Today, I can greet you with no better words than what the Angel says to the Shepherds, on that wondrous Christmas night: Be not afraid: for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy ... For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2.10). Indeed, let us truly lift up our hearts, for in this year of challenge and tragedy, there has been much to keep them low. We have mourned the loss of thousands in September, and our troops continue to fight in faraway deserts. The Holy Lands where Our Saviour walked has been thrown into a new and more dangerous cycle of violence. And while our nation and the world have been gripped by enormous grief, an even more threatening danger now looms on the horizon, with the advent of stem cell research and human cloning. It has been, needless to say, a hard and difficult year.

JOHNSTOWN, PA - A special 40th day Memorial Service for the victims of the September 11th terrorist attack on our country is being planned for Friday, October 19th at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Johnstown, PA, beginning at 7 P.M. It is anticipated that Metropolitan Nicholas and the Orthodox clergy of the Greater Johnstown area will be joined for the Memorial Service by the hierarchs and priests of the Metropolitan Pittsburgh area as well. The service will be sung in the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn Plain Chant. A social will follow in the Cathedral Educational Center.

JOHNSTOWN, PA - His Eminence, Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdioces of America and Exarch of the Ecumenical Throne, will head a list of church and civil dignitaries who will gather in Johnstown on Tuesday, October 23 for the gala celebration marking the 50th Anniversary of Christ the Saviour Seminary in its present location. Prior to findiing a permanent home in Johnstown in 1951, our Diocesan Seminary held classes in New York City, Nicholson, PA and Bridgeport, CT.

JOHNSTOWN, PA - The following information regarding the 2001 Know Your Faith Educational Conference has been released by the Diocesan Religious Education Commission.

The whole question about human stem cell research hinges upon when human life begins. The Church has taught that human life begins at conception. This is when God enters a person into the world - a person who is soul and body. The Church has taught this consistently throughout the ages. This truth has enabled generations of faithful to appreciate human nature as the bearer of the image of God, as the beneficiary of the divine grace of immortality and as the ultimate object of God's creative love and nurturance.

The world went dark on Tuesday. It did not start out that way. Indeed, the day dawned bright and joyful. A number of us celebrated Divine Liturgy to begin the first academic year of the St. Sophia Orthodox Academy (the new Orthodox school established by the Cathedral and other area Orthodox Churches). I remember looking down with happiness upon the shining faces of the pre-school and kindergarten children - children who comprised the very first student body of the Academy.

Truly He is risen from the dead, Beloved! He has become the first-fruits of them that slept. He has burst apart the gates of Hades -the cruel gates of Hell -and from the moment of His glorious Resurrection, they can no longer prevail against us, Who are the Church and the New Israel of God. He is risen from the dead, and He has granted life -eternal life, to those who sleep in the graves. And not only to our beloved family and friends who sleep in the grave under the gentle blanket of earth, He gives life to us who slumber in self-made mausoleums, of misery, vaults of vanity, pits of self-pity, charnel houses of strife, jealousy and hatred.

The season of the Holy and Great Fast is now overtaking us, like a king's herald bringing us the. Good News of victory and freedom. Unlike commonly held first Impressions, the season of the Fast is not a time of constraint and inhibition. It is a time of liberation and release from cares, a time of extraordinary blessing and grace.

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ--born as a Child 2000 years ago-was ushered into this world surrounded by the murder of thousands of children by King Herod. This deranged despot was concerned more with his own political survival than the lives of the people who were entrusted to his care. According to the writings of the Evangelist Matthew, as well as the sacred tradition of our Holy Orthodox Church, some 14,000 Holy Innocents were slain by Herod in a diabolical attempt to keep his power and continue with the lifestyle of excess that marked his reign of terror. These senseless slayings stand in stark contrast to the "self-emptying" of the Son of God, Who became Man for the sake of our salvation. As St. Paul reminds us: "The Son of God emptied Himself and took on the form of a ser- vant and humbled Himself, even to the point of death (Philippians 2:7). Herod sacrificed so many children for himself-Christ sacrificed Himself for all mankind.