Christ is Risen!

Beautiful photos of a beautiful church! Thank you, David.

Many years,

Neil

VERY nice Church

No doubt. One of the jewels of the Rusyn tradition! I have several histories of St. Michael's: 60th, 75th, 90th and 100th. Were there any any earlier ones and are any copies still around?

Somewhere in my dad's papers is the Silver Jubilee 25th Anniversary booklet from 1929 (with English as well as 'ponashemu') took place on the eve of the outbreak of the much lamented 'borba' which split the parish. Bishop Takach was the honored guest. It is my understanding that he met with the church officers and 'requested' that they recharter the congregation and enable him as the sole trustee in accordance with canon law. The majority of the board 'declined' to honor this 'request.' (Ironically, these canons are similar to, if not identical,the canons which would properly govern the operation of an Orthodox church as well. One need not go into how many Rusyn, Ukrainian and other Slavic Orthodox parishes in the USA are 'properly' chartered in that manner. This is likely to be an interesting issue in the future if, and when, the Episcopal Assembly now beginning to set itself up ever asserts ecclesiastical authority over existing parishes.)

That 1929 meeting was the event which started the 'war', it was kind of the Fort Sumter of fifteen years of 'un'civil religious war in the community.

In that St. Michael's left the Greek Catholic Church, along with St. John's Orthodox Church in Perth Amboy and St. Michael's in Rankin, Pa (to name a few, I am sure there are others in both the BCC and Orthodox spheres), it is one of the surviving early 20th century church buildings which retain the basic design and original iconostasis of the founders.

I have never seen this Binghamton meeting described in Barriger or Slivka. Any chance of a scan of that 1929 history. I don' think I saw it at the archives in Johnstown. Do we know what villages St. Michael's founders came from. Was St. Michael's modeled on one of those village churches, al la St. Nicholas in Barton inspired by St. Michael's in the home village of Osuturna, Slovakia.