony is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin; see Religious Procession in Kursk Province.

The icon actually incorporates as many as twelve figures on it:
Theotokos, Infant Christ, God the Father above them (with the Holy Spirit as a dove) and nine Old Testament prophets. The image of Theotokos belongs to the Panagia type. It was regarded as a palladion of the Russian Imperial Army. After the Russian Revolution, the icon was brought by the White Army outside of Russia, where it is now held in New-York by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
The monastery near Kursk where the icon was held was formerly very rich and hosted one of the largest fairs in Imperial Russia. During the Soviet period the monastery cathedral (designed by Konstantin Thon) was demolished; restoration works are planned.
.
.

.

.

 

A Special Thank You to our Dear Friend, Fr. Joshua Genig!

We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to Fr. Joshua Genig, who with the blessing of his Bishop John, his Dean, Fr. Roman Starr and his family, was able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy for us in our new facility in River Rouge as we were preparing ourselves for the new Full Time Life Ministry that we now able to offer.  It has been a true inspiration and honest spiritual experience to have him serve for us.  Thank you so much!

.

.

 
 

 

And a Special Greeting from our New Interim Rector
Fr. Daneil Shirak
Fr. Daneil Shirak
Fr. Daneil Shirak

Dear Parishioners and friends of Christ the Savior Orthodox Church;

    I am sure all of you have probably seen the web page announcement by now.  I am Father Daneil Shirak.  I have been asked to assume the duties of interim rector of Christ the Savior.  I would like to ask each and every one of you who takes the time to read this to come and have a meet and greet at the church.  I am looking forward to meeting each and every one of the parishioners and praying that together we can make wonderful things happen at this mission church.

   We plan on adding a full range of services at the church, starting with Vespers on Saturday and the Divine Liturgy on Sunday.  We may add more as we move forward, like the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, and other services that are only available to the Orthodox Church.

   If you have been here before, we welcome you back!  If you haven’t been here before, come check us out.  You may love what you see.  Looking forward to seeing you soon.

 

Your Servant in Jesus Christ;

Fr. Daneil 

.

.

Please Come to Welcome Our New Fr. Daneil Shirak
Fr. Daneil Shirak
Fr. Daneil Shirak
Fr. Daneil Shirak

Glory to Jesus Christ!

What a fantastic year it has been for us already.  After so many years of praying and working hard for our mission , we now have a building and a wonderful pious man, who wants to be our First Full Time Interim Rector.

By the Glory of God and the generosity of Our Archbishop PETER, Fr. Gregory Joyce and Fr. Roman Starr, we are pleased to welcome Fr. Daneil Shirak to our Mission Parish (effective immediately), and he will be celebrating his first Divine Litugy on Sunday, March 4, 2018 (St. Gregory Palamas), and we are preparing a Full Time Schedule of services, events and minitstries.

Fr. Daneil (pronounced Da-Neal) Shirak has been a lifelong Orthodox Christian, BaptizedChristimated at St. Michael Russian Orthodox Church (on Livernois in Detroit - now in Redford) and grew up in the Holy Ghost parish.  Son of a Detroit Fireman and loving mother, he always had a deep passion for the Orthodox Faith.  He married his childhood sweetheart, Debra and had 3 children.

He was ordained to the Deaconate in 1989 by Bishop CLEMENT, and served (and even promoted to Proto-Deacon) for 22 years at St. Innocent Orthodox Church in Redford. On July 22, 2011, Archbishop JUSTINIAN ordained him to the Priesthood, where he continued his Holy Orders at St. Innocent, and was very busy due to the demands of Fr. Roman's regorous schedule (as Dean of the Central States and his responsibilities to many important programs in our Detroit Orthodoxy).  Fr.Daneil's faithful service had been of enormous assistance and a great blessing to their parish, and now Fr. Roman is helping Fr. Daneil to fulfill his dream/destiny to minister a parish of his own.  In several meetings with Fr. Gregory Joyce and Starosta, Sub-Deacon Michael Boyar, he already has become involved with many ideas and inspriations, helping to direct our mission parish toward the needs of our small group and surrounding Southwest Detroit - Dearborn - Downriver Community.  We are all excited to have him agree to join us..

