http://www.stjohnsroc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=9

Pascha celebration-Enjoy!

D. Robert

Xpucmoc Bockpece!

Wow--great to see a church with an old style Austro-Hungarian tomb and was that a prostopinijie "Christ is risen" at the beginning of the DL? Great to see that they have not totally lost their Rusyn GC heritage!

John,

Actually, that was the Galician "Christ Is Risen", slightly different than Prostipinije. The parish is formerly OCA (having left over the calendar), and originally Greek Catholic, and I am told that they followed Alexei Toth into Russian Orthodoxy. Most everything is Great Russian in usage, but the exceptions include singing Preterpivyj at Lent, the use of Trojce candles, and pews. Ethnically, the mix is Galician-Ukrainian, Lemko, and Rusyn. But, the people call themselves "Russians". The town was originally a coal-mining town. Some years back there was a "Russian volunteer fire department"! I'm not sure if they only put out Russian fires!

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Thank you Fr. Deacon--I knew that they were originally Greek Catholic and were returned to Orthodoxy by Fr. Toth and that they left the OCA, over the imposition of the revised Julian by Bishop (now Metropolitan) Herman, for ROCOR. I figured that at this point they would have been so totally Russified that there would be no Rusyn GC traditions left. I was pleasantly surprised to see the old style tomb. I know that St. Michael ACROD in Binghamton, NY still has this type of tomb too. Are there any Ruthenian GC churches that still use this type of tomb that anyone knows of? John K

Wouldn't every parish have a tomb? Where would you put the plashchanitsa before placing it on the altar?

My daughter's first holy confession was this weekend so we kind of had to work our way around the tomba because Easter was so late this year.

All Orthodox (and I would presume Greek Catholic) parishes have a "Tomb" on which the Epitaphion / Plashchanitsa lies, but these vary with the different ethnic traditions. The Tomb at St John's Church in Mayfield is quite huge - even obscuring the the lower tier of the iconostasis - and deliberately like a cave. The Tomb in my Russian parish is more simple - like a small altar surrounded with flowers. Greeks and Antiochians usually have a canopied platform covered with flowers.

Fr David Straut

That's exactly what I meant Father--the cave like structure that simulates an actual tomb. It's very Austro-Hungarian. Many GC parishes had them, and many people in my own former parish still remember it longingly each year and wish it had not been scrapped.

http://www.saintmichaels.info/pics/28.jpg
http://www.saintmichaels.info/pics/25.jpg

Ours looks like the first photo on the St. Michael's site. Maybe I'll take a picture this weekend.

One reason for the removal of the "Austro-Hungarian" tombs may have been an association of such a tomb with the custom of placing the Holy Gifts in the tomb (turning it into an "Altar of Repose".

Fr. Serge

How very interesting. Thanks for the pictures. I have never seen anything like that in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Why is it called an "Austro-Hungarian" tomb and what is the origin of this tradition please?

Halia

Isn't this a case of "which came first the chicken or the egg" scenario with graves in both Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic churches of Austria-Hungary? Who started the "Cave" type graves, the Roman Catholic Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians? Or did these Roman Catholics borrow and adapt this custom (pieta instead of a Plashchnica, statue of Christ instead of the Resurrection Icon) from their neighboring Greek Catholic churches?

They sang the Stichera (Tone 8) and the preceeding pray for
Resurrection Matins in a similiar setting. abeit a faster choir version.

X.B.! B.B.!

Ung

Ung--I think that as with the singing of "Having Suffered," the use of a life-like tomb is very intermingled and probably impossible to determine "which came first" between RCs and GCs in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

My Polish (RC) church growing up had (and still does) a very life-like tomb with a statue of the buried Christ in it on Good Friday/Holy Saturday, and up until VII, had the Blessed Sacrament in it as covered with a see through veil, as though buried in a shroud.

The Ukrainian GC church right next door to my Polish parish had the Plashchnica on a more conventional (by today's standard) table-top arrangement, but also had the Blessed Sacrament (in a monstrance) along with the Gospel Book in front of it. In other words, no cave. They no longer have the Sacrament at the tomb.

Very early in the morning on Easter, usually 6AM, my RC church had a short service at the grave, with the buried Christ being removed from the tomb, and a Risen Christ statue replacing it, and the Sacrament carried in procession around the church and replaced in the tabernacle before Mass began.

My former GC parish, from what I ascertain, since the cave tomb was dispensed with in the early 70's when latinizations were removed and the iconostas installed, had the realistic cave tomb, with the Plashchnica and Gospel book in it, but not the Sacrament.

