THE DORMITION OF THE THEOTOKOS in Greece is called, the Summer Pascha. All Feasts of the Theotokos have a special beauty about them. Today, is the third Feast of the Savior in August, The Translation of the Image Not Made With Hands. We have that icon above the Royal Doors. The other two feasts are the Procession of the Cross on Aug 1, and the Transfiguration on Aug 6.

TODAY, WE RECEIVE through Baptism and Chrismation Ruth and Blake’s newborn son, Luke Aidan.

FR PAUL & MOTHER NANCY         will be in Los Angeles visiting their 14^th grandchild on Sunday, Aug 23. They’ll be in Fargo on Sunday, Aug 30, for the Clergy Synaxis of the Dakotas Mission District. St Herman’s will be served both Sundays by Fr John Schroedel.

CHURCH NEW YEAR is Sept 1. We observe the New Year with Vigil on “New Year’s Eve,” Mon, Aug 31, at 6 pm, and Divine Liturgy on Tues, Sept 1, at 630 am.

UPON FR PAUL & Mother Nancy’s return, we will look forward to receiving Zane, Devon and their newborn, Isla, and the newborn, John Coleman, on Sunday, Sept 6. Including these names, we are looking to receive 16 more new faithful through confession of faith, Holy Baptism and Holy Chrismation before Christmas.

TO ACCOMMODATE our growing number of NURSING MOTHERS, the choir room at the northeast corner of the Temple upstairs, and also the stage downstairs, on the east end, have been fitted with more chairs.

ST HERMAN’S PARISH boasts our own seminarian. Avery Peterson has been accepted to the Diocesan Seminary Extension program. He is in Chicago this weekend for an orientation retreat with the rest of his cohort. Our parish has set up a Parish Seminarian fund to which faithful can donate to provide financial assistance for our seminarian, Avery Peterson. Avery’s costs for participating in this program is calculated roughly at $4800 per semester.

SUPPORT OUR SEMINARIANS is a Diocesan appeal taking place in the month of September . Donations are solicited for our Diocesan Seminarian Fund. Donations to this fund enable the Diocese to provide financial assistance to all our diocesan seminarians, which includes those enrolled in the Diocesan Seminary Extension Program. Our diocese this year has about 19 seminarians. Avery will also be a beneficiary of this appeal, so that we can be motivated to donate not only to our parish seminarian fund – which goes exclusively to Avery – but also to the Diocesan seminarian fund.

CATECHISM CLASSES at St Herman’s are open to everyone, inquirers and faithful as well as to catechumens. Catechism Classes are scheduled to begin at St Herman’s on Wednesday, Sept 9, from 7 – 830 pm. Classes will go for three weeks before they break for four weeks while Fr Paul & Mother Nancy are on their Jubilee Cruise in October.

OUR CHURCH SCHOOL has classes for all ages, from babies to adults. The start date for our 2026-2027 Church School Year is tentatively set for Sunday, Sept 27. On that Sunday, we return to our “normal” Sunday schedule: Church School & Adult Ed at 9 am, Divine Liturgy at 10 am.

OUR THIRD QUARTER CHARITY is Holy Dormition Monastery. Our Fourth Quarter Charity is FOCUS MN. Donations towards these charities may be given to our treasurer or placed in the Donations/Offering box on the west end of the nave.

ST HERMAN’S CELEBRATES ITS JUBILEE ANNIVERSARY this Fall. We will have an informal celebration on Sat-Sun, Sept 19-20, highlighted by a parish picnic at Wabun Picnic Area [near the Veterans Home and Minnehaha Falls] from 4 pm – 7 pm. Great Vespers that Saturday will be served at 730 pm. Our informal celebration concludes with the wedding of Liam and Naomi, taking place formally on Sunday, Sept 20, at St Mary’s Cathedral, at 430 pm. Our formal Jubilee celebration takes place on Saturday/Sunday, Nov 21/22, when Archbishop Daniel will be with us. This will include a banquet with His Eminence, and a play on the life of St Herman, put on by the children of the parish under the direction of Erin Kampa. We also are working to put together a yearbook. An outdoor shrine [built by Dan G] of St Herman of Alaska [drawn by Papadija Xenia] will be erected; a new altar is being built [by Dan G] from cedar, pine, and cypress [the three woods of the Cross] to be consecrated by Abp Daniel in Nov. An icon of St Olga of Alaska has been ordered.

