MEMORIAL SERVICES: Public memorial services to remember...

MEMORIAL SERVICES: Public memorial services to remember deceased friends and family, long associated in the Jewish tradition with the High Holy Days, will be held Sunday at three cemeteries in the San Fernando Valley.

Eden Memorial Park, located at the northern terminus of Sepulveda Boulevard near Rinaldi Street in Mission Hills, will start its Kever Avot (“Graves of Our Ancestors”) service at 10 a.m. Rabbis conducting services this year will be David Vorspan of Temple Beth Ami, Reseda; Elijah Schochet of Congregation Beth Kodesh, West Hills, and Philip Schroit of B’nai David-Judea Congregation, Los Angeles.

Likewise, the service will begin at 10 a.m. at Mount Sinai Memorial-Park, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive at the southern border of the Valley. Participants include Rabbi Moshe Rothblum, Adat Ari El Congregation, North Hollywood; Rabbi Gilbert Kollin, Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center; Rabbi Martin Ryback, chaplain emeritus of the Jewish Federation-Council; Rabbi Efraim Warshaw, Burbank Templew Emanu El, and Rabbi Allan Schranz of Westwood’s Sinai Temple, which owns the mortuary and cemetery facility.

An Orthodox Jewish memorial service will be observed, starting at noon, at Sholom Memorial Park, 13017 Lopez Canyon Road, Sylmar. Clergy conducting the service in the mortuary’s Chapel of Eternal Light will be Rabbi Joshua Berkowitz, associate rabbi at Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills; Rabbi Alan Kalinsky, West Coast director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and Cantor Pinchas Rabinovicz of Beth Jacob Congregation.

EDITOR NAMED: The National Catholic Register, a 26,000-circulation weekly newspaper published in Encino, has named Joop Koopman, 36, as its editor.

Koopman, a multilingual reporter and UCLA graduate, had been serving as acting editor following the resignation in July of Francis X. Maier, who accepted an offer as secretary of communications for the Denver Catholic Archdiocese and general manager of its newspaper.

The Register, whose 10th floor offices are in the Wells Fargo Building on Ventura Boulevard, is part of the Twin Circle Publishing owned by Frawley Corp.

LECTURE SERIES: The Inquiring Mind Lecture Series at Burbank First United Methodist Church will begin Wednesday with Graeme Auton, professor of government at the University of Redlands, talking about post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy.

The lectures, held every other Wednesday morning through Dec. 1, will cover a range of topics, from jury trials and billboards to the Los Angeles Zoo. The last lecture will be a tour of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in Los Angeles.

Tickets for the whole series is $15. No individual tickets are sold, but they are transferable, a church spokesman said. The two-hour sessions begin at 9:30 a.m. For information, call the church, 700 N. Glenoaks Blvd., at (818) 845-1531.

CONGREGATION MOVES: The 400-member West Valley Christian Church, which has been holding services at the former Haynes Street School in West Hills, has moved to yet another vacated public school campus for worship services and religious education.

Pastored by the Rev. Glenn Kirby, the congregation this month moved into the old Enadia Way School at 22944 Enadia Way in West Hills. Its services are at 8:45 and 10:30 a.m.

FILIPINO MASS: A Mass in honor of 17th-Century Filipino St. Lorenzo Ruiz will be celebrated 11 a.m. today at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 1600 E. Avenue R-4, Palmdale, where a cultural program featuring Filipino folk dancers will take place following the service.

Ruiz, a Filipino missionary to Japan who was martyred along with 15 companions in 1637, was made a saint by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 18, 1987.

Father Richard Miskella, pastor of the church, will concelebrate the Mass with three other priests, including Father Loreto Gonzales, director of the Filipino Pastoral Ministry for the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese.

MORTGAGE BURNING: Leaders of the 35-year-old Woodland Hills United Methodist Church, 5650 Shoup Ave., will celebrate a paid-off mortgage during the 9:45 a.m. worship service Sunday.

Former pastors Faith Conklin, Brent Criswell and Steve Isenman, as well as the current pastor, Gilbert Stones, will take part in the service.