Posted on 11/05/2005 3:05:58 PM PST by solitas
(highlighting mine)
[subtitle:] Worshipers 'floored' by armed escort from building.
BRIDGEPORT — For months, parishioners of Holy Trinity Church prayed they were beating the odds. They held potluck suppers. They hosted bazaars and tag sales.
In short, they raised lots of money — enough, they hoped, to keep their struggling Black Rock parish alive.
But worshipers at what is believed to be the oldest Hungarian Byzantine parish on the East Coast said they were devastated by the announcement last Sunday that the church was closing. But what happened next, they said, was unconscionable.
Moments after the announcement was made, armed guards emerged from the sacristies to escort worshipers from their spiritual home.
When she saw the guards, "I felt like I was in a Communist country," said JoAnn Manzo, one of the startled parishioners.
The church closing was revealed when the Rev. George Malitz, the pastor at Holy Trinity and St. John the Baptist in Trumbull, said at the end of the weekly liturgy that he had two announcements.
The first was routine; the second was a letter from the head of their diocese — Eparchy of Passaic Bishop Andrew Pataki — advising the congregation of the immediate shutdown.
"There was a lot of chaos," said Matthew Boucher, a lifelong parishioner, who immediately got up to retrieve his offering and return those of others. "Two armed guards appeared and escorted us out of the church."
Despite their fund-raising efforts, the few parishioners — some three dozen families were registered with the parish — said they were not surprised about the closing. But they were stunned and horrified by the way the news was broken.
"The 'now' of it just floored us," Boucher said.
Boucher estimated the average age of recent worshipers at the church at between 55 and 60 — many who own houses near the Scofield Avenue building, including many who don't drive.
A woman who answered the phone at the eparchy's office and declined to give her name Thursday said that neither the bishop nor a representative would be available.
"The matter has already been addressed and there's no comment," she said. She then hung up the phone.
Malitz did not return messages left at St. John.
Although they are under the authority of the pope, Byzantine Catholics are among several distinct ethnic divisions in the church, and have their own ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Byzantine Catholics have roots in Eastern European nations, and their liturgy is much like that of Orthodox churches, which don't recognize Rome's authority.
Though the existing sanctuary was erected in 1955, Holy Trinity dates to 1896, when Hungarian immigrants were pouring into the city.
Despite its Hungarian liturgy, however, Holy Trinity attracted some parishioners from other backgrounds who took advantage of its proximity to their homes or enjoyed its unusual character.
"Roman Catholic churches are very big," said Manzo, who worshipped at Holy Trinity for 45 years. "This was more of a family."
Parishioners said they had heard of financial troubles for two years or more. But they said fund-raising went into high gear last March, when Malitz announced there were thousands of dollars worth of bills and insufficient funds to meet them.
Boucher said one congregant promptly wrote out a $5,000 check to cover the bills, but the parishioners were not allowed to see those or any subsequent ones.
Parishioners said their wishes to rein in costs, such as by keeping the heat at 55 degrees, were ignored, and that the eparchy and Malitz rebuffed their efforts to review the financial situation.
"This didn't have to happen," Christopher Gombos of Fairfield, another lifelong parishioner, said of the closing. "It happened because they wanted it to occur, like a show of power."
Parishioners now have to figure out where — or if — they will regularly attend church. Though St. John follows the Eastern liturgy, its background is Slavic, and the worshipers there don't sing the familiar hymns in Hungarian that were a special feature at Holy Trinity.
Manzo has registered at St. Ann's, a traditional Roman Catholic Church in Black Rock, but others may not find new spiritual homes so easily.
Gombos, for one, said his disillusionment with the way the Holy Trinity closing was handled, coupled with the latest reports of priestly sexual misconduct in the Archdiocese of Hartford, has soured him on Rome, and he suggested he may opt to worship with the Orthodox Christian Church.
"I'll never belong to a parish where we don't have any control," he vowed.
Susan Silvers, who covers regional issues, can be reached at 330-6426.
http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_3185955
THOUGH the story is today's headliner in 72pt type, the story isn't even on the first page of the website; it's in tiny-tiny type two links deep. Go figure.
And go to Church; but be ready to "deal with" anything/anyone that gets in your way.
ping
It's only a BUILDING.
Was the church still consecrated when the jack booted thugs kicked kicked the parishioners out. The diocese paid for this sacrilege?
A good reminder: Always bring your gun to church.
Is that really the case? So it means they can meet in, say, St. John building as a different conggregation (not attending the same service as the Slavic-based St. John)?
It's actually unbelievable that armed guards made people leave.
WWJD? - a shootout of course... Trying to pull money out of the collection plate is what brought out the armed guards.
...got up to retrieve his offering and return those of others. "Two armed guards appeared and escorted us out of the church."
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world
1 Corinthians 6:4
To use armed guards,
on consecrated ground,
against the blameless faithful,
of that local body of Christ?
I have no words for this
It seems that good Christian people who congregate peaceably for mass could be counted on to leave after the bad news without an armed show of force.
Armed guards?
There must be more to this story.
My church is an orthodox Episcopal church that does not support the ECUSA decisions about the gay bishop and there is a lot of talk about joining an Anglican diocese. However, the diocese owns the title to the building. It is very likely that the portion of the congregation that does not support ECUSA will have to move.
No. Its only the BEGINNING!
Would the Catholic Church have have hired armed guards shoot obviously good Catholics for the pieces of silver in the collection plate? What were armed guards even doing on consecrated ground?
Perhaps it would be better not to allow anyone to ever have this kind of control again!
I'm with you. There is a lot more here that we are not hearing.
I'm a member of a Latin Mass community that holds our Masses in a church that has regular vernacular Masses at other times.
When I was teaching in Turkey, I attended Mass at a French church, which was used by Syrians to hold their Masses earlier on Sunday morning.
It can be done, and makes sense if the congregation, the Bishop, and the host church can get together on it.
It seems malitz is two-timing and so the ecclesiastical gangsters probably figured they'd close one of the two parishes and to hell with what the congregants thought.
The People from Holy Trinity _could_ go about a mile away to St.Emery's - again, historically Hungarian and almost in the same neighborhood (formerly aka 'Hunktown' and the neighborhood of my forebears) but they'd be in even worse shape since St.E's is _totally_ RC: fully in league with Big-Business Rome.
St.J-the-B's Byzantine is more than 10 miles away on the highway and is newer and in a suburban residential area - and unfortunately run by the same gun-toters they met in Fairfield.
Not to change the subject, but what is the value of this land ??? EMINENT DOMAIN ???
I don't think it's "eminent domain" if the property is owned by Big Business Rome. I think it's "selling the property to pay the lawyers to fight having to pay the families after diddling their kids".
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