So who borrowed it from who? The world may never know... I was just wondering if any Ruthenian GC churches (not ACROD or OCA) still have the old style cave tombs.

John K

Here's another "cave tomb" from the ACROD Church in Windber, PA:

Windber, PA Tomb

Dave

Dave,

That is a diminutive one. At Dormition parish in Windber, we used to have a huge "Horb" erected over the entire side altar, complete with a built-in shelf for the "Eucharistic Ciborium".

X.B.! B.B.!

Ung

The origin of the rather unusual tomb, and the custom of the Procession with the Holy Gifts on Pascha, is probably obscured by the mists of time. However, the Austro-Hungarian authorities certainly liked it and encouraged it (Catholicism in Austria-Hungary tended toward the baroque anyway) and it persisted for a long time in parishes of vaguely Austro-Hungarian derivation in the USA. In larger churches one could find some interesting, even bizarre, phenomena associated with it - an electric waterfall was often a prominent feature, as were "paramilitary" guards wearing most elaborate uniforms. Donald Attwater reported finding cages of live birds on such tombs in a few cases.

Fr. Serge

This message is to Deacon Robert Behrens and John K. regarding St. John's in Mayfield and OCA/ROCOR status. St. John's in Mayfield actually left ROCOR in 1951 for OCA and in 1982 returned home to the ROCOR. This info can be found in orthodoxwiki.org/rocor_and_oca.

ROCOR & OCA Community Transfers
Year Community From To
1951 St. John the Baptist Cathedral (Mayfield, PA) ROCOR OCA
1964 Protection of the Holy Virgin (Ottawa, Canada) ROCOR OCA
1970 Protection of the Holy Virgin (Ottawa, Canada) OCA ROCOR
1971 St. Nicholas Church (Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia) ROCOR OCA
1972 Holy Ghost Church (Bridgeport, CT) OCA ROCOR
1976 Bp. Kyrill and the Bulgarian Diocese:

* St. Nicholas Church (Fort Wayne, IN)
* St. Nicholas Church (Burton, MI)
* St. Paul Cathedral (Dearborn Heights, MI)
* St. Elia the Prophet Church (Akron, OH)
* Ss. Cyril and Methodius Church (Lorain, OH)
* St. George Cathedral (Rossford, OH)
* Holy Ghost Church (Youngstown, OH)
* St. John Rilski Church (Niagara Falls, ON)
* St. George Church (Toronto, ON)

ROCOR OCA
1977 Holy Ghost Church (Bridgeport, CT) ROCOR OCA
1982 St. John the Baptist Cathedral (Mayfield, PA) OCA ROCOR
1982 St. Basil the Great (Simpson, PA) OCA ROCOR
1982 St. Stephen (Old Forge, PA) OCA ROCOR
1997 Monastery of the Glorious Ascension (Resaca, GA) OCA ROCOR

Dear Anya,

I had checked up on the parish history. Mayfield is right next to my town, Jermyn. There is a plaque on the wall in the vestibule of the church signed by Met. Vitaly of Blessed Memory. If memory serves me correctly, it states that the parish was originally "uniate", but returned to Orthodoxy. I remember reading in the parish history that they affiliated with ROCOR in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, but then when over to the "Russian Metropolia" (i.e. the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church-now OCA) in 1951. The left OCA in 1982, because, from what I am told, of the adoption of the new calendar for fixed feast days. I know of at least one family in that parish that originally belonged to my parish, Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church (Carpatho-Rusyn)in Jessup, and left us when the Julian calendar was abandoned. They went over to the local UGCC parish (Sts. Cyril & Methodius, Olyphant), but then left there when UGCC switched to the new calendar, ending up in Mayfield. No doubt if Mayfield stayed in OCA, they may have gone to the ROCOR parish in Simpson (St. Basil's), the Patriarchal Russian church in Scranton (Sts. Peter & Paul), or the Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Scranton (St. Michael's). There is a lot of possibilities in my area for those attached to the Julian Calendar!

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Dear Anya,

I actually grew up in Fords, Woodbridge Twp., N.J. Our house was in front of a cemetery of a Russian Orthodox church-St. Spiridon's of Perth Amboy, N.J. All during the time I lived there, St. Spiridon's was a ROCOR parish. I have been out of N.J. since 2000. My friends back home tell me that St. Spiridon's is now OCA-affiliated. I am wondering why it's not on the above list?

In Christ,
Dn. Robert