Please find several edifying readings at this link for Friday of the first week of Great Lent:

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/60297.htm

This year, with the blessing of His Grace Bishop Peter, we will celebrate the beautiful Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts throughout Great Lent on Wednesday evenings. Matins begins at 3:00 p.m. Liturgy will begin at approximately 6:30 p.m. Following each of these services our St. Xenia Sisterhood will organize a light Lenten dinner. Please contact our Head Sister, Ksenia Nikulshina (headsister@stvladimiraami.org or see her in church) if you would like to help with the dinner. We have excellent Lenten recipes to share if you’d like to try something new! Please join us for these remarkably beautiful and meaningful Lenten evening services and for mid-week fellowship with your parish family at the meal afterwards!

Wednesday, March 11
Wednesday, March 18
Thursday, March 26 – NOTE THIS IS A THURSDAY
Wednesday, April 1

The Liturgical Fast for those communing begins after breakfast for the 6:30 p.m. services. In other words, you may eat breakfast, but eat or drink nothing further after that. Parents should use their best judgment regarding their children, as always. Those who confessed on the weekend prior to the Wednesday Presanctified need not confess again on/before Wednesday.

PLEASE NOTE! There are MANY OTHER Presanctified Liturgies throughout Great Lent that begin with Matins at 8:00 a.m. and Liturgy about 11:30 a.m. - mostly on Fridays. Please consult the schedule of services on our web site for more details:

http://www.stvladimiraami.org/calendars ... lendar.pdf

Please find several edifying readings here for Thursday of the first week of Great Lent:

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/68969.htm

Beginning March 1 we will have a lecture each Sunday of Great Lent as is our usual practice at St. Vladimir's. The weekly lecture will take place during our weekly meal on these Sundays. The schedule is shaping up nicely and all details will be released very soon. For now, please plan to join us for this year's Great Lenten Lecture Series. You may also want to take note of a small addition to the service schedule this year. On March 1, 15, and 29 we will serve the beautiful Sunday Great Vespers after the scheduled lecture. At this service we transition from the weekend paradigm to the weekday paradigm of Great Lent, including the changing of the color of the church from purple to black (as you may recall is done each year at Forgiveness Vespers). Please join us!

Dr. Roy (Andronik) Robson has confirmed that he will be with us to give the keynote lecture on March 15. Dr. Robson's area of expertise is Slavic Studies, specifically Russian Orthodox Old Belief, and he has written several books on this subject, including one on the monastery of Solovki as a refuge for Old Believers following Patriarch Nikon's reforms. Dr. Robson is an Old Believer himself and grew up in the Nativity of Christ parish in Erie, PA. He was the second reader on Fr. Gregory's doctoral dissertation. You will not want to miss this lecture!

See more on Dr. Robson here:

http://www.gradschool.usciences.edu/faculty/robson-roy

Please find here an edifying sermon specifically to be read on this day - the first Wednesday of Great Lent - by St Ignatius (Brainchaninov). May the Lord preserve all to struggle in sincerity!

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/45188.htm

Please find a sermon by St. John of Shanghai & San Francisco on the beginning of Great Lent at the link below. All are urged to participate in the Divine Services of the first week of Great Lent as they are able, but also to engage in spiritual reading as possible - reading such as St. John's sermon below.

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/68861.htm

Poor Lent! How much chiding, insult, and persecution it endures! But you see, it still stands, by the grace of God. And how else could it be? It has strong support! The Lord fasted, the Apostles fasted, and quite a lot at that, as the Apostle Paul said of himself, in fastings often (2 Cor. 11:27). And all the saints kept strict fasts, so that if we had an opportunity to look over the habitations of paradise we would not find there a single inhabitant who was alien to fasting. That is how it should be. Paradise was lost by violating the fast, and taking up strict fasting should number among the means by which we return to lost paradise. Our mother the Church is compassionate of heart; she is not our stepmother. Would she place upon us something that heavy and unnecessary? But she has placed it upon us! Truly it could not be any other way. Let us submit to it... Yes, and everyone who wants to be saved submits to it... Whoever tries to talk you out of fasting surely does not value salvation.

Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/60199.htm

As is our tradition at St. Vladimir’s (a pious tradition found throughout the Russian Orthodox Church) we urge all our family and friends to attend as many of the services as possible during the first week of Great Lent (beginning with the very important Forgiveness Sunday Vespers), with the goal of confessing and partaking of the Holy Mysteries on either Saturday, February 28 (Theodore Saturday) or Sunday, March 1 (The Sunday of Orthodoxy). Let us begin our Great Lenten journey of repentance and preparation for the feast of feasts, our Lord’s Glorious Resurrection, by forgiving each other and partaking of the Cup of Life together as a parish family!

Please find the schedule of services for the first week of Great Lent at St. Vladimir's at the link below:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/firstw ... tflyer.pdf

Please join us for as many of these services as your schedule allows! It is important to get a good start to Great Lent so that we utilize the precious few days of this special time of year to the greatest extent possible for our spiritual good. This is why we have many services the first week - to allow such a good start for all our parish family!

PLEASE NOTE: The unique liturgical character of Great Lent is found in the non-Sunday services of this time of year. Thus, all are urged, to the greatest extent possible, to attend the weekday services in addition to the Sunday services. It is understood that not every parishioner can attend every service. But we do hope that many parishioners make a special effort to attend as many of the weekday services as they can.

Please contact Fr. Gregory or Fr. Michael with questions about this or other spiritual matters.

We’ve discussed our Diocese of Chicago & Mid-America Pastoral School extensively over the last few years at our parish. Please understand that the school is for those interested in serving the Holy Church as clergymen, BUT ALSO for those interested in learning more about their Orthodox faith - both men and women. You can learn more by visiting the Pastoral School web site – please see Fr. Gregory with questions.:

http://www.orthodoxtheologicalschool.org/