Letters

Dear in Christ

On behalf of St. Mary Christian Orthodox Church Parish Council and Parishioners, we would like to welcome His Eminence Metropolitan JOSEPH for being the first Metropolitan to honor us with His visit to head our grand opening of our remodeled Church by being present among us in the party and presiding our Sunday Divine Liturgy on December 12, 2021 at 10.45 am.

Also we want to welcome His Grace Bishop Anthony for being here to make sure that his children are well and standing strong together for brighter future.

We want to give our great thanks to our wonderful Pastor V. Rev. Fr. Boulos E. Moussa for his magnificent energy and hard work of many months to make sure we reach these eye-opening results that dazzled every visitor, especially that the building church is reaching a hundred years old.

We have to mention our appreciation and thanks to our wonderful donors who contributed financially and morally from their hearts with great love and persistence to see the church reach this point of beauty.

We do not want to forget our Parish council board for contributing many hours of their time to have the work be done properly and timely.

In Christ

Butross Fashho
Chair Person

Nashwa Kattouah
Treasurer

Dear Fr. Boulos and faithful of St. Mary,

Blessings with the Feast of our Lord’s Transfiguration!

It is with much joy as you prepare to celebrate the renovating of your holy temple. As we all know, this only happened because of the encouragement of your beloved and ambitious pastor, Fr. Boulos Moussa. The joy is more abundant since His Eminence is here to also celebrate! His Eminence is leading our beloved Archdiocese to new heights in encouraging all of the faithful to growth spiritually in their faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The faithful of St. Mary have been worshiping in a hundred year-old, historical building formerly of the Alliance Church. Now that worship, and all who visit and participate in the Divine Services, are in an Orthodox Church with historically tradition Orthodox architecture ~ the beautiful copper Dome with the Holy Cross, a bowed ceiling, a new Iconostasis made in Greece, and stunning Holy Icons.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1) The community of St. Mary has not labored in vain for you renovated for the glory of God! At every Divine Liturgy near the end of the service, we pray, “sanctify those who love the beauty of Thy house, glorify them in recompense by Thy divine power, and forsake us not who hope on Thee.” You have loved His house, and you have made it beautiful! Our heavenly Father will glorify you by His divine power as your reward! He will never abandon you as your continue to have your hope in Him!

May the Lord continue to bless your St. Mary family as you worship Him in faith and love.

Yours in Christ,
+Bishop ANTHONY
Bishop of Toledo
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

Beloved Fr. Moussa and Faithful of St. Mary in Berkley:

Greetings to you and your families in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I pray you are all in good health.

It is with great joy that I join you in celebrating the 100th anniversary of your church building. This beautiful edifice, one of the oldest in Berkley, MI, was built as a Radio Temple to spread the word of the Alliance Church in 1921. For many of us immigrants who come from places where churches are not bought and sold and often date back hundreds of years, it was a new experience to come to countries like our beloved United States and find that many of our parishes exist in church buildings that were purchased from others. St. Mary in Berkley is one of those examples.

In 1973, St. Mary Church was purchased by our Antiochian Orthodox community and made into an Orthodox parish designed for Orthodox worship. More recently, under the vision of your pastor and with the support of the parish council, you have continued the founder’s legacy by adding to the beauty of the building, transforming it into a more traditional Byzantine style church. The placement of the copper dome with the holy cross at its peak, the renovation of the ceiling and new iconostasis from Greece made out of the beautiful linden wood and the addition of traditional byzantine iconography will help enrich the spiritual life of the church and attract others to the faith.

We can consider this anniversary phase II of it being an Orthodox Church. Phase one was when the founders purchased it and established it, phase II that we celebrate today is the completion of its transformation into a traditional Orthodox house of worship. Now we turn to phase III. What is phase III? It is to both instill this holy faith in your children and grandchildren and to take this “pearl of great price,” this jewel of our Orthodox faith, and bring it to those around you in the city of Berkley and beyond.

We thank His Grace Bishop ANTHONY for caring for you and helping you through this renovation on my behalf as well as Fr. Boulos for his tireless efforts in this process, and all the faithful who donated and helped prepare for this historic anniversary.

May your heavenly patroness, the Most-Holy Theotokos, embrace all of you as a loving mother embraces her children and may our Lord Jesus Christ bless your community for another 100 years and beyond.

Your Father in Christ,
+JOSEPH
Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of all North America