Hi, my name is “Baby ROCOR.” I’m 11 months old. You don’t know it, but you saved my life by giving me my papa when I needed him most. After I was born, my mama got really sick. It was really scary because I didn’t get to see her for the first month of my life. But you made it possible for my papa to take care of me while mama was sick.

You have no idea how excited we were to share the photos of the new van with you. But considering how incredible your response was to this appeal, we knew that you would want something more than just photos. So we made a video.

They farm if they have land, they run errands for others, they wash other people’s clothes and floors... They survive as best they can - in a country that is too crippled by political instability and poverty to help. In a world that doesn’t seem to care. But you can make the difference between life and death - literally. 

Donors like you are helping arm our priests to battle the relativism in the world and the rising renovationism in the Orthodox Church!

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world out there. And it would take a special kind of naiveté to think that the madness is not touching our beloved Orthodox world. For example, there are professors in Orthodox seminaries actually say that saints like St. Mary of Egypt never lived. Concelebration with Catholics in some circles is considered all but a foregone conclusion. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“People think the war is over in Kosovo…. It’s not!” – said Fr Nektarios, almost crying on the phone. This conversation happened a few weeks after Fr Nektarios’s return from his latest trip to Kosovo. He went there to deliver the aid you sent to your starving brothers and sisters.

I’m used to being around the secular world during the school year. Used to having to explain my faith, who I am, and why I live the life I do. But there’s one place where I never have to explain anything, because here everyone understands me without me having to say anything. Here everything I cherish and hold dear to my soul is exactly what those around me feel.  This wonderful place is the St. Herman Youth Conference.

How much help do we, the faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, offer to our own brethren, never mind those who are further afield?  Often, we think that our Christian duty consists solely of prayer, church attendance, observance of fasts and the participation in the sacraments.  However, helping our neighbour is also our direct responsibility. The Lord says that this will be asked of us on the Day of Judgement, “for I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me” (Matt. 25:35)