November 25- Feast Day of Saint Katherine (and for the next few days)

Once again I was called to celebrate Orthros for the feast of Saint Katherine. There was no liturgy at the Patriarchal Cathedral as the Patiarch was going to St Katherine's for their feast day. I opted to not go along for the service. I needed to vacate my room in one building for a room in the older building on Monday morning so I needed to get somethings packed and also had laundry to do.

Reminds me of being in the seminary when we had to do laundry had to wait in line for the washers and dryers in the basement of Polemankos Hall. Nowdays its washer/ dryer at home. Even so there is one washer and no dryer. The clothes are dried the old fashioned way on lines streched in the stairwell and folding wire racks at the end of the hall. Funny, how we now take even the simplest tasks for granted like drying clothes. We consider a dryer a neccessity not a luxury. Here a dryer is an unnecessary additional expense vis-a-vis electric bill . Forget gas dryers they will be non existent since there are no lines to service them. 

We in the US do consume way to much of nature's resources. Petroleum products are so cheap in the US in order to power our way to huge automobiles. We balk at $3.00 per gallon gas where here it is 3.09 Lira per liter. That works out to $ 11.67 per gallon! We need to become better stewards of what resources we do have (and import). We are all on this planet with others.

The days following St Katherine have been days in preparation for the feast day of St Andrew on November 30. This is the feast day of the Patriarchate as its apostolic founder is considered to be St Andrew, the first called. This is a big day for the Patriarchate as they welcome and official delegation from Rome (as we send an official delegation to Rome on their feast day in June). The Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco who is travelling with Metropolitan Gerasimos on a Pilgrimage to Rome, Athens and Constantinople, will be seated with the official Vatican delegation.

In the meantime, Fr Nifon of the English Office has returned to the Patriarchate and is getting back to work after being away for about a month. He has to come back to the United States every so often as per his Turkish visa. My visa is good for multiple trips with in the next 120 days. Unfortunately if I come back sometime with Metropolitan Gerasimos who is going to be part of the next Synod beginning March 1, 2011, my visa will have to be renewed.