I wouldn't normally make an appeal like this, but I figure it is worth raising with you all. I ask your prayers for:

1. My health. Two years ago, just weeks after surgery for a shattered collarbone, I returned to hospital for a 10-day stay due to two slipped discs in my back. Now, after a fall on the stairs yesterday, I am laid flat out and on pain killers. With seven children, it is hard for my wife to cope on her own, and we even had to miss Divine Liturgy this morning as I couldn't get out of bed.

2. My ordination. My bishop called this past week to say that he intends to ordain me a priest on the 24th of June.

3. The Theotokos Institute. After three years in development, we have made huge strides forward, and, at the request of the bishop, will be launching a diaconal training programme for Eastern deacons in the autumn. At this point, we are working toward accreditation from a major UK university, and building academic relationships across a few institutions. We could really use administrative help and a revamp of the website, among other things.

I will most definitely remember you, your family, and all your intentions when I come before Our Lord with my poor prayers.

Prayers for all your intentions

Great joys and blessings are frequently accompanied by periods of severe testing.

Know that as you are being humbled now under God's almighty hand in due time--namely the Feast of the Forerunner--He will exalt you.

May He who comes as the Refiner's Fire kindle within you the fire of His love, and may that dispel all that would prevent you from offering right sacrifices to the Lord in His Holy Ministry.

Never hesitate to ask prayers here, it is the reason that we have this particular forum and the offering of prayers is the single most important thing done on this site.

Prayers for our brother, that he be healed of this injury swiftly and without that he have no aftereffects from it, that he may the better serve his God and meet the very important responsibilities of being a husband and a Dad.

Prayers of thanksgiving for his coming ordination to the priesthood and prayers that God grant him many blessed, fruitful, and spiritually rewarding years in His service.

Prayers for the Theotokos Institute (about which our brother will, hopefully, tell us more in a thread elsewhere, as time permits him to do so), that it be blessed with success in its mission to train deacons for the Eastern Churches in the UK and that it be afforded the spiritual and temporal assistance that it needs to achieve that success.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on our brother, his family, his ordination, and all the needs and concerns given here. Kudus your love is great, and by your graces complete all the works you have begun.

Dear Slavophile,

May our Lord God, through the intercessory prayers of St. John the Wonderworker of San Francisco and St. Nektarios the Wonderworker of Aegina, heal your back and your pain. Kyrie Eleison!

May the Lord aid you in this, so that all will go well with your sacred ordination.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.