Singing group from Ohio?

Your blogger is a little unsure about this image, except that it is of our church basement, back in the '70s, maybe earlier, and that the girls wearing similar dresses in the foreground of the photo were a singing group that was visiting here. Anyone remember anything about this group, who  they were, when this event took place? Please comment here! That was kind of nice having a Coke machine in the basement wasn't it? ;-)

Know Your Parish Leadership, 1973.

This is a group of the parish leaders from 1973, the time of the consecration of the current church building. Let's see if we can name them all correctly!

In the center is Father Wojcik. In the back, on the right, are Al Joseph and Andy Babish. On the right in front are Sandy Paiko and Gene Grenek. (At least we think that's right.)

The names we have for those on the left are: Dorothy V...?, Paul Prybla, Helen Dresko, Boris Glus and Donald A..? Can you help sort out who is who, and fill in the last names? Remember, if you click on the photo you can make it bigger for viewing :-)

Bingo!

As mentioned before, there were numerous fund raisers in the 1960s and '70s. There was a building to furnish, a parish to establish, a mortgage to be paid off and while the individual parishoners contributed generously, there were simply limits to what they could do. In addtion to the fund raisers mentioned already, church members ran a bingo game for some years in the 1970s. They rented a Knights of Columbus Hall on South Avenue and many parishoners worked these games. The top image is of Marge Cavalcanti, tallying up the proceeds by the looks of things.

Some other people who helped out were the folks shown in this next image. In the back we see Gretel Stavrevsky and Cora Joseph, and on the right in the
foreground is Lillian Stavrevsky.

Not just adults, but younger members worked these games too, as shown here with two of the Joseph brothers, Nick and David.

Please help identify this young sub-deacon

Among other photographs from Boris Glus' extensive collection of photos of church events over the years was this photo. It is from the early 1970s, since Father Wojcik was still here, who you see coming out from the Royal Doors. Out in front of him is Father Cyril, who at that time was probably already serving as chaplain at West Point. On Father Cyril's left is a young sub-deacon. He looks familiar, doesn't he? Or does he? We think we know his identity, but if you'd like to try a guess, please comment here! (Remember, you can left click on the image to view it in a larger size.)

Fundraisers

When the parish bought the current church building in 1967 it cost $67,000. In today's dollars that would be some $470,000 according to this inflation calculator. A lot of money! So the people of the church initiated a series of fundraising events that over the years represented a lot of work, a fair amount of money for the church, and sometimes some good fun too, judging by some of the photos. Jane Wargo recalled in an interview for example that in the 1960s they held a number of rummage sales in the Grange hall in Chili.


 Another good fundraiser done for a number of years in the 1970s is shown in the photographs here. This was the food stand that they ran every summer at the Monroe County Fair. Shown below are Al and Cora Joseph.

In the following photo we see Bill Cavalcanti and Cora Joseph.

More on the "Carpatho-Russians"

This ethnic group, not well known to many in the U.S., was commented on earlier in this blog. Recently the blogger ran across some wonderful images and books about the heartland of these people, Carpathian Ruthenia. This was in the World Digital Library, an online cooperative venture of a number of national and other libraries. In the European section there is a book from the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine showing rare images of the villages, churches and people in this region which was the center of this ethnic group.

As noted in the records, this mountainous region was largely in the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire before WWI, but afterwards some of it became part of Czechoslovakia. some fell to Poland, with most of it becoming what is today the Zakarpattia Oblast in western Ukraine. The natives were a rural peasant people who spoke a Slavic dialect similar to Ukrainian with Polish influences. Shown here is a group of women of the region.

Religiously they were predominantly what is referred to as either "Eastern Catholics" or "Uniates." Their story is significant not only to our parish but to the Orthodox Church of America as well, since after the followers of this church came to America many of them became part of the former "Metropolia," which later became the OCA. What follows is an attempt to relate briefly a very complicated and often contentious story!

Essentially what happened is that in the European borderlands between West and East there was a tremendous amount of political and religious rivalry between Roman Catholic and Easter Orthodox princes and powers. The Easter Catholics or Uniates are an outcome of this rivalry. They are a church which largely follows an Orthodox style worship and tradition, but recognize the primacy and authority of the Pope, rather than the collegial body of Orthodox metropolitans and patriarchs. So for example their priest can marry, as in Orthodoxy, but they still accept the authority of Rome. At left is one of their churches.

When these people came to the U.S. and brought their church with them, there was a good deal of confusion. Roman Catholic leaders here were not familiar with their situation, and unsympathetic to it in many cases, finding the marriage of priests mentioned above unacceptable, and so on. A leader of this people, Father Alexis Toth, a Uniate priest, struggled with these issues and in the end led many to reunion with the then main Orthodox body in the U.S., the Metropolia mission of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Carpatho-Russian Uniates who returned to Orthodoxy form an important part of the history of today's Orthodox Church in America.

Men & Women of the Parish, March 1967

Here are two snapshots of some of the men and women of St. John's in March of 1967, not long after moving into the present church building. The men are shown seated at a table in the basement. From left to right they are: unidentified, Joe Cherney, Carl (later Fr. Cyril) Stavrevsky, Fr. Warnecke, John Dresko, Marty Staschak and "Sam," (also known as "Sam the Albanian.") All of these men were active in the establishment of the new parish. Carl Stavrevsky, later Father Cyril, became a priest in 1969 and later served this parish, where his son, Father Ken James Stavrevsky serves today. Father Warnecke was the priest of St. Peter and Paul in Syracuse, and a major figure in Orthodox circles in upstate NY. He, and his parish, served in something of the role of godparents to our parish. "Sam the Albanian" was actually named Sam Theodore, something like that, but many found his full Albanian name difficult to remember, hence "Sam the Albanian!" He was a member of the small Albanian church that our parish worshiped in for almost two years prior to purchasing the current building.

Next we have a group of women of the parish, also from March 1967, in the kitchen. (It was a more traditional era...) From left to right we see Helen Dresko, Dorothy Stavrevsky (Father Ken's grandmother,) Ann Paiko, Dorothy Staschak, Katherine Youney, Jane Wargo and Sultana Popoff. Again, a key group of our founding members. Without the dedication, hard work, and faithfulness of all of these servants of God our much loved parish simply would not exist!