On Saturday 25 April and Sunday 26 April we had closed-door services for the second Sunday of Pascha, Thomas Sunday.  Thomas Sunday is so named because the appointed reading from the Gospel (John 20:19-31) gives an account of the initial unbelief and subsequent confession of faith of the Apostle Thomas.  All-night vigil was served on Saturday evening and Divine Liturgy was served on Sunday morning.  At Divine Liturgy the commemoration books of the Wallsend parish were read.  Following the Prayer before the Amvon the prayer at the breaking of the Artos was read and the artosi for both our parish and the Wallsend parish were cut for distribution.  The pieces of the artos have been wrapped and frozen and will be distributed when our churches reopen.  Following Divine Liturgy a general pannikhida was served in anticipation of Radonitsa (the "Day of Rejoicing"), a commemoration of the departed that in the Russian Orthodox tradition is customarily observed on the second Tuesday after Pascha.  In accordance with the instructions of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia we commemorated their Beatitudes the ever-memorable Metropolitans Anthony and Anastassy; Metropolitans Philaret, Vitaly and Laurus; our ever-memorable Diocesan hierarchs Archbishops Theodore, Savva, Theodosy, Afanasy, and Paul; the departed clergy of our Diocese; all those who for Christ and the Russian Church laboured in divers lands, and the other archpastors, pastors, founders and benefactors of the Russian Diaspora; for the elect sons and daughters of the Church of Russia, who faithfully struggled for her unity, good estate and honour in the realms of piety, blessedness, governance, the protection of the persecuted and the veneration of the New Martyrs and Confessors; for all our righteous ancestors, and for their peaceful repose and blessed memory.  At this pannikhida the names of the departed in all the commemoration books of our parish and the Wallsend parish were read.