Fr. Daneil currently lives in Taylor, Michigan with his wife, Matushka Debra and their adult daughter, Corrina.  Thay also have two adult sons, four grandchildren, and a brand new Great Grandchild!

(photo and references for biography from stinnocentchurch.com)

.

.

March 4, 2018 - Our First Day With Fr. Daneil -

 

.

.

_________________________________________________

.

.

Our Journey To Holy Pascha!
2018 Holy Pascha!
2018 Holy Pascha!
2018 Holy Pascha!

As we are preparing for our First Entire Journey through the Paschal Season in our own place, we would like to introduce the idea as we change the colors of the chapel to Purple to reflect our time preparing through Great Lent.  The familiar color in all Orthodox Churches is calming and comfortable as we learn, pray, sacrifice and prepare for the hardest 40 days in the life of an Orthodox Christian. 

We are really lucky to have so many generous friends in our community that allows us to make our place look so magnificent!

.

.

.

Sunday Lenten Services

This is such an exciting time for our folks who take this stuff really seriously.  As we proceed through the 40 days of praying, fasting and sacrifice, we come to enjoy the monumental milestones we celebrate each week that we come to church.  We have a special Sunday to celebrate our Orthodoxy, a special Sunday for the Cross, as well we commemorative days for St. John of the Ladder and St. Mary of Egypt. 

Here is a compilation of wonderful photos as we get closer to Palm Sunday, our Holy Week and of course, the greatest Holy Day of them all:  Our Holy Pascha.

.

.

Palm Sunday - Entry into Jerusalem

As the rest of the western culture around us was celebrating their Easter Sunday, we enjoyed our opportunity to celebrate the day that Jesus Christ was entering Jerusalem, which we affectionately call Palm Sunday.  This is an extra special occasion for us, because we offer Palm Leaves and the very same Pussy Willows (in the slavic tradition) that we raised ourselves and present them to everyone that comes to visit us.  In fact, there is still many branches of both separated or tied together.  We invite you to come down anytime to pick some out and take them home or to the cemetary now.

This year was especially exciting for us too, because we were able to have our own willow and palms blessed in our own place by our own Priest for the first time.  We spent time decorating the chapel and invited many guests - Orthodox and those that haven't joined yet - to experience the water flying and the spirit descending into our place. Enjoy the photos and again, if you would like some, just ask.  We invite you to come down or would deliver if we are able.

 

.

.

Holy Week

As we pass Palm Sunday, many of us are so excited as we start the final run.  There is so much to do and the inspirational feelings are really beginning to build as we anticipate our big weedend and the Joy that it brings to us all.

This year, in order to create the most efficient environment and be available for all of our younger and older families, we petitioned and received a blessing from our Archbishop PETER to do things just a bit differently than usual this one time this year.  We began our formalities with the reading of the Passion Gospels and portrayal of Christ carrying His Cross to his destination.  This was a very interesting and seemingly authentic experience, as you can witness in the photos, and this all set up for a remarkable 3 days that leads on to Victory!

We made the Newspaper - Awesome Article!

In Celebration of our surge for Growth, The News Herald (our award winning publication for the entire Downriver Area) wrote a wonderful article about us authored by an amazing Shannon Rossi. 

Please share it with all of your friends.  To the Awesome Article. Click the link:

 
 
 Shannon Rossi is a free lance writer for the newspaper and really took the time to talk to Fr Gregory and me, and I think she did a really nice job.  Please read it and share your thoughts, too.
 
Please watch for us in future articles and in their Under the Spires category.  We will participate with them whenever we can.  This is such an exciting, yet important time in the life of this new mission.  Please Pray for us, too.
.
 
.

Great and Holy Friday

Great and Holy Saturday
St Basil Liturgy

Holy Pascha - The Big Day - What It Is All About!!!

Christ is Risen!
Time to Celebrate!

Some Beautiful Church Photos

.

.

.

Great and Holy Pascha!

.

