FEBRUARY- MARCH 2002
ORTHODOX OBSERVER
PEOPLE F
u SAE Plans
World Council of Hellenes Abroad President Andrew A. Athens recently met with officials of the Greek and U.S. governments, and launched plans for the construction of a medical center in Ukraine, and other projects that include the organization s first micro-enterprise programs. The new medical center for the Hellenes will be built in Mariupol.
u Candidate visit
Businessman Dennis Mehiel, a candidate for lieutenant governor of New York, recently met with Archbishop Demetrios at Archdiocese headquarters. Mr. Mehiel is chairman and CEO of Sweetheart Cup Company. He is a former member of the Archdiocesan Council and a long-time member of the Leadership 100 Endowment Fund. Joining him in the visit were supporters Michael Jaharis and John Catsimatidis, current and immediate past vice chairmen of the Archdiocesan Council.
u Joins faculty
Dr. Tom Papademetriou, son of Hellenic College/Holy Cross professor Rev. Dr. George Papademetriou, recently was appointed to the arts and humanities faculty at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. A graduate of Holy Cross-Hellenic College, he will teach a course in modern Hellenism. Dr. Papademetriou joins the Rev. Dr. Demetrios Constantelos and Dr. Alexander Alexakis in the Hellenic Studies Program.
u Life members
AHEPA Chapter 520 in Palm Harbor, Fla., recently bestowed Life Member status on four members: Basil Delis, Steve Noumas, Nick Prinos and Peter Zafferes. Most are members of Holy Trinity parish in Clearwater.
u Publishes book
The Rev. Dr. Dumitru Macaila, pastor of Sts. Constantine and Helen Church in Swansea, Ill., and a contributor to the Orthodox Observer, recently published The Right to Life, on the Orthodox teaching on the issue of abortion and sanctity of human life. It includes relevant Bible passages and teachings of the Church Fathers. It is published by Regina Orthodox Press.
u Olympic notes
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics featured a number of Greek American athletes. Chris Chelios of the National Hockey League s Detroit Red Wings, served as captain of Team USA, which made it to the gold medal round before losing to Canada and settling for silver. Greek America magazine reports that two Chicago natives, John Andrew Kambanis and Steven Livaditis, comprised Greece s two-man bobsled team. (Move over Jamaicans). Another sledder, Michael Voudouris of Ridgewood, Queens, N.Y., was Greece s entry in the newest event added to the Winter Olympics, Skeleton racing. Finally, the U.S. Curling Team had two Greek Americans the coach, Mike Liapis and his daughter Stacy.
u Tennessee scouts
Two young members of Holy Trinity Church in Nashville, Michael Joseph Kennedy and Steve Aivazis, were honored at a recent Eagle Scout Court of Honor after attaining this highest scout rank at the church.
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Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso
or such a small community, St. Nicholas parish consists of an eclectic combination of Greek Orthodox Christians. According to Fr. Patrick Irish, a convert to the faith from Roman Catholicism, members include Greek immigrants, American-born second generation, Mexican Greeks from Mexico married to Mexicans who became Catholic, then returned to Orthodoxy, Interracial couples from Greece, Russian immigrants living across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and na-
PARISH
purchased a former synagogue and established St. Nicholas Church. Little else is known about the early years. Fr. Irish said he recently buried the last surviving member of the founding generation, Mrs. Angelos. By the 1950s, the numbers dwindled and many began attending St. George Syrian Antiochian Church, the other jurisdiction in this city of more than 600,000, founded by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s. The community continued to own the church building, but rented it out as a hall
items. At one point, visiting priest Fr. John Bakas, now dean of the Los Angeles cathedral wrote on the suitcase with a marking pen, St. Nicholas on the Rio Grande. It was a lot of people working together with the indirect help of the Episcopal Church and Roman Catholic churches, but the spark that got it all rolling came from Fr. Charles and Fr. Nick, Moskos said of the successful reestablishment of the church. By the mid-1980s, full-time priests
profile
