Feast Day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker – a report by hierodeacon Pavel (Lipin)

Good News! 

On Monday, December 18, 2017, Archbishop Andronik accompanied by Hierodeacon Pavel and two of his parishioners arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they served the All-night Vigil in the house church dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.  The rector of the church is Protopriest Elias Warnke, the guardian of the myrrh-streaming icon of St. Nicholas, which has been issuing copious amounts of fragrant myrrh for almost 20 years already. 

Archbishop Andronik led the Divine Liturgy the morning of the next day; at the end of which, he offered a sermon on the life of St. Nicholas and how the saint defended the poor and unjustly accused.  After the service, he blessed a Slava Bread (Slavski Kolac) for a Serbian family that was celebrating their heavenly protector.  Fr. Elias has parishioners of many nationalities; American, Russian, Serbian, Romanian and others.  All are united by their love of the saint and wonderworker Nicholas. 

In the evening of that day, the clergy sang a joyous akathist to the icon, after which Fr. Elias answered questions from those present, who had come to venerate the wonder-working icon of St. Nicholas for the first time.  He related briefly the history of the holy icon and some of the miracles that have occurred in answer to people’s prayers. 

It is gratifying to know that despite all the changes in our church life, the wonder-working icon of St. Nicholas remains with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and continues to bring comfort to the faithful!