Holy Diocese of Adelaide: Parish of St Panteleimon celebrates its second feast day as an English-speaking parish

Διαδώστε:

With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, the Parish of St Panteleimon in Glenelg North celebrated the feast day of its patron, with Vespers on Saturday 26th and a Hierarchical Matins and Divine Liturgy on Sunday 27th of July 2025, presided by His Grace Bishop Silouan of Adelaide.

The Holy Diocese of Adelaide is in a unique situation where all six of the Parish feast days (including St Panteleimon) between Prophet Elias (20th of July) and St Andrew’s (30th of November) always fall on the same day of the week – which is Sunday in 2025. This proved to be a mixed blessing for St Panteleimon, as it meant that our clergy were unable to attend the Sunday liturgy due to their regular Sunday obligations at their own parishes. However, it did mean that many of the clergy were free to attend the Saturday Vespers and beautify our worship through their presence. Additionally, being on a Sunday also meant that many of the faithful who may otherwise have had work obligations were free to come and celebrate in honour of the Saint – a fact that many appeared to take advantage of, as the small Church saw its largest congregation since it became an Anglophone (English-speaking) parish on Christmas Eve 2023.

His Grace Bishop Silouan addressed the people on both Saturday night and Sunday morning, conveying the blessings of His Eminence. He highlighted the holy martyrdom of St Panteleimon who showed compassion and care even for those tasked with his execution and also tied this in with the Epistle and Gospel readings for the day that spoke of the steadfastness of the Saints (of which St Panteleimon was an exemplar), their care for their neighbours, and the healing power of Christ.

After the services the small but dedicated Parish Philoptochos served food for everyone. The Philoptochos and Committee of St Panteleimon was particularly thankful to the help it received from Philoptochos members in its sister parishes.

For many years, the English-speaking Orthodox faithful have been blessed to be the recipients of hospitality from parishes whose congregations are mostly Greek-speaking. Despite a significant majority of the congregations in the established congregations being of Greek descent and preferring to hear the services in Greek, nevertheless many of these parishes would go out of their way to ensure that significant portions of the service were also conducted in English. This beautiful gesture of hospitality and outreach has been to the benefit of many who have sought entry into the Orthodox Faith, especially prior to the establishment of the dedicated Anglophone parishes such as St Sophrony and St Panteleimon.

The Parish of St Panteleimon was able to reciprocate this hospitality at the services on the weekend – with the usual “English only” services making way for the use of a significant portion of Greek too. The priest and faithful of the Parish of St Panteleimon were extremely honoured and blessed to be able to return the same hospitality to those who have been offering it to them for many years prior to this point. It was a fitting way to show respect and honour to those to whom they owe a debt of gratitude for bringing (and preserving) the Orthodox Faith to our city, our State and our Nation.

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