AIOPA - Monthly Meeting

Atlanta Inter-Orthodox Parish Association Meeting 09/30/2025

Attendees: Fr. Christos Mars, Fr. Anthony Salzman, Dn. Cecil Mitchell, Mirjana Milosevic-Brockett, Jessica Heddings, Evelyn Kemp, Nada Saad, Jackie Sarantis, Steve Sarantis and Rebecca Showalter

Visitors: Spyridoula Fotinis (AoB), Steven Christofou (FOCUS), Anya Gill (FOCUS), Ashton Walker (FOCUS), Christina Andresen (OCF), and Jacob Sparks (OCF)

 Opening Prayer offered by Fr. Christos Mars

 Fr. Christos welcomed everyone and thanked them for their time and efforts with AIOPA and introduced the members of the Assembly of Bishops (AoB), Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) and FOCUS North America.  

After an icebreaker we had updates from all the agencies. We then did some work in getting to know them better in our local community and how to better educate parishioners on what they do and how they can get involved in helping them.

OCF

  • Make sure high schoolers know about OCF before they go to college

  • Offering a monthly overview for the greater community to know what is happening

  • OCF - Monthly newsletter sent to parishes and ask parishes to share in their newsletter

    • Both - direct to parishes and through AIOPA

    • Shared calendar on the AIOPA website

    • Email the main way of communication

  • Regular presence of Clergy on campus, and build in eventually lay people volunteers

  • Permanent post or set of flyers that people can sign up for a need - in the physical space of parishes

    • mailing addresses for parishes?

    • Being able to equip the information to parishes to share (physical, electronic, etc.)

 FOCUS

  • logistically very difficult for parishioners engage - logistically and how

    • partnering with agencies throughout the Atlanta area to engage parishes

    • Gathering with a purpose - ways to sustain the ministry and engage the ministry

  • Non-Orthodox Churches involved? - the door is always open; a lot of core volunteers are from the neighborhood; working on more partnerships

  • More connections to Russian parish that does a lot with the Christmas program - Mirjana will connect more with Ashton to identify the people to connect with

  • Support the work of the FOCUS center - wish lists, other ways to serve, etc. = leveraging local know-how

    • Parish involvement and planning ahead

  • Having a parish sign-up maybe a way to go - sometimes parishes don't know where to start so having a list of needs would be helpful

    • Ashton will work on that

    • Permanent post or set of flyers that people can sign up for a need - in the physical space of parishes

 Next Steps:

  • Updates on Zoom calls to offer information so when someone is interested in a specific ministry

    • Quarterly

  • Pamphlets of things people can do or get engaged - send to a central parish location (like Cathedral) and can pick up to bring to parishes

  • OCF - looking for parishioners who have the heart to be more connected to OCF ministry in Atlanta and supporting it on the ground

Please check out more about these organizations

Assembly of Bishops (https://www.assemblyofbishops.org)

FOCUS North America (https://focusnorthamerica.org)

Orthodox Christian Fellowship (https://ocf.net)

Fr. Christos reported on many events that took place in the summer including many festivals, events and gatherings.

Fr. Christos reported that the update to the website is complete and wanted to thank Timothy Dachraoui from Sts. RNI who is helping to get the AIOPA website back in order. Our next step is to train office staff/clergy/laity to put events on to the site so that it once again becomes a hub for all things Orthodox in the Atlanta area. 

Other Parish Events:

·      The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation

o   The Atlanta Greek Festival will take place October 2-5. (See attached flier)

·      Sts. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene Greek Orthodox Church

o   The Cumming Greek Festival will take place October 17-19. (See attached flier)

·      St. Christopher Greek Orthodox Church

o   South Atlanta Annual Golf Classic will take place on Monday, October 27. (See attached flier)

·      St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church

o   Middle Eastern Festival October 18-19. (See attached flier)

·      Saints Peter and Paul Serbian Orthodox Church

o   Serbian Festival will take place October 4-5

Closing prayer offered by Fr. Christos Mars

Our next meeting to take place on Tuesday, October 28 at 7pm.

Fr. Christos Mars