September 10th, 2010
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On September 18 and 19, St. Juvenaly Orthodox Mission will host a visit of the miraculous myrrh-streaming icon of Honolulu, a reproduction of the famous Iveron icon of the Mother of God that, according to Tradition, was authored by St. Luke, the New Testament writer.
A copy of this icon was entrusted in 1982 to Brother Joseph José Muñoz-Cortes while he was on pilgrimage to Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain. The abbot who gifted this icon to Joseph said to him “A church in which there is no love, compassion and mercy is not a church” and told him that this icon “wants to come to America.”
For 15 years this icon miraculously streamed myrrh and was safeguarded by Joseph. He often said that the “greatest miracle of the Myrrh-Streaming Icon is not so much the manifestation of the physical myrrh, so much as the grace that it gives people to change their lives for the better.” He was brutally murdered on October 31, 1997 (Halloween) and the icon has not been seen again.
In 2007, a copy of this icon in Honolulu began to stream myrrh. The “Hawaiian” icon of the Theotokos is a 7” x 9” paper reproduction laminated on a board one inch thick. Fr. Anatole Lyovin, the priest of the Russian church in Honolulu, purchased this icon in a church bookstore in Toronto, Canada and gave it as a gift to his parishioner Reader Nectarios. This miracle has been confirmed by Archbishop Kirill, of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
This icon will be preset at two services: Great Vespers, 6pm Saturday, September 18, and Divine Liturgy, 10am Sunday September 19.
For more information, see:
August 23rd, 2010
It was a great joy for St. Juvenaly Mission to host Bishop BENJAMIN from July 30th to August 2nd. Some faithful members of the mission drove in from as far from Hilo bearing fresh lychees from their orchard (a five hour round trip) to visit with his Grace, and our community was blessed to have a fellowship meal and conversation with him after both Vespers and Divine Liturgy.
For many of us, the most exciting moment was when his Grace descended the stairs leading from the parking lot to our new church home, and we had the opportunity to give him a tour of our new facility.
This is the first time that our mission has rented a space of our own. It has been a great joy to begin to settle in, hang icons, setup an altar of our own, and to burn incense and light candles without trepidation. We are grateful for this opportunity to create a more authentic Orthodox ethos here on the Big Island of Hawaii, to nurture the faithful and to reach out to those who are searching for the beauty, history, and transcendence of Orthodox worship.
Big kahuna mahalos to his Grace, Bishop BENJAMIN for traveling to this, the most geographically isolated island chain in the world, making us feel well cared for here in Hawaii!
The Bishop enjoys a "shave ice" with Matushka Jenny
May 29th, 2010
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As many of you are aware, we have been praying in church over the past few weeks for the Assembly of Orthodox Hierarchs this week in New York. That meeting has concluded with a message from the Assembly (read it here) and the formal establishment of an American “Episcopal Assembly” which will take over the work of SCOBA (www.scoba.us), The Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in the Americas – this work includes oversight of the Orthodox Christian Missions Center, International Orthodox Christian Charities, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (campus ministry) and more). If you are interested, please do give it a look.
Many of the speeches given by various hierarchs are available online, including:
Archbishop DEMETRIOS (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese)
Metropolitan PHILIP (Antiochian Archdiocese)
Archbishop NICOLAE (Romanian Archdiocese)
Archbishop JUSTINIAN (ROCOR)
Photos are on Facebook (public access) here.
My friend, Fr. Hans Jacobse, had this to say about the meeting:
Putting aside all the speculations about where the American Church is headed for the moment, think about the true significance of the meeting. All in all, this is a very constructive event regardless of the divisions that exist. The divisions are real, but clearly the need to transcend those divisions is more pressing and that is a cause for optimism, even hope. We are seeing the self-identity of the Church in America emerge, and a critical step in that growth is that bishops get to know each other, learn how to work together, perhaps discover similar concerns and worries, and maybe, just maybe, discover they are more unified in purpose and intention than they previously knew.
How will it end? We don’t know, but we do know this: That the Bishops even met can be counted a success… American Orthodoxy can be a dynamic force for bringing Christ to the culture and once the nascent creativity of the people of God is unleashed, we might look back as this meeting as a milestone on that journey.
Another friend, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, was present at the Assembly and has published his reflections here.