IN CONJUNCTION with our Jubilee Anniversary celebration this Fall, donations are welcome to help us procure wood [pine, cedar, cypress – the three woods of the Cross] for the new altar, and other needed liturgical items.

FR PAUL & MOTHER NANCY continue the celebration of their Jubilee wedding anniversary [June 5] with a Viking Cruise on the Mediterranean, from Athens to Verona, Italy, Oct 1-18. We are most grateful to Fr John Schroedel who will be serving St Herman’s the three Sundays Fr Paul & Mother Nancy are gone, providing us with consistent pastoral leadership in Fr Paul & Mother Nancy’s absence.

A NEW COFFEE HOUR TEAM has been created, making eight teams altogether. Wanna be hip? Be on a team! Talk to Katie Boyum! She’ll talk back to you!

MEOCCA – Minnesota Eastern Orthodox Clergy Association – announces its Fall Catechism. Classes begin on Tues, Sept 8, at St George Antiochian Orthodox Church, 1250 Oakdale Ave, West St Paul, MN 55118, from 7-9 pm. Classes are free and open to everyone. Flyer with details is on the bulletin board downstairs.

FOCUS holds its annual Summer Banquet on Thursday, August 20, at St Mary’s Greek. Flyer with details is posted on the bulletin board downstairs.

The Holy Virgin Theotokos is the Mother of the faithful, for they have united themselves to Christ in Holy Baptism. In Christ, She becomes their true Mother even as Christ is their True Savior. Written sources detailing the life of the Holy Virgin appeared as early as the end of the first century – although that text seems now to be lost. However, details in that lost text may well be included in the Protoevangelium of James, written in the middle of the 2^nd century. These written texts drew from oral sources. Their content, then, is much older.

Moreover, throughout the centuries, the Holy Virgin has appeared to many saints, including, for example, St Gregory Palamas [14^th cent]. His homilies recount details of the Holy Virgin’s life that give all the appearance of first-hand testimony. No doubt, St Gregory was recounting what the Holy Virgin herself told him in one of her many appearances to him.

The Holy Virgin is our Mother. In the Church, she is not an idea or an abstraction. She is a living presence. Her presence can be felt palpably. We do not hear stories of Her as fiction – regardless of what the academics might say; their epistemological starting point is not living faith but abstract, scientific reasoning that relies wholly on what the conceit of human reason is able to measure by its own rational powers.

If the Church is the Body of Christ, then the Church is Her Body because the LORD spun His Body from Her pure blood. In the Church, the faithful love hearing the stories of their Holy Mother that are known only in the Church where She is known and experienced as our Mother. One such story comes to us from a sermon by John, Bishop of Thessalonica between 610 -649 AD. This is the earliest official retelling by an Orthodox bishop of the traditional narrative of the Theotokos’ Dormition.

The Apostles lifted up the precious body of Our Most Glorious Lady, Mary, the Mother of God and ever-virgin, and placed it in a new tomb, in the place the Savior had showed them. They remained in that place, awake in unity of spirit, for three days. After the third day, they opened the sarcophagus to venerate the precious Tabernacle of Her who deserves all praise, but found only Her grave-garments; for She had been taken away by Christ, the God who became flesh from Her, to the place of Her eternal, living inheritance. And our LORD Jesus Christ Himself, who bestowed glory on His immaculate Mother Mary Theotokos, will also bestow glory on those who glorify Her. Those who call upon Her, celebrating Her memorial every year, He will save from every danger, and He will fill their households with good things. And they will receive the forgiveness of their sins, both here and in the age to come. For He has shown Her to be His cherubic Throne, an earthly heaven, the hope and refuge and confidence of our race, so that if we celebrate, with the sacred mysteries, the festival of Her Holy Dormition, we might find mercy and grace in the present age and in the age to come, by the grace and kindliness of Our LORD Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power, with His unbegotten Father and with the All-Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen!

On the Dormition of Mary. Early Patristic Homilies. p. 67

To Ponder: The Theotokos is not a Goddess. She is fully human. Therefore, in the Annunciation, She reveals what it is to be truly human: it is to be indwelt by God and to be deified. In Her Holy Dormition, She reveals the destiny of all who unite themselves to Christ in the Church’s Holy Baptism and who strive to “walk in newness of life.” It is to be taken up into Heaven in Her arms, who Herself is taken up in the arms of Christ.