Manhattan Delaration Link

St Mary Romanian Catholic mission will be at the Cathedral of St Mary

starting Nov 15, 2009 the Romanian Catholic mission parish of St Mary in los Angeles will be celebrating Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Sherman Oaks, CA at 11:30 A.m.

Regarding the alleged less than 1 hour RDL liturgies

Today, a simple divine liturgy for the leave-taking of the feast of the birth of the Theotokos; Divine liturgy consisted of Fr. and myself as cantor. Liturgy was just under 1 hour due to no homily. I didn't rush anything nor did Fr. That said, how then, can a full congregational DL be under an hour with a homily and communion and announcements before the blessing if it takes an hour to celebrate a DL with exactly two people-a priest and cantor (with no homily, communion for one, and no announcements?

Sigh.........

I get into those depressive funks when I think of what our church used to be.... It seems to me that in this modern era our church, the Byzantine Catholic Church (aka the Metropolia of Pittsburgh), had lost its way regarding its past. In short it has worked hard to lose it's past in favor of a culturally neutral (and recently, gender neutral) future. It is bad enough that the Old Church Slavonic is all but banished from liturgical worship, but we also have to contend with an awful gender neutral translation to do it with!!! The over aim of the liturgical and music commission started out with good intentions then took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up with the translation nightmare we are stuck with for the present time. The "new" (actually hundreds of years old) music settings are a welcome return to our heritage, but the gender neutral language is a painful reminder that our bishops are out of step with the current times in regard to returning to orthodoxy in the Eastern Catholic Churches in general.

Memories of St Nicholas, Perth Amboy

A 1950's (?) era photo of the choir at St Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church in Perth Amboy, NJ. Front row center are Fr Julius Grigassy and Prof. John Petach (my grandfather).

This appears to be Pascha at St Nicholas. The pictures are dated as April 15th, 1956. The parish is still active, but with a considerably smaller congregation than in the 1950's. More recently in 2009, the altar was restored to the proper square shape and an iconstas has been installed

East meets West pilgrimage at St Andrews Abbey in Valyermo

Friday September 25
5:00 PM, Vespers in the Byzantine Chapel (old youth center chapel) at St. Andrew's Abbey.
6:30 PM, Dinner in main refectory
7:30 PM, Conference talk

Saturday September 26
8:30 AM, Matins, Byzantine Chapel
11:00 AM, procession with icon of the Mother of God from the Byzantine Chapel main Abbey area
11:30 AM, Hierarchical Divine Liturgy
1:30 PM, Time for picnic lunches and fellowship
3:00 PM, Icon tours in Byzantine Chapel, and conference at Abbey Welcome Center
5:00 PM, Great Vespers in the Byzantine Rite
7:30 PM, Latin Rite service of Vigils for Sunday in the Benedictine tradition

Sunday September 27
8:30 AM, Matins, Byzantine Chapel
12:00 PM, Mass in the Latin Rite

Vicnaja Pamjat, Fr Stephen Dutko

Though I never met him, I did meet his son David during my many visits to Pittsburgh.
The many Youtube videos bring a sense of family to this remote (in a Rusyn sense) part of the world.



The Paschal canon sung at the funeral of Fr Stephen. The joy is so radiant!

The church renovation

About 3 years ago our church was renovated.
Here are some of the pictures of what the interior looked like before and after.


Before:

Right side view

Left side view

View from choir

After

View of front after renovation

Right side after renovation

Left side after renovation

The whole theme of the "renovation" seems to herald back to an earlier era of iconclasm, or at least minimalism regarding the usage of iconography. We once had walls vibrant with color and iconography, only to see the icons depicting the life of Mary (of whom our parish is named) that were interspersed between the stained glass icons depictiong the life of Jesus, removed and sold, given away to various parties, or who knows what. Now we have austere plain white walls that have no distracting color or iconography to bring the Divine Liturgy to life.

The gold leaf on the back wall of the sanctuary was painted over with "gold" paint. I don't know if that meant it was "gold" in color or actually had some miniscule amount of gold in the pigment.