Re: Russian church's numbers growing
vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com
This phoney anecdotal approach is typical of how OCA works.
- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
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MJS
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/16409007.htm
Posted on Mon, Jan. 08, 2007
RELIGIOUS HAPPENINGS
Russian church's numbers growing
CONCORD: St. Xenia congregation is holding services, for now, at
Veterans Building
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
A beam of sunlight entered the room at an angle, illuminating the
embroidered robes of a young man. He chanted Russian prayers, flanked
by multiple candelabras and faced by standing worshippers. As a choir
sang from behind a wheat-colored screen, a slim young woman dressed in
a pale green leather coat approached a table, placed several dollars in
one tray and gathered a handful of gold-colored candles from another.
Those candles, and the proceeds from numerous other fundraisers, will
help finance a permanent home for the St. Xenia of Petersburg Russian
Orthodox Church.
On Sunday, the Russian Christmas, the St. Xenia congregation celebrated
their first service in a public gathering place. The Concord Veterans
Building is elegant, and for the time being, it's home.
The congregation has grown large enough that Archbishop Kyrill, who
oversees the western United States, gave them a name and sent them a
priest: Father Pavel Iwaszewicz, whose wife and five children were
happy to return to the Bay Area after a three-year stint in Chicago.
The archdiocese predicts this congregation will swell, with an
estimated 30,000 Russian Christians in the region.
As of 2005, the diocese included 36 active parishes, 39 priests and 19
deacons.
This parish began with a dozen or so congregants who met in the
Pleasant Hill living room of Leonid and Elena Vinogradski. The trek to
San Francisco's Holy Virgin Cathedral, especially difficult on
weeknights and Saturdays, was exhausting the seniors.
"The dining room was our altar," he said.
It has since grown to 60-plus members. The youngest participant, a
1-year-old boy named Misha, observed the Mass from his father's arms.
The eldest here speak in frightened murmurs of the stark events of
their lives in Russia, when they say Soviets persecuted the faithful
with ruthless efficiency.
This is the second time Vinogradski has started a church. The first was
in 1986 in Norilsk, an industrial city in the north of Siberia where,
according to the Norillag archives, hundreds of priests perished along
with tens of thousands of others in the Gulags, buried alive in the
region's notorious permafrost. He emigrated here in 1991.
"When we came here, it was a dream," he said.
Iwaszewicz, the priest, makes light of the church's impermanent status,
comparing its journey to the biblical exodus.
"We carry our tabernacles," he said with a gentle smile. "We'll get to
the promised land. We're happy just to be here."
But as the congregation hurried downstairs to set up for a feast and
Christmas party, he allowed that the effort exacts a toll. A core of
volunteers assembles the altar, with its filigree gates, icons, screens
and flowers Saturday morning, then spends much of Sunday dismantling it
so other groups may use the Veterans Building during the week.
"You put (in), you take it out, you put it away," he sighed. "It's a
very romantic idea, moving like Moses. It's very expensive, California.
We have to work very hard. Many of our people are new here, they work
two jobs. We don't have a Bill Gates. It can't take place overnight."
To an outsider, the congregation looks like any other. Children careen
about, elders dote, friends chat, women arrange dishes of hot food.
"Afterward, we play around," said David Katz, 13, whose mother worked
in the kitchen. "We have a lot of fun."
But there are differences. In Russian Orthodoxy, priests may marry. In
American culture, Santa Claus is a secular figure. In the Russian
Orthodox Church, Ded Moroz, or Grandpa Frost, is one of the images of
St. Nicolas.
After one congregant ate his meat-rich meal, the towering man donned
white gilded robes and passed out toys to children after peppering them
with playful questions in Russian. Children of two cultures, they
answered him without skipping a beat -- in English.
These people have just undergone a 47-day Lent that prohibits the
eating of meat or dairy dishes. Today, a buffet of roast chicken,
sausages, meat pies, roast beef and pate awaits them.
Iwaszewicz watched, laughing gaily.
"The important thing is to keep focus, to always keep the lamp
burning," he said.
"There is huge Russian community here," said Elena Vinogradski. "They
need a piece of the homeland."
AGGREEN
MJS
On Jan 11, 12:35 pm, vjp2...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
<<This phoney anecdotal approach is typical of how OCA works.>>
I'm confused. The article was about a ROCOR parish.
Melanie Jula Sakoda
Skovran
confused ---and wrong.
"MJS" <Melanie...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1168575384....@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Bbd
Skovran wrote:
> Melanie: You're obviously not as confused as Vip2 is. But then, he's often
> confused ---and wrong.
You have omitted "malevolent".