wfn.org | [SCOBA] Share the Light Sunday - SCOBA Encyclical

[Communications Department <Communications@GOARCH.ORG>]

SCOBA
The Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas
8 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10021

Let your light so shine before people,
that they may see your good works 
and glorify your Father in heaven. 
(St. Matthew 5:16) 

Share the Light Sunday
18 January 2009

To the Most Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics, and
The Devout Faithful of the Holy Orthodox Churches in the Americas 

Dearly Beloved in the Lord,

We, the Hierarchs of SCOBA, the Standing Conference of the Canonical 
Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, greet you in this new calendar year, and 
extend our paternal blessings to the plenitude of the Church in North 
America. As our Lord Jesus Christ exhorts us, we are all called to perform 
good works, so that the people seeing them will give glory to our Heavenly 
Father (Matthew 5:16).

Beloved Faithful, it is the great mission of the Church to make known the 
Gospel of Christ to all people. We know from the Scripture that the Lord 
sent His Disciples out to preach the Gospel and to heal (Luke 9:2). The 
Lord is sending us out today with the same sacred mission. It is our great 
privilege to reveal the workings of God in this world by our own labors of 
love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, peace-making, and by constantly 
spreading this eternal truth.

Like good and wise stewards, we should employ every means to fulfill these 
labors, and be faithful to our mission of proclaiming the Gospel. Among 
our many resources, we possess the Orthodox Christian Network (OCN), a 
media agency of SCOBA that serves to shed the light of Christ through its 
multi-faceted media ministry. 

In order to support the work of OCN, we, the Hierarchs of SCOBA, 
established the third Sunday of January as “Share the Light Sunday,” an 
annual observance of this ministry. This year, we ask that you dedicate 
January 18, 2009, as an opportunity to familiarize your parish with its 
ministry, and consider your own level of support for its mission.

May this New Year be one in which we radiate more and more the saving 
Light of Christ, a light of truth, love and salvation.

With paternal blessings and love in Christ, 

 
†Archbishop DEMETRIOS, Chairman 
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America 
 
†Metropolitan PHILIP, Vice Chairman       
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese 
of North America  
 
†Metropolitan CHRISTOPHER, Secretary  
Serbian Orthodox Church in the USA and Canada 
 
†Metropolitan NICHOLAS of Amissos, Treasurer 
American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese 
in the USA         

†Archbishop NICOLAE
Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese 
in America and Canada 

†Metropolitan JOSEPH
Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church 

†Metropolitan JONAH
Orthodox Church in America

†Metropolitan CONSTANTINE
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA

†Bishop MERCURIUS of Zaraisk 
Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the USA 

†Bishop ILIA of Philomelion
Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America