PA Wooden Church Inaugurated

Rich Custer, Washington, DC

On the weekend of 16 and 17 August, Rusyns celebrated the culmination of a years-long effort to build an authentic Rusyn-style wooden church at Camp Nazareth, a youth camp near Erie, Pennsylvania.

Metropolitan Nicholas of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the U.S.A. led the consecration of the new church, dedicated to SS. Cyril and Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs. He was joined by Orthodox hierarchs of the Ukrainian, Serbian and Greek Churches, as well as Metropolitan Basil of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church in America.

A dinner followed the consecration, at which the Reviljak Family of Bardejov, Slovakia, provided the entertainment. The Reviljaks also performed Rusyn folk songs on Sunday afternoon. The Carpatho-Rusyn Society also sponsored a Vatra (bonfire) at the campgrounds on Saturday night which featured a sing along led by Rusyn musician and folklorist Jerry Jumba.

The church was built by American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, which also owns and operates the camp. The church was built in the Lemko style most frequently seen in northeast Slovakia and southeast Poland

Architect Joseph Parimucha, an American Rusyn, designed the church. The wooden shingles of the church were executed by craftsmen from the Rusyn village of Tichy Potok (Tychyj Potik/Štel'bach), in the Sabinov district of northeast Slovakia.

The still-unfinished lower level of the church will hold a heritage center and museum dedicated to the Rusyn people in America who established the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese in 1938.