wfn.org | SCOBA Share the Light Sunday 18 January 2009

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.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 â??Share the Light  Sunday,â?? 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
> inn America and Canada

> ?Metropolitan JOSEPH
> Bulgariann Eastern Orthodox Church

> ?Metropolitan JONAH
> Orthoodox Church in America

> ?Metropolitan CONSTANTINE
> Ukrrainian Orthodox Church of the USA

?Bishop MERCURIUS  of Zaraisk

Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the USA

> ?Bishop ILIA of Philomelion
> Albanian Orthhodox Diocese of America