19^th anniversary of  St. Paul Assyrian-Chaldean Catholic Church

St. Paul Church parishioners celebrated the 19^th anniversary of the Dedication of the Church on Saturday September 17, 2005. With more than 150 parishioners gathered in the recently renovated hall we celebrated this occasion. The theme for this year anniversary was “Church and Education”.

The ceremony started with opening remarks by Mr. Fathollah Thomassi the head of Parish Council. Then Fr. Noel Gorgis, the parish priest, welcomed all the celebrants and in a speech he emphasized on the unity of parishioners based on their faith in Jesus Christ regardless of their nationality, ethnic background or any other names they’re bearing. He then gave a brief statistics of the Church regarding the numbers of baptisms, marriages, and the first communions held in Church since the dedication of the Church. The dinner was served after the blessings by Fr. Noel.

The first speaker of the night was Dr. Paul Sarmas. Dr. Sarmas a tenure professor of finance in Cal. Poly Pomona, in his speech reflected on the education and its importance in our community. He recalled his years of elementary education in Sūsân Assyrian School (Abadan, Iran) where Mr. Fathollah Thomassi was his teacher, more than 35 years ago. Then he pointed out that one’s education and knowledge belonging to the person cannot be taken away and the fruits of it are continuous and forever.

Fr. Tomy Tomikeh was the next speaker, speaking about all those great teachers from our community who have taught in our homeland and then here. He spoke on emphasis, which our Catholic Church has placed on education and promotion of it among our youth.

After the speech by Fr. Tomikeh, both teachers and graduates were the recipients of a plaque in order to commemorate their dedication and accomplishment respectively.

The guests then enjoyed a beautiful night with live music and Mr. Anoeil Vararni, the singer, with his warm voice brought lot of people to the dance floor.