Clergy corner: Orthodox church has much to offer

Boulos Khoury

The Valley Chronicle
3/4/2012

Did you ever wonder what happened to the Church of the Apostles? Where are the churches that St. Paul started during his missionary journeys? Did they die out or do they still exist?

The churches that were started by St. Paul and the other apostles continue to exist, uninterrupted, to this day. They are known as the Orthodox Church, the second largest Christian denomination in the world, and they have a strong presence in the United States. You probably hears of the Greek or Russian Orthodox churches. These churches trace their roots to the apostolic time and continue to teach the faith as delivered to us by the Apostles who learned it from Jesus Christ himself.

On May 1 of 2011, a Mission Orthodox Church was established in Hemet to serve the Orthodox faithful in the San Jacinto Valley and to spread the message of salvation through Jesus Christ to all the people in the area. The key to understanding the church as a mission is found in Christ’s identification of the missies of the Apostles with His own. “As my father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21).

In conveying the Gospel to the people of every nation, the motivation of the Church of the Apostles, and subsequently of the church of all ages, was the conviction that the message of Christ was necessary for the life of the world and its salavtion. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Act 4:12).

If you would like to experience how the early church celebrated the Liturgy and to learn more about the Orthodox church and her teachings, we welcome you to join us on April 8. We wool celebrate Palm Sunday Liturgy at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on the corner of Stetson and Girard.

Reverend Boulos Khoury is with St. Anthony of the Desert Orthodox Mission.

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