Meet Our New Patron Saint

When it met in Cornwall at this year's Canadian Forces Chaplain Branch retreat, the Anglican clergy or clericus of the Military Ordinariate decided that it was time we had an official Patron Saint. For some years the clericus had been considering St. Nicholas of Myra as its patron, and so on 31 May we voted that he would become our patronal saint. At the request of our Ordinary, Bishop Peter Coffin, members of clericus will set aside part of the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, 6 December, to pray for one another.

While I was at St. Paul's University in Ottawa this month attending a chaplain career course on Pastoral Counselling, my colleague Father Zenowy Didukh, a Ukranian-born Canadian and priest in the eastern rite Ukranian Catholic Church, led us in a prayer service (moleben) "For the Intercession of Our Holy Father Nicholas the Wonderworker". Two prayers to St. Nicholas from that service are included at the bottom of this blog post.




Fr. "Zen" Didukh with the icon of St. Nicholas at St. Paul's University.

In honour of our new patron saint, members of the Anglican clericus present on this course had our picture taken before his icon in the wonderful Eastern Orthodox chapel at St. Paul's.




From left to right, Robert Parker, myself, Eric Davis, Marty Keatings, John Hounsell-Drover, Robin Major, Gordon Mintz.


Prayers for St. Nicholas:


"Hierarch and father, O most holy Nichlas, thou extraordinary Saint of the Lord, our loving defender and ready helper in sorrows everywhere: help us sinners and hapless ones in the present life: entreat the Lord God to grant us remission of all of our sins, that we have committed from our youth, and all out life, by deed, word, thought ad all our senses; and in the passing of our souls, help us wretched ones; entreat the Lord God and Maker of all creation, to deliver us from trials in the air and eternal torment: that we may always glorify the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and thy merciful intercession, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen."

"O most good father Nicholas, pastor and teacher of all who in faith call upon thy protection and warm prayer, make haste to deliver Christ's flock from the wolves that attack it; and guard every Christian land, and keep it by they holy prayers from worldly unrest, upheaval, the assault of our enemies and civil strife; from famine, flood, fire, the axe and sudden mortality. And as thou didst take pity on the three men who were imprisoned, and didst deliver them from royal anger and death by the sword, so have mercy also on us, who are in the darkness of sins of mind, word and deed, and deliver us from the wrath of God and eternal punishment, so that, by thine intercession and help, and by His mercy and grace, Christ our God may grant to us to lead a quiet life without sin in this age and deliver us in the next from standing at the left side, but rather grant us to be at His right hand with all the Saints. Amen."