† Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Sobor, Vancouver

by Rev. James McLuckie

I was very pleasantly surprised at the performance of our Church School concert on Sunday, July 2nd after the Liturgy and luncheon. A week before its opening I had the determined effort to be present, in order to be supportive of our youngest members within our community. But afterwards I was asked to write down something of my thoughts of this happening.

The upstairs auditorium was seated with a good number of family members awaiting. Young assistants held out a page of program and performance notes and at first look it appeared that a considerable organization effort was made. This hard work became very evident as the show progressed.

In the beginning our young performers were introduced to the audience: Victoria, Oksana, Anastasia, Galina, Kyrill, Anna, Maria, Nestor, Vera, Ivan, Nastya, Kasia, Dasha, Alexandra, Misha… Did I miss anyone? Our Mistress of ceremonies, Matushka Yelena, opened the show with a series of poems about the love of God and the beauty of the world’s creation through Divine hands.

I was listening, and reminiscences swirled in my mind: When I was a very young child, at evening time my parents would sit on my bed and try to get me to slowly repeat special words in my prayers. Later, when I was grown, they told me that both of them strove to teach me about our Heavenly Father as a warm, loving, ever-protecting God. The Gospel story of Jesus saying: “Allow the little children to come unto me, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven”. Through the tireless loving efforts of our Church School staff and members, our own children are coming to know of our Father in Heaven. Simple and beautiful poems are the purest gems of our Orthodox Christian faith.

The promise and development of our young people’s talents shines in our parish. There were Galina Krause’s gymnastic interpretations, Pavel Koutorjevski’s classical Beethoven piano rendition, vocal solos by Denis Luchyshyn, Alexandra Massarsky and Anastasia Fourik. Please forgive me if I have forgotten anything. Some of the contributing performers were students of Marina Osmolovskaya. The Russian class finished with a favourite poetic story by Alexander Pushkin: “Tale of an Old Man and a Goldfish”. The entire audience smiled, laughed with its humorous familiar and cherished words.

I noticed that Matushka Yelena with assistants worked very hard for this concert; THANK YOU!

A highly-orchestrated performance is so valuable for every one of our Church School members, and God willing, each and every one will know about their social and spiritual poise, learning more about our Faith: MOLODTZY! CONGRATULATIONS!!