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]

The historic building, though Orthodox, was originally built by the Episcopalians and it retained much of its original high church Protestant flavor including the neo-gothic design with grand stained glass windows and elegant pews. Also lost are countless icons and holy relics.

[toothfairy86]

Serbian church in NYC, Macedonian Orthodox church outside of Sydney, Greek Orthodox church in Melbourne, another building at the Vaalam Monastery in Russia all burned on Easter Sunday. Lord, have mercy!

[NRx]

Kyrie eleison!

[Mears]

“Serbian church in NYC, Macedonian Orthodox church outside of Sydney, Greek Orthodox church in Melbourne, another building at the Vaalam Monastery in Russia all burned on Easter Sunday. Lord, have mercy”

—

Four?

This cannot be a mere coincidence .

.

[uncitizen]

Wow! Yeah, not a coincidence.

[Red Badger]

Isaiah 66 New International Version (NIV)

66 This is what the Lord says:

“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?
2
Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.

“These are the ones I look on with favor:
those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
and who tremble at my word.

[vladimir998]

All the more reason to build an even more beautiful church. This time they can get the design right too.

[Red Badger]

And put in a sprinkler system................B^)

[litehaus]

“Lord have mercy!”

If we deserve it? Pray for forgiveness/grace instead, it might be a better idea?