On Wednesday 6 January and Thursday 7 January we had services for Christmas, the Great Feast of the Nativity of Christ.  All-night Vigil – Great Compline, Matins and the First Hour – with the blessing of wheat, wine, oil and five loaves was served on Wednesday evening and Divine Liturgy was served on Thursday morning.  At the end of Divine Liturgy, a brief moleben of thanksgiving was served 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, the parish rector read aloud the Nativity Epistle of Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia.  Sadly, attendance at both services was limited by public health regulations to a total of thirty people.