Is Chanter another term for Reader?
Vladyka is going to be tonsuring two Readers and two Subdeacons next week.
I'm not one of them.
People keep asking, and so far I haven't had to go beyond "no thank you". Between keeping a hand on Paisley to make sure she doesn't seize and kiss the floor, and the 9 month old boy who is becoming really mobile, both parents have enough going on without me trying to do more than sing.
Yesterday we had a special assembly to buy a parcel of land, where we'll build our own temple. We're renting right now from an Anglican church, and we really like our old 1840's chapel, but we've outgrown it. It was getting pretty packed when Fr Alexander was there, but when he was replaced with Metropolitan Jonah, the thing we were expecting started to happen: for some reason having a Metropolitan around all the time has attracted even more people.
Vladyka is digging in here - he's moving closer to the parish, and is looking for property to buy to set up a skete, and he's been personally involved with raising missions up to parishes multiple times. So really exciting (and scary) things are going on here.
Since I'm the warden, I had to run the meeting where we voted on it... and I was NOT into it. I still have trust issues with church, which is held over from my Lutheran days... and the fact that my brothers in Christ at this Orthodox church contain a lot of federal law enforcement types doesn't help.... and so I just told everyone what I was feeling: that my primary concern is not buying property, or building a temple, but that nobody gets injured in the process. I've been saying that for a while... we have an excellent opportunity here to make some bitter enemies.
The deal we're getting on this property can't be beaten, money is starting to flow in from nowhere, we have an experienced Metropolitan navigating for us, and for better or worse, a warden who has seen how crappy people can be to each other who is determined to prevent it... it certainly sounds like we're building a church!
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