[I am resending this message, as it apparently was held by the PDML
mail server for being over 10 KB. (Huh?!) So, I am cutting off the bottom
portion of it]
Dan,
That's a very interesting story.
Besides everything else, it reflects how much humans are affected by
the (often very minuscule) differences in reading/treating the same scriptures.
Of course those differences are superficial, and the deeper reasons are the
power and the richness it brings (to the "chosen" ones).
And it happens across all religions.
You probably know the old joke about two Jews stranded on a desert island, who
built three synagogues: one for the orthodox Jew, one for the reform Jew, and
one that neither one of them will ever set foot in!
(There is actually a real story from Bermuda that echoes that joke:
https://coatofmanycolors.net/2012/08/25/old-news-proof-to-the-joke-that-a-jew-on-a-tropical-island-would-build-two-synagogues/
)
I will stop here, before we fall into discussion of religions -- something that
tends to lead to various schisms.
In any case, I am always impressed by the breadth and depth of the fascinating
information I've learned from PDMLers. :-)
Seriously!
Thanks again, Dan, and sorry Bob, for hijacking the thread.
But that's a fun feature of PDML.
Cheers,
Igor
PS. Dan, your two responses do not seem to have made it to either of the two
PDML web-archives. I wonder why...
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019, Daniel J. Matyola wrote:
Igor:
The three churches represent the difficulty our ancestors had fitting into
the religious fabric of this country.
The Rusyns, or Ruthenians, were Christianized as part of Kievan Rus, and
were thus Orthodox Christians. After Kiev was overrun by the great
Russians and the Mongols/Tatars, those in the western part of Ukraine fell
under the Austrian Empire. The resolution of the religious wars resulted in
the agreement of the major nations of Europe to recognize "all" Christian
churches, which meant Roman Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed.
This did not include Orthodox churches, which were seen as heretics under
the influence of Russia. The Rusyns, under the Uzhgorod accord, became a
separate "catholic" church under the pope, but not part of the Roman
Catholic Church. They were called Uniates or Byzantine Rite Catholics.
When the Rusyns came to America, to work in the coal mines, they wanted to
bring their priests with them as soon as they had sufficient funds. The
priests were rejected by the Roman Catholic bishops, as they were married,
and conducted mass in Slavonic rather than Latin. Some Rusyns joined Roman
Catholic churches anyway. Some joined Eastern Orthodox churches, and some,
like my grandparents, helped start new churches apart from both, for the
prienst from the old country. Later, the Roman Catholics recognized the
Byzantine Rite church as a separate entity, and helped them build churches.
St Mary's in Manville (now Hillsborough) is such a church. SS Peter and
Paul's in Manville was affiliated with the Russian Orthodox church, at least
until it came under communist rule. Holy Ghost was part of the independent
Greek Catholic or Orthodox organization headquartered in Johnstown, PA.
That is how a small minority of Rusyns in a tiny factory town like Manville
became divided into three small churches, although they shared a common
ethnicity and the architectural style of their church buildings and
liturgies were almost identical. SS Peter and Paul and Holy Ghost now both
belong to the Orthodox Church in America.
Dan Matyola
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola
On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 12:15 PM Igor PDML-StR <[email protected]> wrote:
Dan,
That sounds like a fun family history! Thanks for sharing.
I actually remember about your Ruthenian roots, from the
discussion a few
years ago.
And your clarifications make perfect sense. Sorry if my comments
sounded
critical.
And I just looked up your grandparents' church in NJ.
(It is interesting to see three different Orthodox churches in a
small US
town, - all within 2-3 blocks from each other.)
Somehow (the looks are different... maybe the fact that both are
rather
smallish?), it reminded me of the St. Nicolas church I saw some
4 years
ago in a small (but some 400-years-old) village ("Bol'shoe
Goloustnoe")
on the shore of Lake Baikal:
https://42graphy.org/galleries/2014-08-baikal/1-selected/_IR29959.html
This is a totally new church built in 2001 in place of the
previous
churches (the first one was built in 1701, and the last one was
destroyed
in 1937).
Here is one more view of that church:
https://42graphy.org/galleries/2014-08-baikal/b-goloustnoe/_IR29956.html
Your rather complicated history of the diverse religious
connections/associations reminded me of a fun fact by which I
get amused
every time I recall it: the official name for the Eastern
Orthodox Church
is "Orthodox Catholic Church".
Cheers,
Igor
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019, Daniel J. Matyola wrote:
> Igor:
> When I wrote that it was Russian Christmas, it was still Jan 7
(barely)
> where I was. I know that other Orthodox churches celebrate
the Nativity on
> Jan 7, but I reflexively used "Russian Christmas" because that
is what we
> called it when I was growing up. My extended family, on both
sides, was
> divided into almost equal shares of Lutherans, Roman
Catholics, and Eastern
> Orthodox. My father grew up in a Capatho-Ruthenian Greek
Catholic Orthodox
> church, and although I was raised Lutheran, I went to the
Orthodox church
> for weddings, funerals and every Easter and Christmas. In my
nuclear
> family, we celebrated on December 24 at our home, then joined
my mother's
> extended family on December 25 and my father's extended family
on January
> 6-7. With my Mother's birthday Dec 10, mine Dec 18 and my
father's Dec 23,
> we had a month of holiday celebrations.
>
> My wife and I spent 2 weeks in Russia years ago, including a
river cruise
> from Moscow to St Petersburg. I must have seen hundreds of
churches there,
> and entered dozens, plus several monasteries. Most, aside
from St Isaac's,
> were quite colorful. "Gaudy" was perhaps an inappropriate
word, but I used
> it without meaning hey are tasteless. Colorful, or perhaps
"flamboyant"
> would have been a bit better, but that latter term is commonly
used to
> describe a specific form of architecture quite unlike that of
the Russian
> churches. "Enthusiastic" might be the best description of the
style. My
> grandparents' church in Manville, New Jersey, was small and
old-fashioned.
> When they rebuilt it abiut 40 years ago, it was topped by 5
gleaming
> onion-shaped cupolas, in the enthusiastic style I saw all over
Russia.
>
> Of course, the wooden churches of Kizhi are among the most
beautiful of all
> religious structures.
>
> Dan Matyola
> http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola
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