Saint Aidan Orthodox Church

Fast Day
2023-05-03

St. Aidan Church Breakfast
2023-05-01 07:30 - 09:30, 2023-04-17 07:30 - 09:30, 2023-04-10 07:30 - 09:30, 2023-04-03 07:30 - 09:30, 2023-03-27 07:30 - 09:30 (America/Edmonton)
A free breakfast is served every Monday of every month.
Monday breakfast consists of a breakfast sandwich with coffee, juice, yogurt and two pieces of fruit.

Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women with the Noble Joseph Divine Liturgy
2023-04-30 10:30 - 12:15
The Myrrh-bearing women are those women who followed the Lord, along with His Mother. They remained with her during the time of the saving Passion, and anointed the Lord’s body with myrrh. Joseph and Νikόdēmos asked for and received the Lord’s body from Pilate. They took it down from the Cross, wrapped it in linen cloths and spices, then they laid it in a tomb, and then they placed a great stone over the entrance of the tomb… read more: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/30/36-sunday-of-the-holy-myrrhbearing-women-with-the-noble-joseph

Great Vespers-Tone 2
2023-04-29 17:30 - 18:30

St. Thomas Sunday Divine Liturgy
2023-04-23 10:30 - 12:15
Some icons depicting this event are inscribed “The Doubting Thomas.” This is incorrect. In Greek, the inscription reads, “The Touching of Thomas.” The Slavonic inscription is, “The Belief of Thomas.” When Saint Thomas touched the Life-giving side of the Lord, he no longer had any doubts…read more https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/23/34-antipascha-saint-thomas-sunday

Great Vespers-Tone 1
2023-04-22 17:30 - 18:30

Agape Vespers
2023-04-16 13:00 - 15:00
We gather today sing the Pascal Vespers. We joyously sing many times and in many languages…Christ is Risen…
Following the Vespers we join in a Paschal Potluck…hmmm, hmmm…

Nocturns, Matins and Paschal Divine Liturgy
2023-04-15 22:30 - 2023-04-16 01:30
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the center of the Christian faith. Saint Paul says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our preaching and faith are in vain (I Cor. 15:14). Indeed, without the resurrection there would be no Christian preaching or faith. The disciples of Christ would have remained the broken and hopeless band which the Gospel of John describes as being in hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. They went nowhere and preached nothing until they met the risen Christ, the doors being shut (John 20: 19). Then they touched the wounds of the nails and the spear; they ate and drank with Him. The resurrection became the basis of everything they said and did (Acts 2-4): “. . . for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39).read more… https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/16/27-holy-pascha-the-resurrection-of-our-lord

Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday
2023-04-15 10:30 - 13:00
Great and Holy Saturday is the day on which Christ reposed in the tomb. The Church calls this day the Blessed Sabbath.
“The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day when he said:
God blessed the seventh day.
This is the blessed Sabbath
This is the day of rest,
on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works….”
(Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday)
By using this title the Church links Holy Saturday with the creative act of God. In the initial account of creation as found in the Book of Genesis, God made man in His own image and likeness. To be truly himself, man was to live in constant communion with the source and dynamic power of that image: God. Man fell from God. Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath He rests from all His works…read more https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/15/26-great-and-holy-saturday

Matins with Praises & Shroud Procession
2023-04-14 18:30 - 21:00
Now we sing the Praises before the tomb and make a procession with the Shroud…

Vespers with Shroud Veneration
2023-04-14 16:30 - 17:45
Taking our Saviour down from the cross and setting up the tomb…

Great and Holy Friday - Royal Hours
2023-04-14 10:30 - 12:30
Royal Hours…continuing the journey to Pascha!…a once a year service.

Matins with the 12 Gospel Readings
2023-04-13 18:30 - 21:00
Please note change of venue for this service.

Great and Holy Thursday - Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil
2023-04-13 10:30 - 12:30
Two events shape the liturgy of Great and Holy Thursday: the Last Supper of Christ with His disciples, and the betrayal of Judas. The meaning of both is in love. The Last Supper is the ultimate revelation of God’s redeeming love for man, of love as the very essence of salvation. And the betrayal of Judas reveals that sin, death and self-destruction are also due to love, but to deviated and distorted love, love directed at that which does not deserve love. Here is the mystery of this unique day, and its liturgy, where light and darkness, joy and sorrow are so strangely mixed, challenges us with the choice on which depends the eternal destiny of each one of us. “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come… having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end…” (John 13:1). To understand the meaning of the Last Supper we must see it as the very end of the great movement of Divine Love which began with the creation of the world and is now to be consummated in the death and resurrection of Christ… read more https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/13/24-great-and-holy-thursday

Great and Holy Wednesday - Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
2023-04-12 17:30 - 19:15

St. Aidan Church Breakfast
2023-04-12 07:30 - 09:30, 2023-04-05 07:30 - 09:30
A free breakfast is served the first two Wednesdays of every month.
Wednesday breakfast consists of burritos with coffee, juice, yogurt and two pieces of fruit.

