Glory to God who has made you our unsleeping intercessor!
We thank God for the blessing to again celebrate the great feast of Saint Dionysios of Aegina, the patron saint of our Orthodox community in Ulsan. Through Saint Dionysios’s continual prayers, our dear Metropolitan Ambrosios and Deacon Yohan were able to travel to Ulsan to lead our celebrations in the midst of the 3rd wave of COVID-19 here in Korea.
On Saturday afternoon women of our community lovingly decorated our church with flowers for the occasion and many other final touches were made to beautify our temple for the divine services. Great Vespers was offered in the evening with Artoklasia with the attendance of the local faithful Koreans and expatriates along with a few guests. His Eminence conveyed to us the touching and renowned story of Saint Dionysios’s great forgiveness of the man who killed the saint’s own brother, and he also encouraged us to take this as an example of the continued forgiveness and repentance that we need to strive for in our own lives.
On Sunday morning we continued the celebration by offering Matins and the Divine Liturgy. This year during the services we had the blessing of using 3 new hymns about the life of St Dionysios that were chanted for the first time in our temple! We look forward to singing these hymns in future years! After the divine services we had a gift exchange! As a special treat, Metropolitan Ambrosios offered a Christmas gift to all the children of our community. And our faithful offered gifts of congratulations and appreciation to Metropolitan Ambrosios and Deacon Yohan for the special sacrifice and love they have shown us.
We thank God for all his blessings in our lives including the cheerful celebration of our intercessor St Dionysios which prepares our hearts to joyfully celebrate the Incarnation and Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.