Charity
Along with numerical growth and the spiritual enrichment of the faithful following the establishment of the parish of St. Makarios the Great, a priority was soon recognized that we need our own place of worship closely resembling that which we might experience in our home country of Romania. A location where we can be faithful to Orthodox worship and offer a full programme of activities.
Brief history
Starting in Spring 2010 certain goals and aspirations began to be explored, particularly the acquisition of a place of worship. Having assessed our situation we put in progress steps in order to organize ourselves in a clear and organized manner, fully compliant with the requirements of the United Kingdom. The first thing we needed to establish was the charitable status of our parish, this we achieved on September 12, 2010. The aim was to create a charitable trust whose primary objective was to enable and support the practice and worship of our Orthodox faith within the areas of Leeds and Manchester and to benefit the wider community by promoting our collaboration with others in both the Romanian and English language.
The Charity took the name of our spiritual patron, St. Makarios and whose official title is: "Saint Makarios The Great Ecclesiastical Trust". In order for the trust to be formally established it was necessary to ask a small number of members from our community to accept voluntarily employment status encompassing certain responsibilities as incumbent directors (trustees) of the Charity. Along with Father Constantin Popescu, the first directors of the Charity are Anca Andreopoulos, Dana Ghiorghiu, Bogdan Prunaiche and Annemarie Visoianu-Kanatas.
Subsequently, the appropriate formation and registration process was initiated and conducted in full compliance with the necessary regulatory bodies and the Charity Commission. On 15th February 2011 our Charity was registered with the Register of Charities number 1140421. After other three months, on June 1, 2011, HM Revenue & Customs has recognised the status of our Charity for tax purposes. This is very useful for us in terms of fiscal considerations and tax incentives (e.g. Gift Aid mechanism), which will assist us in putting our parish on a firm financial footing.
Role
To achieve the over-arching objective of our community, the Charity as a legal entity will be first seeking the acquisition of a property. At present, the Charity is having negotiations with the Church of England to buy a property that includes a Church, a Church Hall and the adjacent land.
But beyond it's participation in the strictly legal aspect of the acquisition of property, the Charity has also been set up in order to facilitate fund raising in order to purchase and then manage such properties. To this end we opened a bank account with National Westminster Bank into which donations can be made to assist us in our project.
A special note for those who would like to support financially our project and who are paying income tax in the UK. By having accepted Saint Makarios The Great Ecclesiastical Trust as a charity for tax purposes, HM Revenue & Customs grants us the possibility to supplement by 25% all amounts we receive from donations made by UK income tax payers, at no additional costs to donors. In order to help potential donors understand this fiscal facility called Gift Aid and to learn how to become a Gift Aid donor, we would invite you to follow the link: Gift Aid - Instructions. You may also download the Gift Aid Declaration from: Gift Aid - Declaration Form.
