First Liturgy on September 10, 2016:
A Little Victory
The Russian Orthodox mission to this part of the country began 50 years ago in 1966 with the efforts of Fr Mark (Meyrick) of the Church Outside Russia. Forty years ago as a young student I first visited the city of Norwich, the largest city in East Anglia, twinned with Rouen in France and Novy Sad in Serbia. And I thought: we should have a Russian church here, however modest. And now forty years later, on Saturday 10 September 2016 some forty of us have gathered together and we have celebrated the first Divine Liturgy here. We give thanks to God.
In all we had to raise £63,000, which we did, with just over half coming from Russia and the rest from local people. We thank God and we thank all our benefactors, especially the servants of God Sergey, Juliana, Kseniya, Violetta, Andrey, Dimitry, Kseniya, Natalya, Konstantin, Irina, Michael, Reader Sergey, Marina, Antony, Igumen Amvrosiy, Ekaterina, Simon, Martha, Alla, Brother Angelos, Seraphim, Michael, Branko, Andrew, Natalya, Peter, Jason, Michael, Sergei, Nina, Irina, Kharitina, Valerie, Hilda, Richard, Castrese, John and their families and friends, for whom we shall always pray at the proskomidia in this new parish.
The new church is dedicated to St Alexander Nevsky. Why? Firstly because some of the founders of this new church come from Tallinn, where the Cathedral is dedicated to him. He is a saint of the north, as are we, for Norwich means North town, and could be translated into Russian as ‘Severny Torzhok’. But above all because St Alexander faced and overcame the two main temptations of his day: the East and the West. Today, too, we are faced with Eastern Islamism and Western Secularism. Let us take inspiration from St Alexander, recalling his great victory and his immortal words: ‘God is not in power, but in truth’.
Fr Andrew, September 10, 2016