Great and Holy Tuesday - Bridegroom Matins
2023-04-11 17:30 - 19:30
…For there were “normal” men who shouted “Crucify Him” who spat at Him and nailed Him to the Cross. And they hated and killed Him precisely because He was troubling their normal life. It was indeed a perfectly “normal” world which preferred darkness and death to light and life…. By the death of Jesus the “normal” world, and “normal” life were irrevocably condemned. Or rather they revealed their true and abnormal inability to receive the Light, the terrible power of evil in them. “Now is the Judgment of this world” (John 12:31). The Pascha of Jesus signified its end to “this world” and it has been at its end since then. This end can last for hundreds of centuries, but this does not alter the nature of time in which we live as the “last time.” “The fashion of this world passeth away…” (I Cor. 7:31)…read more: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/11/22-great-and-holy-tuesday

Great and Holy Monday - Bridegroom Matins
2023-04-10 17:30 - 19:30
These three days, which the Church calls Great and Holy have within the liturgical development of the Holy Week a very definite purpose. They place all its celebrations in the perspective of End Times; they remind us of the eschatological meaning of Pascha. So often Holy Week is considered one of the “beautiful traditions” or “customs,” a self-evident “part” of our calendar. We take it for granted and enjoy it as a cherished annual event which we have “observed” since childhood, we admire the beauty of its services, the pageantry of its rites and, last but not least, we like the fuss about the Paschal table. And then, when all this is done we resume our normal life. But do we understand that when the world rejected its Savior, when “Jesus began to be sorrowful and very heavy… and his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death,” when He died on the Cross, “normal life” came to its end and is no longer possible…read more: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/10/21-great-and-holy-monday

Bridegroom Matins
2023-04-09 17:30 - 19:00

Divine Liturgy-Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday)
2023-04-09 10:30 - 12:30
Palm Sunday is the celebration of the triumphant entrance of Christ into the royal city of Jerusalem. He rode on a colt for which He Himself had sent, and He permitted the people to hail Him publicly as a king. A large crowd met Him in a manner befitting royalty, waving palm branches and placing their garments in His path. They greeted Him with these words: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel! (John 12:13).
This day together with the raising of Lazarus are signs pointing beyond themselves to the mighty deeds and events which consummate Christ’s earthly ministry. The time of fulfillment was at hand. Christ’s raising of Lazarus points to the destruction of death and the joy of resurrection which will be accessible to all through His own death and resurrection. His entrance into Jerusalem is a fulfillment of the messianic prophecies about the king who will enter his holy city to establish a final kingdom. “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech 9:9)…read more: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/09/20-entry-of-our-lord-into-jerusalem-palm-sunday

Great Vespers
2023-04-08 17:30 - 18:30

Divine Liturgy-Lazarus Saturday
2023-04-08 09:30 - 11:30
Visible triumphs are few in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He preached a kingdom “not of this world.” At His nativity in the flesh there was “no room at the inn.” For nearly thirty years, while He grew “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52), He lived in obscurity as “the son of Mary.” When He appeared from Nazareth to begin His public ministry, one of the first to hear of Him asked: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). In the end He was crucified between two thieves and laid to rest in the tomb of another man.
Two brief days stand out as sharp exceptions to the above—days of clearly observable triumph. These days are known in the Church today as Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. Together they form a unified liturgical cycle which serves as the passage from the forty days of Great Lent to Holy Week. They are the unique and paradoxical days before the Lord’s Passion. They are days of visible, earthly triumph, of resurrectional and messianic joy in which Christ Himself is a deliberate and active participant. At the same time they are days which point beyond themselves to an ultimate victory and final kingship which Christ will attain not by raising one dead man or entering a particular city, but by His own imminent suffering, death and resurrection…read more: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/08/19-the-raising-of-lazarus-lazarus-saturday

Holy Unction Service
2023-04-05 17:30 - 19:00

Typika Service - St. Mary of Egypt
2023-04-02 10:30 - 12:15
Saint Zosimas (April 4) was a monk at a certain Palestinian monastery on the outskirts of Caesarea. Having dwelt at the monastery since his childhood, he lived there in asceticism until he reached the age of fifty-three. Then he was disturbed by the thought that he had attained perfection, and needed no one to instruct him. “Is there a monk anywhere who can show me some form of asceticism that I have not attained? Is there anyone who has surpassed me in spiritual sobriety and deeds?”… to continue reading click: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/02/18-5th-sunday-of-great-lent-st-mary-of-egypt

Readers Vespers Tone 1
2023-04-01 17:30 - 18:30
