The Valavanis Family

When you live in close proximity of Ascension Cathedral, our spiritual home, it becomes part of the fabric of not only your life as a whole but also your daily life.  It’s there when you drive by on errands or walk by as you stroll the neighborhood. It transforms you as you are passing by because for that moment no matter what you are thinking, the plans you are making, or the list in your head of the things you need to accomplish to make the day complete, you bring together the fingers of your right hand to cross yourself in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For that moment time pauses.

The ties that our family has to Ascension Cathedral run deep and strong. It is the place where we married, our son was baptized, and is ultimately the place of our final blessing before we are received back into our Lord. It is also the anchor to the community with which our lives are so much richer. An unwritten sense of knowing who we are and what we share as Orthodox Christians flows through Ascension Cathedral bringing us together under the dome of the cathedral and the world outside.

This is why our family has given not only our time and talents, but also financially to Ascension Cathedral. Ridding our church of its mortgage is paramount to its physical survival and passes along to the generations to come the security that, they too, have a spiritual and communal home in which to gather. We have given in the past and we are giving again. This is how we give back to what we have so generously received and is why we have reprised our pledge to Ascension’s Capital Campaign.


The Valavanis Family