Glory to Jesus Christ!
My Beloved in Christ Jesus Our Lord,
As we are faced with this most unusual event, the spread of the novel Coronavirus, (COVID-19), we at St. John Chrysostom Parish must respond accordingly
It is with a very heavy heart, and much agony, that I must inform you that we are cancelling all weekend liturgical services and events. This will be in effect for the next two weekends, at which time it will be re-evaluated. This includes the Burlington Outreach. This cancelation is specific to our parish in Seattle only, not the rest of the Eparchy. St. George parish in Olympia also has been required to cancel liturgical services this weekend as well.
The Presanctified Liturgies at St. John’s for this Friday, March 13th and next week Wed/Fri March 18/20 are also cancelled.
Although our community is under the 250 people limit set by the State, we will not be able to meet their ‘social distancing requirement.’ You can read of this online at the Washington State website. With the size of our Temple, this is not possible, even if only half the people showed up. Based on the tremendous phone calls I have been receiving these past two days, we would be overwhelmed by Catholics from other parishes.
All parishioners of St. John Chrysostom Parish have received a dispensation for their required Sunday observance. However, I ask each of you to read the Sunday Epistle and Gospel readings and pray a desired set of Psalms together as a family. The readings can be found on your parish calendar.
The Divine Liturgy is live streamed at our Cathedral Parish of St. Stephen Cathedral in Phoenix, AZ, on Sunday’s at 10:00 a.m. Phoenix time. https://stsbcc.org/media/live-stream
We are working on an alternative scenario, but have not yet finalized it.
Truly these are strange times, we should be able to come to church and pray during these difficult times, but that has been prohibited. So, let us keep one another in our prayers, stay faithful and steadfast. As Jesus says, “Be not afraid;” “fear is useless, what is needed is trust!” No one is exempt from praying, so pray, pray, pray! And please, a pray for me.
In Christ,
Fr. Michael Mandelas, Pastor
St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church
Seattle, WA