Friends,
I would like to point out that I have finally been able to analyze the data from our Divine Services in 2025. Please forgive me that this has taken me longer than in past years. I know that everyone loves to read my very long Rector’s report each year before the annual meeting, and it is posted in full now, with the other reports which are available, here:
Please don’t think I am completely deluded. :) I know almost no one loves to read my long report, so I am going to excerpt the three most important paragraphs below – especially important because we are asking you to consider a revised design for our new parish church which the parish council unanimously recommended to our parish family at its January 25, 2026 meeting. The parish council made that decision without knowing these numbers. To me, the statistics below only reinforce the parish council’s recommendation that we adopt the revised design and begin to build immediately. Why? Because we are exploding in our growth as a parish community. This sort of growth, or even maintaining these staggering numbers, is simply impossible in our present facilities. There is no other way to say it: we either build or we break. I love the original design. I sincere desire to build it. But it is obvious that we do not have the five years (minimum) it would take to build that church. And that is not even taking into consideration that the revised design is projected to be less than half the cost of the original design.
Without further adieu, the three paragraphs that I sincerely ask you to read before we meet this Sunday:
ONE - In 2025 we served 177 Divine Liturgies at St. Vladimir’s parish, or one Liturgy every 2.06 days. Our all time record for Divine Liturgies in one year (182) was in the pandemic year of 2021. Our previous record for non-pandemic years was 168 (2024), and we exceeded that record this year! Whenever we serve the Divine Liturgy not only those who are present receive spiritual benefit, but our entire parish family. Let us thank the Lord for His mercy in this regard! And let us thank those who labor so diligently to sing, read, and serve so that our parish family may be benefited in this way! With God’s help we will continue to make every effort to serve the Divine Liturgy as often as possible at St. Vladimir’s!
TWO - The average number of people communing weekly in 2025 was 99. This is, far and away, the highest number in the history of our parish! This is an increase of 32.39% over 2024. Success only comes before work in the dictionary, and building good habits is hard work. So let us work towards the success of exceeding this number in 2026! With our sincere effort and God’s help we will more often be in church every Saturday night and every Sunday morning, and more often partake of the Divine Mysteries.
THREE - In 2025 the average number of people kissing the cross per week was 156. This is a MASSIVE jump from the last year – we were up 21.97% from 2024 to 2025. Clearly, we need to build our new church as soon as reasonably possible. We cannot expect people to continue to come to church when the church is wildly too small for our needs. To build the new church will require the tithing of time, talent, and treasure from EVERYONE in our parish community. Americans are searching for authenticity and truth. Orthodox Christianity is the faith that the Lord established for all as a means to salvation. And it is our job to bring this authentic and true faith to all our neighbors. It is a sin to hide this “pearl of great price”. So let us share it with our friends and neighbors more zealously in 2026! Ninty-six (96) percent of unchurched Americans are at least somewhat likely to attend church if they are invited. But only two (2) percent of American Church members have EVER invited someone to church. (Christianity Today, July 2007) LET THIS BE THE YEAR YOU INVITE A FRIEND OR LOVED ONE TO STV!
Let us take this week to pray and ask the Lord for discernment. We are at a pivotal point in the life of our parish. We can choose to trust God and move forward with the parish council’s unanimous recommendation or choose not to. Here you have absolute free will. But let us ask for wisdom from the Lord. He has sent us MANY more parishioners and communicants in the last year. SO MANY that this is not a soft tap on the shoulder, but His hands on both of our shoulders and shaking us awake as a parish community. Let us respond to the Lord’s call to us and march forward under His banner of the Cross to bring EVEN MORE people to the True Faith by making room for them in our new parish church!
Asking Your Prayers,
Fr. Gregory
P.S. Learn more about the revised church design at the link below (pan down a bit – below the annual meeting reports):
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