On holiday

Fr. Anastasios, who is the administrator of this blog, is officially on holiday from today until 3rd September.

Therefore no pictures or texts will be uploaded on the Landmark during this time. See you in September. God Bless you all.

Community BBQ

Our Church Committee had organised a Community BBQ today, in financial support of our sacred project or erecting a new Church.

Many people had worked voluntarily in order to make it a success. In the first picture from left to right are: Costas, Yiannis, Giorgos and Panayiotis.

Some of the Ladies, like Androulla, had also been actively involved and offered their goods from their gardens in order to help in the fundraising.

Alexandra and Soteris are always there in all of these events and assist in many different ways. We are always very thankful to all of the above and to many more people, who contribute their money, time and good efforts for our Church and Community.

The Feast of Virgin Mary

The third most important Feast in our Orthodox Church (after Easter and Christmas) is the Feast of the Virgin Mary (15th August).

The celebrations start in our Tradition from the Eve of the Feast.

Thus, tonight we had celebrated the Great Vespers and we sung the Lamentations dedicated to the Mother of God.

We also had a procession around our temporary Church, carrying with us the holy icon of Our Lady.

Many of our parishioners had attended this special Service. Tomorrow is the actual Festival. We shall have Holy Services in the morning as well as a BBQ afterwards.

Heaven beautified

New arches have been delivered today.

A portable crane is on site helping with the moving of those arches.

Some of them go up on the Dome and they are fixed around the windows of the... heaven.

They actually look quite impressive up there.

Plastering started

The actual plastering has started in the interior of our Church. The first element one may notice is the scaffolding:

Then the tools for the work:

Then the material and their preparation:

All these go up on the walls by the good efforts of our specialist people:

August works

Today we present the proposed programme of works for August. As it is clearly visible on the pictures various works should be completed this month, such as the bricklaying, the timber roof, the placing of the roof tiles, the Bell Tower, as well as the fixing of the windows.

The weather hasn’t been very stable lately, but we anticipate to have no problems with our building works.

The arrangement, as in the previous months, is made by Mark Taylor (Managing Director), Trevor Dean (Project Manager) and Sean Webber (Commercial Manager), all working for IBEX.

Fr. Giles Pinnock

The local Anglican Priest and friend of ours, Fr. Giles Pinnock, had visited our new Church today.

He was received by Fr. Anastasios and had a good look at all parts of the building, admiring its byzantine splendour.

Our Project Manager, Mr. Trevor Dean, had explained various details of the structure.

Fr. Giles then took some pictures of the various parts of our new place of worship.

Fr. Anastasios had offered him a brick from the old Church of St. Panteleimon, which was originally part of the local Anglican Parish, as Holy Spirit Mission Church.

Photo of the week - 47

With the best ever sky (not even a cloud over our Church) the works have progressed (on the roof and elsewhere) over the last week and continue today.

Scaffolding ready...

A part of the Nave as well as the biggest area of the Gallery have been covered by scaffolding.

This scaffolding will facilitate the plastering of both the walls as well as the ceiling, which is going to start soon.

The traditional wall paintings - icons will actually be placed on the top of the plastering.

Red tiles arrived

A lorry has delivered today thousands of the red tiles that will go on the roof of our new Church.

They came in a nice red colour.

Red being a traditional colour for the roof of the Orthodox Church buildings.

Their type is: “Rosemary Classic Red Tile”.

Walking around the... heavens

The whole of the top of our new place of worship, with the surrounding area can be seen on this video, taken this afternoon when we walked around the dome of the Church.

A quick view of the interior was also included on the video.

Be SMART - Win a Car

Our Community is organising at the moment many different fundraising events and takes various fundraising initiatives, in support of our great and sacred project.

One of them is a Raffle, with a SMART Car as the only Prize. Tickets cost only £5 each. The Draw will take place on Sunday 6th February 2011.

A famous musician

Today we had the honour to welcome to our Community the famous musician and traditional bouzouki player Yiannis Polykandriotis.

He came to see our new project and to talk with us about music lessons in our St. Panteleimon Hellenic College.

Yiannis had been a music teacher in our Community School in the past and had offered his good services to our students with great success.

The work had been continuing today in our new Church, with scaffolding being put in place in the Nave and the Gallery.

Photo of the week - 46

Great progress since last week. The pitch roof, the bricklaying on the Bell Tower and on the Kingsbury site of the building are only the visible ones...

Front Pitch roof

The front side of the barrel roof is being transformed with the timber frame.

The barrel roof is important for the interior of the Church, as it is much better and more appropriate to paint icons on it.

But the pitch roof is much better on the outside.

It is certainly a much better sight and with its various corners it emphasize the cross shape of a traditional Byzantine Church.