www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization pinch - pinch - pinch

gtJC!!!

Pinching with the baba's today at Annunciation in Anaheim.

yup - 67 dozen Perogi will be on sale this Sunday. All you local so. Cal come on over to Annunciation in Anaheim this Sunday the 25th and buy a dozen or so... (or three or four - hee hee).

toodles & God bless, sUSAn

p.s. - don't expect them to last!!! they go very fast!!! oh and yes we also have kubasi available. A big thank you to Annie from San Diego brought them up the other day.

ouch! ouch! ouch!
(sorry couldn't resist)

Susie,

Fr Joe in Fontana makes a pretty mean kolbasi IMO as untrained in the art of sausage making that I am.

BTW, please do keep us informed of the progress of the new temple in Anaheim. I spoke to Msgr. George and Mark Brown in Fontana last week who informed me the site is being prepared for construction. How exciting! Upon completion it should be the queen of temples in our small Eparchy of Van Nuys.

Susan, not to be critical, but kubasi is spelled
kolbasy and since your parish is in the Ruthenian Eparchy of Van Nuys, you would be pinching pyrohy.

U-C

Now of course I'm hungry and it's all Susan's fault.

Mmmm... pirohi... served with fresh salsa... and kielbasi... served with fresh sauerkraut....

Dear Administrator,

One would think that someone with your great love of ethnic, Slavic food would be AGAINSTn and not in favour of, a single Byzantine jurisdiction where there MIGHT be the danger of cultural assimilation to the dominant mainstream.

But the idea of a North American seven-course meal (a hamburger and a six-pack of beer) is enough to keep anyone put in their ethnic parishes, don't you think?

O.K., O.K. I'm going . . .

Alex

Alex,

Not at all. St. Gabriel�s Parish in Las Vegas makes both pirohi and tamales and sells them as fundraisers. Food sales also attract people (or at least their appetites) to the parish. Have you ever eaten freshly made pirohi with freshly made salsa? It�s delicious! [IMHO it�s actually better than eating them with butter and onions or mushroom gravy.]

As delicious as ethnic food is, it is unimportant. The Church does not exist to guard against the loss of ethnic food, or even to preserve ethnic identity. It exists to proclaim the Gospel to the world and to bring all men to Christ.

But we are getting off topic. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to discuss this issue again.

Admin

Dear Administrator,

Well, you started it with your mouth-watering observations.

I agree with your assessment and I'm happy to see that your sense of humour is as it ever was!

However, if you knew just how many new parishioners have joined St Volodymyr's in Thornhill because of the "pull of the perogies," then you wouldn't be so dismissive of the role of food in evangelization, I don't think.

As I don't really like perogies or tamales, I won't start a new thread, but thanks!

Alex

Oh I use to love our sales up home at St. Josephs in Toronto OH. Always enjoyed not having to do the work, and get all the pleasure of eating them.

Next month at St. Georges we will start baking for our food festival. We will make 4000 meat pies and 4000 spinich pies which are sold in two and a half days. We make hundreds of pounds of kibbee and stuff squash, and about everything we sell. It is such an undertaking. Do you know we sell out of everythig! This includes the kibbee and greek chicken dinners we serve, which are several thousand strong. We start on Thursday afternoon and finish Saturday evening. http://www.stgeorgeff.com/ this is from last year, not updated. Also, the bellydancers aren't allowed anymore, so ignore the picture, the young dancers in our parish were really disappointed. However, they still dance the other traditional dances. But it is enjoyed by all and it takes the whole church to complete the work.

And like Alex says the church tours bring converts too!

Pani Rose

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!

This topic came up at my recent ikon camp/retreat/wrokshop.

We were talking about the "pyrohy ladies", "kolachy ladies" or "rolling pin" brigade, whatever you want to call them. We mentioned that these people and their work are now becoming a much needed form of Ministry within many of the churches. Without them, many churches, not necessarily "our" own, simply would not survive and would be forced to close their doors.