Anastasi

Great and Holy Pascha

April 08, 2018

Mary Magdalene, and the other women who were present at the burial of our Saviour on Friday evening, returned from Golgotha to the city and prepared fragrant spices and myrrh, so that they might anoint the body of Jesus. On the morrow, because of the law which forbids work on the day of the Sabbath, they rested for the whole day. But at early dawn on the Sunday that followed, almost thirty-six hours since the death of the Life-giving Redeemer, they came to the sepulchre with the spices to anoint His body. While they were considering the difficulty of rolling away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, there was a fearful earthquake; and an Angel, whose countenance shone like lightning and whose garment was white as snow, rolled away the stone and sat upon it. The guards that were there became as dead from fear and took to flight. The women, however, went into the sepulchre, but did not find the Lord's body. Instead, they saw two other Angels in the form of youths clothed in white, who told them that the Saviour was risen, and they sent forth the women, who ran to proclaim to the disciples these gladsome tidings. Then Peter and John arrived, having learned from Mary Magdalene what had come to pass, and when they entered the tomb, they found only the winding sheets. Therefore, they returned again to the city with joy, as heralds now of the supernatural Resurrection of Christ, Who in truth was seen alive by the disciples on this day on five occasions.

Our Lord, then, was crucified, died, and was buried on Friday, before the setting of the sun, which was the first of His "three days" in the grave; observing the mystical Sabbath, that "seventh day" in which it is said that the Lord "rested from all His works" (Gen. 2:2-3), He passed all of Saturday in the grave; and He arose "while it was yet dark, very early in the morning" on Sunday, the third day, which, according to the Hebrew reckoning, began after sunset on Saturday.

As we celebrate today this joyous Resurrection, we greet and embrace one another in Christ, thereby demonstrating our Saviour's victory over death and corruption, and the destruction of our ancient enmity with God, and His reconciliation toward us, and our inheritance of life everlasting. The feast itself is called Pascha, which is derived from the Hebrew word which means "passover"; because Christ, Who suffered and arose, has made us to pass over from the curse of Adam and slavery to the devil and death unto our primal freedom and blessedness. In addition, this day of this particular week, which is the first of all the rest, is dedicated to the honour of the Lord; in honour and remembrance of the Resurrection, the Apostles transferred to this day the rest from labour that was formerly assigned to the Sabbath of the ancient Law.

All foods allowed during Renewal Week.

.

.

.

Paschal Message from Our Vladyka, Archbishop PETER
Paschal Epistle: Archbishop of Chicago & Mid-America
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paschal Message from Sister Vassa!

 

(Easter Sunday, April 8)

     Christ is risen! Happy Easter, dear zillions! Don't miss our all-NEW special Easter-edition of Saturday Morning Live today, on YouTube! In this episode: the celebration of Easter/Pascha; Unpacking the Non-story of Pope Francis’s alleged comments on Hell; Melania Trump’s Easter-dress & a woman's right to "bare arms" in church, and more!                         Click here or below to tune in!


And be sure to check out our Coffee-video all about Easter/Pascha on YouTube byclicking here, or to the right:
 
Share
Tweet
Forward
+1
 

 .

.

Paschal Message from Orthdodox Africa

.


Dear Friends of Orthodox Africa,


With your loyal support and God's grace, the Missions of Orthodox Africa have been blessed to celebrate another Passion Week and Pascha.

Because of your generosity and prayers, many young children have been introduced to the many beautiful services of our Holy Church. Because of your continuing support, the students and teachers of Orthodox Africa can now concentrate, without hindrance, on their studies and their development as the next generation of Orthodox leaders in our Church and their communities. 

As we turn our hearts towards the Feast of Feasts, the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we joyfully convey the greetings of the countless children you have helped, with the news that all creation proclaims...

CHRIST IS RISEN from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. 

Father Silouan (Brown)
Executive Dire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

_________________________________________

 

Mission Core Group - Mission Statement

We consider ourselves a Mission Group of dedicated and energetic Orthodox Christians who feel that there is an excellent opportunity for growth in the teachings of Our Faith, and want to spread the love and compassion of God’s Will through prayer and celebration.