Dear Parishioners and e-mail recipients,

This week the Church e-mail address experienced a very serious and alarming problem. The account was terminated by the e-mail carrier. This has happened twice previously, but not as serious as this third time. The Church and priests were not able to communicate or complete tasks on a timely basis. It took a number of days before the Church was able to communicate with the e-mail carrier and the account was reinstated, after explaining the situation, but with the provision that the Church e-mails would not violate the guidelines.

This problem occurred because of a recent e-mail that was sent concerning the rummage sale. We did not solicit cash donations directly, but asked for goods to be sold, however, the notice mentioned that the proceeds would go to the Church. This, unbeknown to us, is a form of solicitation. More so however, someone, who receives the Church e-mail, marked the notice as “spam”, which brought it to the attention of the carrier. This was not the first time that our e-mail account has been shut down due to one of our messages being marked as spam. When the Church messages are "spamed", the e-mail carrier, monitoring this form of removal of messages, takes action in terminating the account because of continuous unwanted mail. Unfortunately, the Church becomes the victim of the action of the recipient.

I ask for your consideration and co-operation when you receive e-mail from the Church. If you do not want this mail, please do not "spam" but "delete" and if you do not want to receive mail from the Church, then ask to have your e-mail address removed. If the Church is again is in jeopardy of losing the e-mail carrier, it will cause a problem of communication until a new carrier is secured and all the printed literature of the Church, stationary, bulletin, etc. will have to be changed, which is costly. Again, your understanding and co-operation is needed to safeguard the Church e-mail system, which is an immediate form of communication.

Thanking you for your help, I remain,

Sincerely,

+Rev. Fr. James Rousakis