St. Panteleimon Hymn

Fr. Anastasios is leaving today, going to Athens - Greece, where the Cultural Association Parnassos organises a Presentation of his books and poetry. He will also give a talk on: “The Prophetic role of Christian Art in the Modern era”. He will be away for a week. During this time no photos or videos from our sacred project will be uploaded here.

In the meantime enjoy the Hymn of St. Panteleimon, especially recorded for this blog, on Saturday 23rd October 2010, in front of the historic Russian icon of St. Panteleimon. The chanters are: Dr. Panayiotis Procopiou (middle), Dr. Serafim Kiriakidis (left), Mr. Vassilis Lappas (right).

Copper and stone

The work if focused on the roof today, where many workers are occupied with various important works.

The “hand of God” is here again transferring stone on the main Dome.

Specialists preparing the copper on the roof and others are fixing it on the central Dome.

In the interior

We are visiting today with our video-camera the interior of our new Church.

It is still full of scaffolding as the plastering hasn’t been completed as yet.

The roof gets quite busy

It is really busy and crowdie today up on the roof of our new place of worship.

The red tile layer is fixing the tiles on the front timber roof.

He is working under the sun, but it is also quite chilly.

The crane is transferring stone up there, especially on the Bell Tower.

The main Dome is occupied by the specialists who take up and put in their place the copper leaves.

It is interesting to note that the copper started changing its colour already.

“The Record” on our project

The Parish magazine "The Record" of the local Anglican Parish of St Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton, has dedicated a whole page on our sacred project.

The Parish Priest, Fr. Giles Pinnock, had recently visited our new Church, where Fr. Anastasios had welcomed him and showed him around. He was very impressed by our endeavours and decided to write an article for his Parish magazine.

Photo of the week - 54

We had good progress this week and very visible too.

The main Dome is slowly-slowly becoming coppered, the dome of the Bell Tower was covered with certain layers of wood and red tiles are now appearing on the timber roof.

Live on the Church roof

A photograph has obviously great impact and it is regarded as equal to 1000 words. A video though is even better, as it shows moving pictures and come present a whole area or a story in a very graphic way.

Thus, we thought of taking a short video today, showing what happens up on our new Church’s roof and how it looks at this moment.

The windows

The first windows have now been fixed.

They had been here with us for quite a while, but their time has just come now to be put in place.

They were made by a company called BLAIRS, which operates up in Scotland.

They actually look beautiful and fit very nicely on both our Bell Tower and on various walls.

Soon they will all be put in place, thus securing the Church even better.

Copper on Dome

The copper is being at the moment fixed on the main Dome.

Preparations are done in the interior of our new Church; then our specialist engineers take the leaves of copper up on the Dome.

The weather is quite chilly today and working up there must be a real testing.

But the professionalism and dedication of our engineers and workers should be praised and commended.

Now our high Dome began to shine from far away.

Tiles on the roof

At the end of last week the crane put the red tiles on the roof of our new Church.

Our dedicated workes started then distributing them on the specific areas where they should go.

Then, from yesterday they started laying and fixing them in their place.

Photo of the week - 53

53 pictures of the week so far. This week, apart from the weather change, we can also see progress on the timber roof as well as on the Domes.

Delay!!!

Yesterday we had at our Vicarage an important meeting! Members of the Community Council met with representatives of IBEX and we discussed the progress of the building works as well as the new programme of works.

As it happened it was necessary to draw a new programme of works, because there are delays.

According to the Progress Report, submitted by the Project Manager Trevor Dean, “We are currently running 7 weeks behind the last recovery programme issued, due predominantly to Contech’s production of reconstituted stone”.

This takes the finishing of works well after Christmas, probably around February.

Mainly stone

Yesterday was very busy at our building site.

A huge crane was transferring all day material on the top of the new Church.

Mainly stone, but also bricks, tiles and other materials were place on the roof.

The builders started fixing the stone in place.

It really looks very beautiful.

Two specialists are working on the Dome, fixing the copper in place.

October 2010

THE OCTOBER PROGRAMME

OF DIVINE SERVICES AND OTHER EVENTS

Tuesday, 5th October: 6.00 pm Supplicatory Canon to St. Panteleimon
.....6.30 pm Bible Study: «The Love of Self - Mother of all Passions»

Tuesday, 12th October: 6.00 pm Supplicatory Canon to Virgin Mary

.....6.30 pm Bible Study: «The sin of Anger and its consequences»

Sunday, 17th October: 6.00 pm Vespers

Monday, 18th October: 9.30 am Matins and Divine Liturgy
.....Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist

Tuesday, 19th October: 6.00 pm Supplicatory Canon to St. Panteleimon
.....6.30 pm Bible Study: «The good Fear and the evil Fear»

Friday, 22nd October: 6.00 pm Vespers

Saturday, 23rd October: 9.30 am Matins and Divine Liturgy
.....Feast of Saint James, brother of our Lord

Monday 25th Oct. - Saturday 30th Oct.: Fr. Anastasios will be on holiday

Photo of the week - 52

The weather is not very good lately, but the works continue as planned, both inside and outside the new Church. The only visible progress though for this week can be seen on the Dome.

Dinner and Music

Tonight our Community had organised a very successful Dinner and Music at Barracuda Fish Restaurant in Harrow in support of our Church’s Fundraising.

The delicious Dinner was kindly offered by the owners of the Restaurant, Yiannis and Andri Christofis.

The total money collected was £2000.

An excellent Greek Music Orchestra had performed and entertained the guests. Costas was the singer, who sung traditional Greek songs.

Fr. Anastasios thanked everyone for attending, as well as the owners of the Restaurant for their generous contribution.

Mr. Pantelis Demosthenous, the Chairman of the Community, with the assistance of the Treasurer Mr. Soteris Constantinou offered presents to Yiannakis and Andri and informed the people of the latest developments in regard to the building of our new Church.

It was a really joyful evening to remember for a long time.

A message from Fr. Meletios

The Archimandrite Fr. Meletios Webber is an Orthodox Monk-Priest, who originally comes from Scotland. He served our community as its Parish Priest from 1978 up to 1984. Now he serves as Abbot at a Russian Orthodox Monastery in U.S.A.

Our Parish Priest, Fr. Anastasios, informed Fr. Meletios about the good endeavours of his old Parish in Harrow to build a new Church, asking him to keep us in his prayers as we are entering the last phase of this sacred project.

Then we received the following message from Fr. Meletios:

Dear Father Anastasios,

I was thrilled to get your email, and to see the progress you are making with the new Church. You have all worked extremely hard to do this, and I congratulate you on your efforts.

I may have to come to the UK quite soon to look into some publishing plans. If that is the case, perhaps I can come to Harrow (my parents have both now reposed... they used to live in Pinner) to see the Community with my own eyes. Much has changed since I left the Community in 1984!

I pray for you all, and seek your holy prayers in return.

With love in Christ,

+Abbot Meletios

Stone delivered

Today (a rainy day) we received a huge quantity of stone pieces.

They actually come all the way from the North of England.

A crane (the “hand of God”) was hired in order to assist with the unloading of the stones from the truck.

It is worth noting that we are going to use a total number of about 1900 pieces of stone in our new Church.