Fr. Cyril

Father Cyril Stavrevsky was parish priest here from 1979 to 2003. He was a native of Rochester and a first generation Macedonian American, his parents having come here from that country. During his growing up years the family used the Greek Orthodox church for baptisms and so forth, but like the families of other founders of St. Johns didn’t feel that they really fit in there and so were not regular attenders. As Carl Stavrevsky he was a civilian employee for the military occupation forces in Germany after WWII and was strongly influenced by an Episcopalian chaplain he got to know then. This is also where he met his wife, Margarite. In the very early 1960s he and his family attended a local Episcopalian church.

Then he saw the advertisement the founders of St Johns ran seeking members, and he responded, joining in with them in 1964, just after the initial beginning of the parish. As time went on he felt called to the priesthood and became a priest in 1969. After serving in various capacities away from Rochester, he returned to be the parish priest of St. Johns, falling asleep in the Lord while preparing for Vespers one Saturday night.  

Following are a few brief reminiscences of Father Cyril. Please feel free to add your own in the comments field, and help identifying and dating the photos would be great too.

Andrea Fedoruk: Father Cyril’s love and spiritual clarity was responsible for bringing my family back to the church. I continue to miss his unfailing kindness and thoughtfulness, as well as his depth of knowledge.

Irene Georgantas: I loved hearing Father Cyril give the final proclamation of faith on the Sunday of Orthodoxy--it was always with such passion and conviction. Inspiring!

 Steven K. Mojsovski: Father Cyril was my 1st spiritual father. I spent many sessions talking to him and asking him many questions about faith. Father Cyril opened my eyes to the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also was a wonderful friend.

Gus Platas: My most vivid memory of Father Cyril is during our midnight Pascha service, when he used to run through the Church with his censer behind the altar servers, almost running over them with his enthusiasm.... many of us thought that the Holy Spirit overtook him and endowed him with so much energy and exuberance!

Ryan Platte: I’ll never forget my first encounter with him when I inquired about receiving Communion. Someone let him know I had a question for him, and in a minute out came this amazing, radiant priest, hunched over a bit in his age, his vestments a bit tattered. A fair amount of incense smoke came through the door with him, making the picture even more vivid. He was kind, patient, quite apparently in awe of God’s glory, and down to earth. His example helps me understand what it is to be an Orthodox Christian...

Jane Wargo (from an oral history interview): Fr. Cyril always could talk to a person where they were and explain things to them so they could understand.

Blessing of the boiler!

According to the Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity one finds that in the Bible the idea of blessing means to give favor. For example, in Genesis 27:11 Issac receives the favor or blessing (Hebrew, brch) of his father Jacob. There are liturgical blessings in the Bible too, for example the blessing of people in Numbers 6:22, or of food in 1 Samuel 9:13. The Orthodox practice, rooted in tradition and the scriptures, is to bless not only people and objects associated with the life in Christ, such as icons etc., but also to bless all sorts of objects of daily life and nature, whether animals, homes, or, as in this case, the new boiler of the church!

From left to right we have Vladimir Vukanovich, Ken O'Brien, Andrea Fedoruk, Bonnie Maye Schwarz, two unidentified people, and lastly Father Cyril Stavrevsky.The photo would seem to be from sometime in the 1980s.

Our "first" icon!

The icon shown here could perhaps be called our first icon. It was a card that was distributed at the first divine liturgy held in our parish. The card is the one Steve Merowsky's mother received, and kept safe all these years tucked inside her copy of Faith of Our Fathers: The Eastern Orthodox Religion, a book she used in teaching Sunday School.

On the back it reads:

This icon was Blessed and Distributed on the occasion of the Celebration of the First Divine Liturgy, St. John the Baptish Orthodox Catholic Church, Rochester, New York, on the Sunday of the Myrrh Bearing Ladies May 17, 1964, with the blessings of The Most Reverend Metropolitan Leonty, Archbishop of New York and the Americas by the V. Rev. Fr. Alexander Warnecke, Pastor, The Rev. Hieromonk Daniel (Krstich) of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Responses sung by Ss. Peter & Paul Orthodox Catholic Church Choir of Syracuse, N. Y., Mr. Oleg V. Beljaeff, Director.

TROPARION TO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST:

The memory of the just is blessed, but for thee, O Forerunner, the Lord's testimony sufficeth; for thou has verily shown thyself to be the most honorable of the prophets, since thou wast blessed above all in baptizing him whom they prophesied. Then, having gladly suffered for the truth, thou didst proclaim also to those in hell God manifest in the flesh taking upon himself the sins of the world and showing great mercy upon us.

Father Thomas Brown

There are several "sons of the parish" who have gone on to become priests. We heard about Father John Dresko before, and here we will remember Father Thomas Brown. In future posts we will look at the father and son duo of Father Cyril and Father Ken Stavrevsky.

