This church, with an interior of about 18 feet by 40 feet, has stood in a backyard in Mishawaka since 1959. Posted on 05/26/2005 6:38:11 PM PDT by Destro
May 26, 2005
Reviving a dream
Big hopes of little congregation growing for Orthodox church
FAITH
By SARA TOTH
Tribune Staff Writer
This church, with an interior of about 18 feet by 40 feet, has stood in a backyard in Mishawaka since 1959.
Katherine Palsce, the daughter of the now-deceased Orthodox priest who built The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his Mishawaka backyard, prays during a liturgy service on May 15.
The Rev. John Schmidt gives the homily during the liturgy service on May 15. Schmidt has been celebrating Sunday liturgy at this Eastern Orthodox church in a Mishawaka backyard a few times each month since January.
Tribune Photos/SHAYNA BRESLIN
MISHAWAKA -- Six people have been gathering in a backyard church a few Sundays a month since January, hoping to resurrect Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Mishawaka.
Whenever their priest, the Rev. John Schmidt, based at a church in Indianapolis, can make the drive to the little white building behind a house at 2022 E. Jefferson Blvd., they celebrate liturgy.
It is rare that more than six people attend, but Schmidt hopes this is just the beginning and that more people will discover The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which celebrates the liturgy in English.
Detroit-based Bishop Nathaniel Popp of the Orthodox Church in America has approved Schmidt's project, making the 40-by-18-foot church part of the Orthodox Church in America, which contains about 700 parishes in North America.
Although often associated with a particular nationality, such as Greek or Russian, Orthodox Christianity in the United States doesn't have to be tied to ethnic background or identity, says Schmidt, who claims no identity but American. By celebrating liturgy in English, his goal with this little church is to open up the Orthodox faith to more people, he says.
Schmidt converted from Roman Catholicism 27 years ago. He and his wife, raised a Protestant, both joined the Orthodox Church shortly after their marriage. Schmidt was ordained a priest about a year ago, after serving for 13 years as a deacon.
He calls the Orthodox Church "one of the best-kept secrets" in the world of religion.
There are two other Orthodox churches in the area, both in South Bend, Sts. Peter and Paul Serbian Orthodox Church, 59262 Keria Trail, which is under the leadership of a patriarch in Serbia, and St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Church, 52455 N. Ironwood Road, which belongs to the Greek Archdiocese of America. Those churches conduct some parts of their services in Old Church Slavonic and Greek.
"I don't want to be in competition" with those churches, Schmidt says. "There ought to be room for 100 more people to have an Orthodox church. We'll wait and see what God brings."
Updating a tradition
Katherine Palsce has been waiting nearly 40 years for Orthodox Christianity to grow again in Mishawaka.
Her father, the now deceased Right Rev. John R. Hanchar, an Orthodox priest, built the church Schmidt uses in 1959.
After Hanchar's parish, St. Michael, at 712 E. Lawrence St., switched from Orthodoxy to Byzantine Rite Catholicism around 1959, he was forced out, says Palsce, who lives in Osceola and now attends Schmidt's liturgies. He built the church in his backyard "so he would always have a church," she says.
Since her father died in 1983, she and her brother, who lives in the house on Jefferson, have taken care of the chapel.
"It's where I like to go and find peace and quiet," Palsce says.
"I also don't have to argue with anybody there," adds Palsce, who has struggled over the years to find an Orthodox church she likes with services in English.
She and her brother still express disappointment that St. Michael left the Orthodox Church for Catholicism. But most important to them is having the liturgy service in English, they say.
Palsce says she does not see the value in having the liturgy in Greek, Russian or Serbian, even if parishioners' relatives once spoke those languages. (Both of Palsce's parents were born in the United States, although they were immigrants of Macedonian, Greek and Russian descent, she says.)
If Orthodox churches do not have services in English, the younger generations won't attend, she says. Besides, "this is America," she says, where the official language is English.
She is thankful that Schmidt is now using the church her father built to try to open up Orthodox Christianity. Her father was open to many types of people, she said. During the 1940s, Hanchar, who spoke several languages, helped many European refugees who ended up in South Bend after fleeing World War II, she says.
If Hanchar were alive today, he would support what Schmidt is doing to revive the Orthodox Church, Palsce says. Although her father celebrated the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, he would agree that with few first-generation immigrants around today, English is a better language for the church, she says.
"I think it's the perfect place to start to carry on his dream and heritage," Schmidt says. "He would have been the type of priest who would have opened up Orthodoxy to a wider mainstream of Michiana."
A sort of resurrection
Inside the little church, 19 painted icons of biblical figures and saints hang on the walls and remind those who sit in the nine pews to be images of God. Two glass chandeliers and numerous red candles light the place. It smells like incense, which is used in liturgy to symbolize prayers going up to heaven.
In the liturgy on May 15, which is the third Sunday of Easter, according to the Orthodox liturgical calendar, Schmidt speaks about Ezekiel 37. This part of the Old Testament tells the story of the Lord bringing the dry bones of people back to life.
"I think that's the greatest prophecy in the Old Testament of the Resurrection," he says.
"That also speaks to us in this little community," Schmidt says to Palsce and the other three people in the pews. "We hope this is the time for new life for Orthodoxy in the city of Mishawaka."
Staff writer Sara Toth:
stoth@sbtinfo.com
(574) 235-6442
best of luck to them, though they might want to reconsider the turquoise paint scheme. I got a headache just looking at the pictures of it!
Very 1970s.
Eastern Orthodoxy and Byzantine Catholicism is having an interesting revival among those who seek more spirituality from their churches.
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