These are worship resources for the Second Sunday of Epiphany, January 17, 2021. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

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The lockdown in Greece continues on until 18th of January at least, so we will be on Zoom only for this Sunday. You can join by clicking this link or by entering the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Passcode: 010209.

The Order of Service is here for downloading, although all the parts needed by the congregation – hymns and responses – will be up on the screen.

Read

For our readings we will use 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17, and John 1:43-51. Many churches will also be using 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.

Reflect

If I preach something decent I will put it into a new post. In the meantime, from St Paul’s Anglican Church in Athens here is Fr Leonard Doolan’s pre-recorded sermon for this coming Sunday.

Pray

Collect
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

(or)

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Biddings
I bid your prayers for the leaders and people of the nations; especially

• Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
  • Kyriakos Mitsotakis the Prime Minister of Greece;
• Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also in her role as Governor of the Church of England;
  • and Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of her British government;
• In the European Union,
  • Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission;
  • Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and
  • Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy;
• For the United Nations and its work, and its Secretary General, António Guterres;
• For the peoples of the United States, and for the inaugurations of Joe Biden and Kamal Harris;
• the peoples of Belarus, Hong Kong, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Bolivia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Thailand as they continue to demonstrate for democracy and justice;
• for the maintaining of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Russia and Ukraine, North and South Korea, and for a final, just resolution to their conflicts;
• for peace and justice between Palestinians and Israelis;
• for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
• prisoners and captives, especially the over one million Uygers being held in detention in China;
• the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”);
• for a lessening of tensions between Turkey and Greece; and
• for peace in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ethiopia.

I bid your prayers for the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

• remembering the over 24 million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the 1.9 million who have died in the pandemic;
• for the almost 1.7 million people in the UK with active cases of covid-19, the over 84,000 who have died of it there, and the over 131,000 active cases here in Greece, and the families of the over 5354 dead here;
• remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
• all those having issues with mental health;
• those suffering from addiction, and those in recovery;
• those who have been affected severely by the economic effects of the pandemic, especially in food services and tourism;
• and giving thanks for the efforts of researchers in finding vaccines, and for the rollout of vaccines across the world.

I bid your prayers for the Church:

• for Robert Innes & David Hamid, our bishops;
• for Justin Welby our archbishop, Stephen Cottrell the Archbishop of York, and the General Synod of the Church of England;
• for our beloved in Christ in other denominations, especially the leadership in:
  • The Orthodox Church: Vartholomaĩos, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; and Irinaios Athanasiadis, Archbishop of Crete; and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece in Athens;
  • The Roman Catholic Church, especially Pope Francis, and the bishop for Crete, Petros Stefanou;
  • the Greek Evangelical Church, the independent Greek Pentecostal churches, and the various Lutheran, Reformed, and other Protestant churches ministering to foreign populations;
• we pray especially for congregations that have been obliged to cease in-person services;
• for the churches and peoples of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
• in the Anglican Communion, we pray for The Anglican Church of Australia (Anglican Cycle of Prayer);
• (from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) pray for:
  • the Lusitanian Church, Bishop Jorge Pina Cabral;
  • the Church of Denmark and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Estonia;
  • in the Diocesan Office in London:
    • for the Operations and Finance functions:
    • Diocesan Secretary (COO): Andrew Caspari;
    • Office Manager: Bron Panter;
    • Finance: Susan Stelfox, Nick Wraight;
    • Board of Finance Chair: Mike Fegan. 
  • the financial needs of the Diocese (and give thanks for God’s provision).

Sing