Glory To God And Saint Nicholas!

This morning I went to attend Divine Liturgy at Saint Spyridon church in Manhattan, the new priest , Father George, delivered a beautiful sermon on how Saint Nicholas smacked Ariunnus in the face and was justified by God, for acting in reverence and piety not in passion. In fact, this is an example of how violence is sometimes necessary to defend the faith. Saint Nicholas was said to donate everything he had to keep people out of hardships, and insisted that he not be known for giving gifts for the sake of salvation. The most interesting point, however, was the point Father George made about the Protestant hatred of Saints. Saint Nicholas as Santa Claus, he explained, was just a mockery by the protestants of a great Saint who they could not force the public to forget, so they paint him as a fat man who smokes tobacco pipes, in order to make him appear as un-saintly as possible. Father George mentioned that Greece isn't Protestantized into accepting Santa Claus, in essence, a mockery of Saint Nicholas . In Greece Saint Basil is associated with the Christmas season. However, on my last visit to Greece I did see statues and mannequins of Santa Claus.

Around noon I attended a artoclassia , a blessing of the bread and a recital of prayers, officiated by Archbishop Dimitrios, at the site of the destroyed Saint Nicholas church right by the famous bombed WTC. This is the only Greek Orthodox church in the New World physically destroyed by an act of human violence.

And in the evening I attended a Paraklesis evening service of prayer to Saint Nicholas at Saint Nicholas church in Brooklyn.

Because of the day I forgave a friend, who has lost his way, but is fastly returning to Greek Orthodoxy

My name saint , and my grandfather's name saint, I spent all day worshipping. Glory To God And Saint Nicholas!