Winter Newsletter January 2026
St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church
Winter 2026 Sisterhood Newsletter
Greetings to Parishioners and Friends of the St. Nicholas Community!
Recent Service Highlights;
December 19th, 2025
Our Winter Feast Day was celebrated with Very Reverend Mark Burachek,
Very Reverend Georgii Temidis, Father Vasily and Archpriest Leonid Goferman from New Jersey. Our choir was beautifully enhanced by Eugenia Schatoff, Victor Gonchar, and Timothy Morrow. After a short Moleben to St. Nicholas, a most bountiful meal was served in our trapeza area.
January Services:
Nativity Services were well attended as were the Theophany services. The weather disrupted the evening service before Theophany, but all services where the waters were blessed were able to go as scheduled. Many thanks to Natalia Villahermosa for all of her decorating expertise in the church and in the trapeza area.
Are You Interested in Learning How to Serve in the Church?
1- Men or Boys wanting to serve in the altar or read should seek out Sub Deacon Nick Zelensky or John (Gil) Villahermosa.
2- Anyone wanting to join the choir should seek out the Choir Director Valentina Shatalova
Other Ways to help:
Help the St. Nicholas Sisterhood organize meals, flowers, decorations for seasons and feast days.
DONATE: Please remember that when services are cancelled, the church loses donations. The snow clearing still needs to be done and with the amount this year, the bill for snow removal will be substantial.
Recent Building Improvements and Donations:
Mini splits were installed for air conditioning - These should take care of the summer services in a quiet and efficient manner! We send our thanks to our extremely generous donor family.
A beautiful icon was gifted to the church on the Feast of Theophany! More about the history of this beautiful gift to come!
Recently Baptized!
Mike Scolaro
Evelyn (Genevieve) Scolaro
Abigail Scolaro
Stella (Lukiya)
Alina Sophia Tarrant
God is Great!
Sisterhood news:
The fellowship lunches have been tremendous. Many thanks to our fabulous cooks. Monetary donations from the lunches are used to buy vestments for servers, flowers for feasts, help with operating expenses, gifts for children and visiting choir members.
Upcoming Events:
2/1 - Fellowship Lunch
2/15 - The Meeting of the Lord and our annual Blini Lunch. Candles are blessed before the service. If you want to purchase candles to bless then please be at church by 10:00 when hours are starting. The Blessing is done directly after the hours and before Liturgy
****The Blini Lunch is a fund raiser for the Sisterhood!
2/22 - Forgiveness Sunday - Vespers is served after Liturgy. This includes the Rite of Forgiveness where all of us ask each other for forgiveness as we begin Great Lent on 2/23.
2/23 - 2/26 - The Reading of the Great Canon of Crete*
*English Speakers - please let us know which day you plan to attend. We will include more readings in English.
Additional Thanks to:
Olexander L. for clearing snow and donating ice melt
Catechumen classes
We are ready to begin another session of our classes! This time around we will be using some of the Zoom recordings of classes from our last session combined with live Zoom sessions. This way those interested will be able to view the recording at their convenience and complete the corresponding readings (Law of God) to help prepare for an interactive discussion. The invitations for the Zoom sessions will be sent through e mail, so please make sure that Valentina Shatalova (choir director) has your contact information.