Melkite Diocesan Appeal 2003

Dear Internet Friend:

"If it hadn't been for the Diocese, our church would have closed." This extraordinary statement, made at a recent Diocesan Pastoral Council meeting, got me thinking: for most people, it is inconceivable that their church should close. A parish usually seems like such a permanent thing. Indeed, many of us were christened, went to Sunday school, got married, and attended our parents' funerals in the same parish church.

Even if we didn't, for most of us our church is one of the few things we can count on in life.

But I have seen many of my brother bishops have to make the wrenching decision to end the life of a parish. It can happen in our own diocese, too. I have seen many Melkite parishes and missions in the United States close their doors forever. In an upcoming issue of our diocesan magazine, Sophia, Bishop Nicholas Samra has written a short article about one of them: our former parish in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. My earnest hope and prayer is that neither Bishop Nicholas nor anyone else will ever have to write a similar retrospective article about your parish.

That's one key reason why we have the Diocesan Appeal.

The Appeal is a unique opportunity for Melkites all across the United States to pool our resources to help each other. None of our parishes stands or falls by itself, but as part of the Church of Jesus Christ worldwide. This is how our God and Savior Jesus Christ has designed His Church to work - that we would take care of one another. As St. Paul says: "I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality" (II Corinthians 8:13-14).

In my years as bishop I have been grateful to God that the generosity of our people has so many times enabled our diocese to come to the aid of parishes and missions in need.

Look at St. Elias Mission in San Jose, California. This beautiful community will be twenty years old next January. And in their twenty year history, they have battled and overcome obstacles that would have overwhelmed those fainter of heart or weaker of faith. But not the people of St. Elias Mission! The parishioners of St. Elias are mostly immigrants who have arrived in this country within the last twenty years from all over the Holy Land and its environs: Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Sudan. They didn't settle where there was an existing Melkite parish. Instead, they have labored to establish a new parish at the same time that they were striving to build a new life in the United States, and you know that cannot have been easy. Adding to their difficulties were some realities of their new land. This group was dispersed throughout the vastness of northern California - even today, no parishioner lives within fifteen miles of the church. And in bustling San Jose, where they hoped to establish their parish within reasonable distance of most of the people in their community, land prices were astronomical.

It would have been easy to give up hope. But these people loved their great heritage and traditions too much to do that. They were willing to make sacrifices, and to give beyond their means, to get St. Elias Mission on its feet. But by the mercy of the Lord, they had another option: they could get help from our Eparchy. They received support from the Diocesan Appeal and its predecessor, the St. Nicholas Guild, for the entire first decade of the Mission's existence and then some. Without the Diocesan Appeal, St. Elias Mission wouldn't be there at all today. Like the parish in Shenandoah and so many others, it would be just a memory in the hearts and souls of the people there - a lost opportunity for their children to grow up worshipping God in the manner of our fathers.

Instead, because the generosity of other Melkites in the United States, St. Elias is growing and thriving today. Under the capable direction of its pastor, Fr. James Graham, it is now well on the way to self-sufficiency.

I thank Almighty God that because of the Appeal we were able to sustain this community and many others in times of need. Maybe your own parish is one of them. Maybe it will be in the future.

Think for a moment about what the existence of St. Elias Mission - and of your own parish - will mean to so many people in coming years.

To the children who will grow up hearing and benefiting from the rich prayers of our tradition. To the elderly and to families who have a chance to worship with their brothers and sisters in the Faith. Because these churches exist, untold numbers of people will be touched with the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who would never have experienced that power otherwise. That's why the Diocesan Appeal performs such a valuable service in just being available for our Melkite communities in need. But that is only the beginning of what the Diocesan Appeal enables us to do.

The man who stood up at the last Diocesan Pastoral Council meeting and said "If it hadn't been for the Diocese, our church would have closed" was Dennis Jebber from St. Joseph Melkite Church in Akron, Ohio. Dennis is an inspiration to everyone who knows him: a fervent Christian, a devoted husband, a wonderful father and grandfather, and a deacon candidate. Dennis is just about to begin the third year of our four-year Deacon Training Program at St. Basil's Seminary in Methuen, Massachusetts, under the wise direction of Fr. Paul Frechette. The people of Dennis's parish in Akron don't pay a penny for Dennis's training. Nor do any of our other parishes or missions pay for the training of men they send to the Deacon Training Program.

The considerable expense of housing and feeding over twenty deacon candidates for two weeks each year, and for bringing top-quality instructors to Methuen to teach them, is borne in great part by the Diocese through the Diocesan Appeal.

This is the kind of expense that will pay dividends for years to come. If your parish has a deacon, you know how much he adds to your worship and your parish life in general. A man like Dennis Jebber can utterly transform a parish - but I know that if the training of our deacon candidates had to be financed by the churches that send them, many of them would have to drop out of the Deacon Training Program.

That's not all. The Diocesan Appeal helps sustain an enormous number of initiatives that have direct impact on you in your parish. Just a few of these are:

• Religious Education: We help communicate the riches of our Faith to our children throughout the Diocese by helping pay for educational material for all parishes' Religious Education Programs.

• Clergy Formation & Education Programs: Besides supporting the Deacon Training Program, we also provide tuition subsidies for theological and pre-theological students. We also subsidize special ministry education and continuing education for our priests and deacons.

• Special Youth Projects: We help pay for youth programs and give ongoing support to the National Office of Melkite Youth and its director. We will also provide a portion of the tuition for the Pre-Convention Retreat of the National Association of Melkite Youth at the 2003 National Convention.

• Eparchial Charities: This fund helps provide support to Melkite charities around the world - particularly in war-ravaged areas where our people are in the greatest need today.

If any one of these were allowed to fall by the wayside, each of our churches and missions - and everyone in them - would eventually feel the impact. That is why I ask for your help today. Without help from generous people like you, our Diocesan Appeal will cease to be the valuable resource that it is now. Our Church in the United States, including your own parish, would be immeasurably poorer for this loss.

Your gift of even as little as $100, however, will help put our community in the United States on a firm foundation in these difficult times, and ensure that our voice in the Church at large will not be stilled.

So much is at stake: each parish, its clergy, the education of our children, and our Christian witness in the world. The Diocesan Appeal is the property of the whole Church, and a key element of our continued life and growth all across the country. Your donation to the Appeal is the best investment you can make in the future of our Church. Please think and pray about this carefully and send us your most generous possible donation. Remember that your gift is tax-deductible, and that you can make a pledge and pay in installments or put it on your Visa or MasterCard.

I hope and pray that you will join us in all these great works for our God and His Church! And most of all, please keep us in your prayers.

Yours in Christ,

John Adel Elya, B.S.O.

Bishop of Newton

P.S. Don't forget that every gift you make to the Diocesan Appeal not only helps your parish through the works of the Diocese. Your parish will also benefit directly, as it will receive a 100% rebate of all the donations we receive over your parish goal! And please remember also to pray for me and for all the clergy and people of our Eparchy.