Updated 19 January 2022: On Thursday 6 January and Friday 7 January we had services for Christmas, the Great Feast of the Nativity of Christ.  Our small church had been beautifully prepared beforehand with green vestments and a Christmas tree.  All-night Vigil – Great Compline, Matins and the First Hour – with the blessing of wheat, wine, oil and five loaves was served on Thursday evening and Divine Liturgy was served on Friday morning.  As Protodeacon Martin Naef had again been asked to assist with the hierarchical services at Saints Peter and Paul Diocesan Cathedral, our parish rector served alone.  At Divine Liturgy Craig Koppman received Holy Communion for the first time.  At the end of Divine Liturgy, we had a brief moleben of thanksgiving to observe the anniversary of the deliverance on Christmas Day in 1812 of the Russian Church and Empire from the invasion of the French and twelve other nations.  In place of a sermon at Divine Liturgy, the parish rector read aloud Metropolitan Hilarion’s Nativity Epistle in both Russian and English.