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CHRISTOS VOSKRES!

Hi gang!

The grapevine has it that St.Mary's BC school in Wilkes-Barre will be closing at the end of this school year.

One of my dear friend's and painting buddy's teaches there.

Can anyone confirm or deny this rumour????

thanks!

Christos Anesti!

Yes, according to the pastor, Fr. James Hayer, this is the last year school year. Sadly, it marks the end of the Byzantine Catholic School system in the Eparchy of Passaic.

Oh this hurts my heart! What is going to happen to us? We are dying!

I am also sorry to hear this. Why has this happened? Is attendance down? Are there financial problems?

Just curious.

Brother Ed

I am also interested in knowing why the school will be shutting down...

No Johan, we are not dying just yet...
there is an old saying that 'when God closes a door, He opens a window." Who knows what the future might hold in regards to Byzantine Catholic Education????

At St. John Chrysostom in Seattle nearly all our children and teens are home schooled. Lay people within the church are doing several creative things, including St. Basil's Academy, a weekly evening Great Books discussion group for teens, as well as a weekly Shakespeare discussion and rehearsal-performance group. People need to think outside the box. I have seen home-schooling work fantastically.

Nevertheless, The posting here sounds like terrible news to me. We have the greatest liturgical-spiritual patrimony (one to which our teens have responded enthusiastically, in my experience), and we appear to be committing ecclesiastical suicide.

I'm a member of St. Mary's Parish and a parent with children attending the school. The reason for the closing of our school is the same reason many schools have closed in our area - declining enrollment creating a financial burden that our parish simply can no longer bear.

Over the past several years, a monumental effort was put forth by the parents, teachers, administration, clergy, and parish faithful to try to attract new students and reverse this downward trend. We built a beautiful new gymnasium (accomplished completely with donated funds and volunteer labor provided by the parents and the parishioners). We launched an agressive advertising campaign that included newspaper, billboard, and even television advertising. With all this and more, our enrollment still dropped from a high of 220 students to just 107 students for the 2002-2003 school year. Even after a last ditch effort was mounted to see if we could keep the doors open one more year, only about 80 students were willing to commit for the 2003-2004 school year.

No matter how much we wanted it to stay open, a parish with only 300 members, although very devoted and generous, could no longer support the financial burden being placed upon it by the school.

Christ is Risen!

Although I also see this news as a great disappointment I do hope that most people will recognise it for what it really is. It's not so bad, just different. Maybe we can see this as a reason to switch gears and move forward.

The community is changing, I believe that most of the Eparchies have seen declines in membership and many of the most faithful parishioners no longer live near the parishes and must commute a bit on the weekends. I don't really know the situation at this parish so forgive me but if it is "typical" it is difficult to nearly suicidal for a parish to maintain a school. Schools often run up deficits that must be made up by the parish from the weekly contributions and we aren't known to be universally generous at the collection basket.

Schools are not the center of the parish, the Sanctuary is and as long as we have the temple filled once on a Sunday we are doing pretty good.

The Roman Catholic parishes, as huge as they often are have the same problems and the schools are one h**l of a drain on them.

The money might be useful refurbishing the temple and funding a promotional campaign to expose the neighborhood to the magnificence of the liturgy and the beauty and depth of Byzantine spirituality. We can teach our children the fundamentals of the faith at home and in other settings.

So I think Ladyhawke is right here. In my opinion if we could work as hard at bringing new believers into the parish as we work to keep a school open the church could have a bright future, for us and our grandchildren.

Everything is a compromise, our lives are full of them. My life is nothing like I imagined it years ago. If I had to choose between a parish without a school and no parish at all I know exactly what I would do.

Michael

Coalesco, you make some valid points. We must never forget the central purpose of our churches is to provide for the liturgical and sacramental needs of the faithful. Providing for the secular education of our children can't be placed as a functional priority of the church at the expense of that central mission.

What many of our own parishioners didn't realize was that although our parish was responsible for 100 % of any financial defecits incurred , 85% of our students, and 100% of our lay teachers are NOT members of our parish, and are in fact menmbers of Roman Catholic parishes.

At the parish level, our educational goals need to be geared toward a very simple purpose - giving our children an identity as Eastern Christians.

Former Reformer, thanks for your clear and rational thoughts. Too often in the past some thought the sky was falling whenever a parish school was closing.

Former Reformer,

If your church did all that you say it did then the church did all it could.

I want to personally thank you for your hard work in keeping the school open.

Everything I would have recommended it sounds like you tried.

With much sadness and hope for the future...
Johan

Why not cut the parish apron-string and establish an independent academy? There are Catholic highschools and colleges not dedicated to any parish. Why not an independent school, based on Byzantine Christian principles and traditions, having an outreach mission to homeschooling? Homeschooling is 'competition' to the parochial educations system.

Joe