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The next time you go to church, take a moment to look around you.  Of course, you'll see icons, the altar, the sanctuary.  Your priest will be going about his labors.

But one of the most important elements for the life of the parish is something you won't see at all.

That element is the Eparchy.  Most of what we do is unseen.  But if the Eparchy didn't exist, you might not be seeing any of the things that are before you.

It's likely that the Eparchy contributed funds for the training of your priest.  It could even be that his education was entirely sponsored by our fund for seminarians.  If you're in a Mission, the Eparchy is probably covering the medical expenses and medical insurance for your priest, and giving aid in many other forms to your community.

Nor are these the only ways that the Eparchy has served your community.

Take a walk around your church.  You may find beautiful full-color flyers explaining the most recent Great Feast of the Church and containing the principal hymns of the Feast from our tradition, as well as practical ways you can make observances of the Feast part of your spiritual life at home.  These flyers are supplied to your parish by the Eparchy, free of charge.

If your parish has a Society of Publicans Chapter, you may use the new and expanded Society of Publicans Prayer Book, which contains not only the Publicans' prayers for each parish and mission of the Eparchy, but the Akathist Hymn to the Name of Jesus, the Paraclisis, and prayers for daily life - including prayers for different times of day, prayers before meals, the Resurrectional Tropia, and much more.  The Eparchy bore the costs of this book's production and printing, and we have done everything we could to make it as inexpensive as possible.

The materials that your Sunday school students use to learn our holy faith and traditions most likely come from the Eparchy as well, and were developed by our Office of Educational Services.

That isn't all, either!

We plan to ordain quite a few deacons soon.  There is a large group of men who are completing the Eparchy's wonderful Deacon Training Program, and God willing they will be ordained this year.

The Deacon Training Program is staffed by some of the brightest lights of our Eparchy.  In addition to the Rt. Rev. Paul Frechette, who capably directs the program, there is Dr. Khaled Anatolios, an outstanding scholar and historian of the early Church; the Rt. Rev. Philip Raczka of St. Joseph's Church in Akron, Ohio, who has amassed a formidable reputation as an authority on the Liturgy; Fr. Michael Skrocki, the Adjutant Judicial Vicar for the Eparchy; and our own Auxiliary Bishop, Nicholas Samra.

If I gave the other instructors the recognition they deserve, this letter would go on for many pages.  But they  are no less accomplished.  Our deacon candidates would be hard pressed to find a better quality of training in any theological school in the country.  But they go to Methuen free of charge.  That's right: these gentlemen haven't paid for their training.  The parishes that have sponsored them haven't either.

We take these costs on ourselves at the Eparchy, and it isn't cheap: the deacon candidates gather every year for two weeks at St. Basil's Seminary in Methuen, Massachusetts.  We take on the considerable expense of housing and feeding over twenty deacon candidates for two weeks each year, and of bringing these top-quality instructors to Metheun to teach them.

It is money well spent.  This is the kind of expense that will pay off 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 good deacon can utterly transform a parish.  But I know that if the costs of training our deacon candidates had to come from the parishes that send them, many of them would have to drop out of the Program.

The Eparchy also contributes to the tuition and expenses for the continuing education of our priests and deacons.  We also helped cover some expenses of the Melkite Association of Young Adults (MAYA) retreat.

You may not see these things happening, but you're likely to experience their effects - in the enrichment of your own spiritual life through contact with those who have had the opportunity to deepen their own life with God.  All because of the efforts of the Eparchy through this Appeal.

Those spiritual effects go far beyond the confines of our Melkite community in America.  For this Melkite Diocesan Appeal also contributes funds to our Patriarch, Gregory III Laham, for use to help the poor and orphaned in the Middle East.  These people simply have nowhere else to turn: it is our Christian duty to do everything we can to help them.

That's why the Diocesan Appeal is so important.  So much depends on it: our parishes, our clergy, the education of our children, and our Christian witness in the world.  The Diocesan Appeal is key to our continued life and growth in this country and around the world.  Your donation to the Appeal is therefore the best investment you can make in the future of our Church.  Please pray about this carefully and send us your most generous donation possible.

Remember: 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 most of all, please keep us in your prayers.  May Christ our God, who is not outdone in generosity, bless and reward you for your generous support of the Melkite Church in America.

Yours in Christ,

John Adel Elya, B.S.O.

Bishop of Newton