According to the Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity one finds that in the Bible the idea of blessing means to give favor. For example, in Genesis 27:11 Issac receives the favor or blessing (Hebrew,
brch) of his father Jacob. There are liturgical blessings in the Bible too, for example the blessing of people in Numbers 6:22, or of food in 1 Samuel 9:13. The Orthodox practice, rooted in tradition and the scriptures, is to bless not only people and objects associated with the life in Christ, such as icons etc., but also to bless all sorts of objects of daily life and nature, whether animals, homes, or, as in this case, the new boiler of the church!
From left to right we have Vladimir Vukanovich, Ken O'Brien, Andrea Fedoruk, Bonnie Maye Schwarz, two unidentified people, and lastly Father Cyril Stavrevsky.The photo would seem to be from sometime in the 1980s.
Nice to see the raising of the mundane to the sacred. Of course, as the son of a HVAC tradesman, I can tell you that some boilers need all the blessing they can get.
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