Dome completed

The Dome was practically finished today.

The scaffolding started coming down.

Bricklayers work hard, although the weather went backwards today, reminding us of real winder, with temperatures around 4 degrees Celsius.

The Sanctuary area is clear of scaffolding and we can get an idea as to sizes of various individual areas within the Altar place.

Bricklayers have started work

Today we have seen the second phase of our building project to begin in front of our very own eyes.

The first bricks were laid today on three of the four sides of the church.

They actually look quite impressive.

Many bricks have been stored in the interior of the church.

By tomorrow evening all the scaffolding from the interior will have been removed.

Photo of the week - 30

This is the 30th photo of the week. 30 weeks full of productive building works. The Dome has just been completed. Many other works on the interior of the building are not obviously visible in a picture from the outside.

Palm Sunday - Entry into our new Church

Today our Church commemorates the Entry of our Lord into the Holy City - Jerusalem.

We in our Community celebrated our own entry into our new church building for the first time.

We held a special Service of Blessing for the new church and eveyone was very emotional.

The congregation numbered today 400 people.

After the Service we had been offered a meal at Golden Kitchen Restaurant of Mr. Petros and Mrs. Anastasia Christofi in North Harrow.

Petros is a Vice-President of our Community.

He offered to about 5o people a delicious meal of fish and chips.

Getting ready for tomorrow...

Today we had intensive preparations for the Holy Service to be celebrated tomorrow at our new church.

The truth is that the church is not ready as yet. There is a lot of scaffolding in the interior as well as other materials (bricks etc.).

But we thought of having a short Service to celebrate for the ending of the first phase of the building process.

"Eleftheria" paper for the Sunday Service

"Eleftheria" weekly London Greek newspaper has published an article on the Palm Sunday Holy Service to be celebrated at our new church.

We are all very excited about it.

Announcements

Our Holy Orthodox Church commemorates a very important event today. It is the Annunciation of our Lady, Virgin Mary.

The Feast of the Annunciation of the Theotokos commemorates the announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would become incarnate and enter into this world through her womb.

The other important announcement comes from our Community. It is about this coming Sunday, which is Palm Sunday.

At the end of the Holy Service in our temporary church, the congregation will move in a procession into the new church building for the first time.

We are going to have some special prayers there, according to the order of the day, as well as a special Service of Blessing of the new church. This will take place at around 12.00 noon.

The building works has continued today. There was a lot of activities all around the building site, and even outside it, as was some cementing at the entrance of the Community premises.

The Dome was fully concreted today. The right hand side area of the interior was revealed, with the scaffolding being moved away.

The foundations for the boundary wall were also put in place.

Up on the Gallery

It was for first time today that I was able to get on the Gallery by using the staircase of the Bell Tower.

A great spiritual and uplifting experience.

We all agreed there that the church looks much larger from inside than from the outside.

Some workers were cleaning the floor of the Gallery.

Others were dismantling the scaffolding in the interior of the Church.

The Dome will most probably be completed today.

The boundary wall has just started being built on the (Harrow) side of the building.

The view from the Dome

Today I had the chance of going up the Dome.

In actual fact I went up to the highest platform which is built inside the Dome, in order to facilitate its concreting.

The view from there is breathtaking.

I could see parts of the inside the church building, such as the gallery and the various arches.

I could also look outside, at the Bell Tower, the barrel roof and the neighbouring area.

Parts of the scaffolding in the interior of the building are being dismantled from today.

Photo of the week - 29

On the 29th week we see the Bell Tower fully completed, the crane is not there anymore and the focus these days is on the main Dome.

The new drainage

Our new church has not just beautiful and sacred elements on it.

We need to arrange the new drainage as well.

This is an absolutely necessary element of each building, in order to be well functional.

These pictures show the drainage system from the front of the building, as well as from one side (the Harrow one).