Last Thursday, our dear friend Elias took us with him to visit Fr. Christodoulos and Presbytera Maria at Holy Apostles Church in Leyland. Leyland is less than half an hour from us by car, closer than the church in Liverpool. Technically it's Greek and is directly under the Patriarch of Constantinople. Not sure how many actual Greeks are in it, though, which means I'm not sure whether Demetrios will agree to go there most of the time. At least he wants us to go there sometimes.
Fr. Christodoulos is an Englishman with an unmistakably English face. He has white hair and a short, white beard, bright, blue eyes, and a keen sense of humor. He used to be Pentecostal before he was Orthodox. He said when he first attended an Orthodox service, out of sheer curiosity, he was amazed at the peace the discovered there. "We Pentecostals were always working up a frenzy, trying to bring down the Holy Spirit," he said, "but in this church, nobody did anything like that, because the Holy Spirit was already there."
He gave us a thorough tour of the church, which the parish bought from the Methodists. They've done a beautiful job making it into an Orthodox temple. (If you click on the link above and then on "Gallery", you can see some pictures.)
Then he took us home to meet his presbytera, who turns out o be exactly 3 months younger than I. She was so gracious, so kind! We felt we had known both of them for many years.
The conversation I cannot describe, but so wonderful was it that it brought tears to the eyes.
We are really looking forward to knowing these people better, and the others in this parish, too.
Fr. Christodoulos is an Englishman with an unmistakably English face. He has white hair and a short, white beard, bright, blue eyes, and a keen sense of humor. He used to be Pentecostal before he was Orthodox. He said when he first attended an Orthodox service, out of sheer curiosity, he was amazed at the peace the discovered there. "We Pentecostals were always working up a frenzy, trying to bring down the Holy Spirit," he said, "but in this church, nobody did anything like that, because the Holy Spirit was already there."
He gave us a thorough tour of the church, which the parish bought from the Methodists. They've done a beautiful job making it into an Orthodox temple. (If you click on the link above and then on "Gallery", you can see some pictures.)
Then he took us home to meet his presbytera, who turns out o be exactly 3 months younger than I. She was so gracious, so kind! We felt we had known both of them for many years.
The conversation I cannot describe, but so wonderful was it that it brought tears to the eyes.
We are really looking forward to knowing these people better, and the others in this parish, too.
1 comments:
lovely church. our's was Methodist before we bought it, too. what does that say about Methodism?
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