Flames consume 150-year-old Manhattan church on its Orthodox worshippers’ Easter Sunday

WaPo ^ | 05-02-2016 | enny Starrs

[NRx]

Father Djokan Majstorovic tried to push closer and closer to his church, to no avail. The corner of Manhattan’s W. 25 St. and Broadway was cordoned off and swarming with firefighters.

“I feel like I’m in a nightmare right now,” Father Majstorovic said to the AP. Mere hours earlier on May 1, the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava had been packed with worshippers celebrating Easter Sunday. Now, the 150-year-old church is a smoldering, skeletal remain of its past self.

Just before 7 p.m., smoke could be seen creeping out of the historic church’s gray roof. Within an hour it was a raging blaze, with orange tongues licking the sky and flames shooting out of shattered stained-glass windows. The four-alarm fire brought in 170 firefighters from the New York Fire Department, and they still battled the fire for three hours before they knocked its main body back. Fire hoses were trained on the church’s carcass into the early morning hours.

[NRx]

Lord have mercy!

[babble-on]

Serbians, gosh who would do something nasty to Serbians?

[katana]

One hundred fifty year old structure, packed with icons and old ornamentation, a priest walking round the altar swinging an incense burner, and maybe hundreds of people holding lit candles. What could possibly go wrong?

[lexington minuteman 1775]

I suppose the Enemedia won’t let us hear what the arson investigators discover...a fire that burns that hot and that huge without accelerants and multiple starting points is a tad suspicious...and Serbia is near Muslim strong holds you know those pesky Amish...
Freegards
LEX

[vladimir998]

Although not included in the story I am linking to, it is said that when Notre Dame University suffered a catastrophic fire in 1879, that the founder, Fr. Sorin walked around the ruins and said to the assembled students and faculty that Mary must have wanted them to think bigger and that they must have given her a university that was too small. He then told them to show up the next morning to help start the rebuilding.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120507085725/http://archives.nd.edu/hope/hope13.htm/

Maybe St. Sava wants a bigger and better church to better serve and honor the Lord!

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I was thinking of other causes besides arson, but then this morning brings news of the post-Easter burnings of two Orthodox churches in Australia. That, plus what you sad about the intensity of the NYC fire.

[Sacajaweau]

This was originally an extension of Trinity Church IN YC and was a Christian Church.

IIRC, Trinity Church in NYC was miraculously saved from destruction on 9-11.

Sorry....I'm thinking Arson.

I think I read that there was another church burning someplace else in NYC at almost the same time.

[NRx]

A more detailed story from the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/nyregion/blaze-engulfs-historic-serbian-orthodox-church-in-manhattan.html?action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

The parish website...
http://stsavanyc.org/

[Sacajaweau]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/four-alarm-fire-torches-brooklyn-buildings-church-article-1.2613082

[backwoods-engineer]

If this is not arson, it is the most incredible coincidence since OJ’s bloody glove.

[knarf]

Whatever ... too much antiquity has been lost, IMO, since the muzzies came forefront to our attention in 2001

They've destroyed hundreds of thousands of years of man's labors, especially from the religious/spiritual world, all because "they didn't like it" ! ! !

I'm suspicious of this fire and the timing .... timing and symbolism is most important to the islamist.

[chajin]

If this is not arson, it is the most incredible coincidence since OJ’s bloody glove.

Why wait for the services to be over before burning down the church? If I were Muslim (God forbid!) and carried hatred towards Serbian Christians, I would want them to burn in the church, not live on to rebuild the church.

[montag813]

Haven’t the Serbs suffered enough? And does anyone doubt this was a Muslim hit?

[NRx]

I do, though I am not going to rule it out. It was an old church, with lots of highly combustible material, maybe old electrical wiring. There would have been many candles still burning after the Easter Liturgy. Church fires have happened before without foul play.

I am reserving judgement pending more information/evidence.

[RitchieAprile]

>I am reserving judgement pending more information/evidence

that is so un-FR

[Roccus]

IIRC, Trinity Church in NYC was miraculously saved from destruction on 9-11.

More a matter of geography than a miracle.

[lonerepubinma]

The cause of the fire could be anything. The church where my wife works had a fire in the Vesting room a few years back. One of the parishioners thought that putting a small amount of burning incense into a window box filled with soil would be a safe way to dispose of it. a few hours later a small fire was discovered before it became out of control.

http://www.springsgov.com/units/fire/Safety/PottingSoilFires.htm

[Biggirl]

Same here, if I am not mistaken, there are more devotional candles in the Orthodox churches and it must have been packed that very day for the Orthodox Easter Sunday, so more candles had been used.

In my church, and I am Catholic, we have just one devotional candle light stand, but even on candle is enough to start a fire.

Saw a thread from one of the local tv stations of what that church looked like before the fire, with its very beautiful icon screen, sadly, all gone now.

[Biggirl]

Correction: One candle.

[NRx]

"...if I am not mistaken, there are more devotional candles in the Orthodox churches and it must have been packed that very day for the Orthodox Easter Sunday, so more candles had been used."

An Orthodox church w/o candles is... not Orthodox.