Fr. Thomas was born and raised in the South. As a teenager he moved with his family to Geneva, NY. He graduated from Houghton College and Dallas Theological Seminary  with a Masters in Theology. He became a Baptist minister for a while and then started his search for the “true church”. Eventually he ended up at our parish around the same time in the early 1980s  as some other new members, e.g. Susan Deeb. Experiencing a call to the priesthood he explored this under Father Cyril and then  enrolled at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Our parish helped him with scholarship monies and in May of 1988, he graduated with a MDiv. from St. Vladimir’s. He married Nadine Eskoff in July and on August 7th, he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Boris at our parish of St. John the Baptist in Rochester. On August 28, he was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Boris in Ohio and was assigned pastor of St. Innocent’s Orthodox Mission in Westlake, Ohio. Two years later he was transferred to Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Gary, IN. On August 4th, 1991, he collapsed at the end of the Divine Liturgy in the church and passed away in front of his parish. He is buried in the cemetery at St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania. May his memory be eternal.

(In recent years Matushka Nadine, who is Matushka Natalie's sister, has relocated to Rochester and is an active member of our parish, singing in the choir.)

Our Choir

The choir has a role of special significance in the life of an Orthodox church. They engage in an ongoing dialog with the priest throughout the liturgy from the very beginning of the service until the end. In our church there is no organ and the choir sings a cappella. St. Theophan the Recluse, (pictured at left,) said of Church music: "The purpose of Church songs is precisely to make the spark of grace that is hidden with us burn brighter and with greater warmth. This spark is given by the sacraments. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual odes are introduced to fan the spark and transform it into flame …"

 While the music we sing today is largely in the Slavic style, our choir also uses music and chants from the Byzantine, Greek, Serbian and other traditions. In the earliest years there was a little use of material in Church Slavonic, since in the 1960s the movement to translate and update church music for English was just beginning.

The story of our choir starts with assistance rendered to us by Saints Peter and Paul Church of Syracuse. Stepan Beskid of that church was the “cantor” or reader as we would say today, and with encouragement from him and Fr. Kozak a choir was formed with Anastasia Wargo as the choir director. Her sister in law Jane Wargo and Professor John Chaus were active in building the choir in the early years as well. Later on Bill Kosachook directed the choir for many years until the late 1970s. 

In the late 1970s Mark Bailey, then a student at the Eastman School of Music, joined the choir, and became its director. Mark came at a time when the movement to translate music from Slavonic to English was leading into the writing of new music. Part of the issue was that melodies written with Slavonic in mind for the words simply did not match well when the Slavonic was translated into English. Mark moved into this transitioning church music scene and became known as a writer of music himself; many of the songs our choir uses are written by him. 

(Pictured here are Bonnie Maye Schwartz and Mary B____? against the wall, and from left to right in the foreground are Paul Wargo, Anastasia Wargo, and Mark Bailey.)

In an interview Bonnie Maye Schwarz, who has been our choir director for many years, noted the importance of Fr.Sergei Glagolev to English language music. Fr. Sergei comes from a long line of Orthodox priests, and his father, Fr. Andrew, did the first English language translation of the music for the liturgy in 1948. Fr. Sergei continued this work of his father for many years at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, where his summer music institutes educated many.

Bonnie shares her commitment to the choir with her husband Doug Schwarz, choir member and reader. The extent of their commitment is readily apparent to anyone at all familiar with the length and number of Orthodox services, and the complex movement of the liturgical year and its accompanying rotation of music and chant. She is greatly heartened to see the choir grow as it has in recent years!

Fashion Shows!

Back in the 1970s one of the many fundraisers held was a fashion show. Yvette Kisil was the mastermind behind the show, and in the image here we see Anastasia Wargo on the "runway" in 1974. Perhaps something to try again? ;-)

Visit of Bishop Dimitri

In the early 1970s Bishop Dimitri came to our church. He is shown in the photo here, with Al Joseph, Andy Babish and some other, unidentified people. While the occasion of the visit is not known to this blogger, much is known about Bishop Dimitri, a most remarkable man indeed.

One of the appealing things about him is how his personal story can connect with the many converts in the OCA. He was born in 1923, in Teague Texas, in a family of Baptists, but as a teenager both he and his sister converted to Orthodoxy, at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox church in Dallas.

He served in WWII as a Japanese language instructor, and later used his Spanish language skills as a missionary to Mexican Americans. He became associated with the "Metropolia," our predecessor body, in the 1950s, being made a priest in 1954. Later, in the 1960s, he became bishop of the New England district and for a time was our parish Bishop. The church is fortunate to have such a diversity of talent and gifts as shown in leaders like Bishop Dimitri. Christianity Today has an informative article on him by Frederica Matthewes-Green. Read it and learn about his "Tex-Mex Orthodoxy!"