Name: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church Location: El Paso, Texas Diocese: Denver Size: about 40 families Founded: 1926 Clergy: Fr. Patrick Irish Noteworthy: Membership consists of a wide mix of Orthodox Christians tive Mexican converts. With such small numbers from a diverse background, the Irish-American priest has his work cut out for him. The border is a different world, it s not like Ohio or Chicago or California. When you re on the border you re not fish or fowl, but both, he said in a telephone interview. Because there is no persistent Orthodox presence, trying to bring people back to their faith is almost nil or impossible, Fr. Irish said. If people do decide to come back, it s a good thing. The priest started on his path in the faith at age 19 when he converted, looking for the truth. He was chrismated at St. Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles but soon joined the Russian Church Abroad, one of the four major jurisdictions that came into being following the 1917 Bolshevik El Paso Revolution in Russia. From the Russian Church Fr. Irish joined the Greek Old Calendar Church and was ordained in 1987. He returned to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as a priest and was installed in 1988 as rector of Holy Resurrection Church in Santa Barbara, Calif. He is a native of northern California. He eventually renewed his acquaintance with Metropolitan Isaiah and, desiring to transfer to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, was accepted and assigned to El Paso in 1990. With such a diverse group, services take on an international flavor. Fr. Irish celebrates the Divine Liturgy using about 80 percent English, with the rest in Greek, and also reads the Lord s Prayer in Spanish and Slavonic. The original community dates to the early 1920s. In 1926, the Hellenic Community of El Paso, as it was known,
ST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CÇURCH until the early 1960s. It was eventually sold and later became a dance studio. By the late 1970s the church had disbanded and there were no services. Then, in 1980, St. Nicholas Mission parish was created, largely through the efforts of a small group that included Harry Moskos, an Archon, who at the time was editor of the El Paso Herald-Post. Years before, he helped organize the parish in Honolulu. Key catalysts in the successful restart were two clergymen from Houston. The Very Rev. Charles Anastassiou, of blessed memory, former longtime pastor of Assumption Church in Galveston who was serving as an assistant at Annunciation Cathedral in Houston, met several times with organizers in 1980. Its reestablishment was brought to fruition by Fr. Nicholas Triantafilou, then dean of the Houston cathedral, some 750 miles to the east.Armed with the Word of God, an ample supply of Southwest Airlines tickets and sporting his favorite cowboy boots, he commuted monthly for more than a year to bring Greek Orthodox Christianity to this border community. He formed a friendship with the Roman Catholic bishop of El Paso and eventually arranged for the parish to rent, and then buy an existing church on less than an acre of land, which includes a separate building used as a hall. Mr. Moskos, in an e-mail response, remembered a humorous story about having to operate out of a blue suitcase when services were held temporarily at other facilities, including an Episcopal church. It was kept in the Moskos home until needed. We put the chalice, censor and other items in the blue suitcase, he said. We later had to expand to a second (black) suitcase as we acquired more
served, including Frs. Lambros Vakalakis, Dean Demos, Leonidas Drakopoulos and Anastasios Raptis. Today, the parish attracts faithful on both sides of the Rio Grande, though there is an added hardship for those from Mexico. Fr. Irish said that since Sept. 11, crossing the U.S. border takes as long as three hours because of tight security. The relative isolation of the city makes inter-parish activities extremely difficult. The closest Greek Orthodox communities in the Denver Diocese are Albuquerque, N.M. (a four-hour drive), Santa Fe, N.M. (a five-hour drive), and San Angelo, Texas, (about 12 hours away). He noted there is a sense of solidarity with the Antiochian parish. There s really one Orthodox community with two churches, he said. People go back and forth. He estimates there may be six times as many Orthodox of Syrian and Lebanese background, than of Greek heritage. Currently, there are about a dozen children in the parish of varying ages. Sunday School takes place following the Divine Liturgy. The children are in church first so they re not separated from the Liturgy, said Fr. Irish. Meanwhile, parents spend the time at the coffee hour. There is no Greek school. St. Nicholas also has an active Philoptochos chapter. Parish income is derived from pledges, and depends heavily on the annual Greek festival. We do a real kicker of a Greek festival, Fr. Irish said. If it wasn t for the festival, we wouldn t survive. He uses the festival as a didactic tool, remaining on the grounds throughout the event to do church tours and speak about the Orthodox faith, always hoping to attract new members. We really need families, please move here, he pleaded. compiled by Jim Golding