So, you want to build an altar...

After our parish moved into their new church building in 1966 there were many changes that had to be made in order to create an Orthodox worship space. In an earlier post we looked at the building of the iconstasis, the wall of icons that divides the sanctuary and the nave. Inside the nave, the area where the priest celebrates the Eucharist, is an altar. Originally the altar was one from another church, but then in 1970 a new altar was built. Shown at left are George Kuyon and Walter Kisel, in the rear of the photo, with the altar in George's workshop in Gates. The cost of the altar was sponsored by Katherine Youney, right, and Fr. Wojcik, left, was the priest at the time.

While there are certain specific guidelines for altars derived from Exodus and Leviticus, for example they are not to use nails or screws, but must be pegged together, there is some latitude in the dimensions and woods used. This altar was built in part with birch plywood for example. The altar is not actually fully assembled though until the consecration, when it is hammered together with a rock, by the bishop and priests presiding. At that time a sacred relic is placed and sealed inside the altar as well.

One element that is required is a sort of drop box in the center of the altar to hold the relic. The custom of having a relic of a martyr or saint included in the altar goes back to the earliest days of the church, when they would celebrate the Eucharist in the catacombs over the grave of a martyr. The plan on left is one of the original drawings done to design the altar. If you click on it to see it larger you will see how the center post is lower, and allows for a place for a relic.

Traditionally an altar will hold a relic of a martyr. In our altar however, as in many churches of the Orthodox Church of America that were built in those years, the relic is of Saint Herman of Alaska. He was not a martyr, but the problem was that while, with the Slavic background of our church, the natural thing would have been to get  a relic of one of the "new martyrs" of Russia, those priests, monastics and faithful killed by the Communists, during the Cold War years this simply wasn't possible to do, and so churches built in that era often used relics of Saint Herman, the first Orthodox saint of North America.

When interviewing George Kuyon about the building of this altar, George said that working on this project had been one of the most profound spiritual experiences in his life. He recalled driving from his workshop in Gates to the church, with the altar secured in the back of his pickup truck, feeling as though nothing could happen to him, that his trip was blessed by what he was doing, which of course it was!