Anyone else have any ideas or thoughts...

Only 67 dozen?

My cousin makes 60 dozen of just sauerkraut for her church when they sell pyrohy during the year. I think the parish stops taking orders at 400 dozen.

I also heard that there are 30,000 medovnyky ready for decorating at Mt. Macrina....

Ready troops, grab those icing bags and form up!

mark

Let us not forget that, in the Early Church, gatherings of Christians took place at people's homes and involved, quite literally, a meal.

Yours,

hal

Perhaps "ethnic" food is not necessary for evangelism, but the Lord seemed to think that breaking bread together had an important part to play - whether at an intimate supper with the disciples, or dining al fresco on a bit of bread and a few little fishies with a crowd of thousands.

And the road to many a church renovation has been paved with pierogies.

At St. John's in Columbus, we do pierogies (and I don't care what other people think I should be calling them ) a couple times for sale to parishioners and at a couple of the larger RC parishes during Lent, and we also do 'em again in the Fall for sale at the International Festival. There are quite a number of people in Columbus who know who we are now because of those pierogies. ("Oh, the big gold dome on Cleveland Avenue! ")

Aside from the fact that they are undeniably yummy, and that they bring in $$$, the act of working together to make pierogies (or tamales, or spinach pies, or whatever) builds community. You need community before you can have a cohesive liturgical life. You need good liturgy to strengthen the people for the work of evangelism.


Cheers, and pass the pierogies.

(Skip the kielbasa - I grew up Jewish.)


Sharon

Sharon wrote:
Aside from the fact that they are undeniably yummy, and that they bring in $$$, the act of working together to make pierogies (or tamales, or spinach pies, or whatever) builds community. You need community before you can have a cohesive liturgical life. You need good liturgy to strengthen the people for the work of evangelism.

Amen to that!

I know at St. Josephs they never had a bill due for anything they were building or renovating. The pirohi was made and dinners were served, and when they ordered something they needed for construction the money was there to pay the bill when it was delivered. Plus the people there are awesome tithers, and really supported the church very generously.

So as with St. George the are also very strong supporters financily of the church. And like with St. Josephs they give freely of their time to the Lord.

As I remember when we came to St. Georges not really understanding what was happening completely. We would hear well the Lebonese make this and the Palestenians made that. WEll under the prayer and guidence of Fr. Frank they all work together wonderfully well now doing everything.

And not only does the whole church work together, there are those from each of these churches the help out with each others food festival; Melkite, Maronite, and Greek Orthodox. So it truly does forms ties that bind. They just enjoy working together.

In the early years too, we have been there since 1986 and they were doing it long before that, they only had one person doing church tours. This past year they had four, so we had groups all over the church. So it truly is a tool of evngelization. And the money made is used for a lot of different things not just the churchs necessities.

Pani Rose

Dear Mother Sharon,

Yes, you are right about the food - is the Administrator in a sulk or something today?

Evangelization aside, as Hal said, business and politics are always conducted over the lunch or dinner table (w(h)ine included . . .).

When it came to food preparation and festivities in our parish, I too used to get on a soap-box and say things like, "But we are here to preach and teach and blah-blah-blah."

It's amazing how willing to listen people are after a good meal eaten in good fellowship.

Not only have our Ukies come out for these events, but also other people, including Orthodox immigrants and, yes, even members of the English/Celtic Canadian mainstream.

My father-in-law goes around with microphone in hand, like a Slavic Phil Donahue, and talks to people to ask them to join the parish.

Whenever someone, in mid-gulp, agrees to join, he immediately announces it and says, "And we have another member over here, folks, let's give him/her a warm hand of welcome into our parish family, shall we?" And everyone claps and some get a standing ovation - like our newest member, a Filipino woman and mother of two!!

We are a multicultural parish, even though no one is ready to call it "Byzantine (non-ethnic) Catholic" or whatever.

The fact that it is Ukie hasn't offended anyone and won't. But the new, non-ethnic members do call the Divine Liturgy the "Ukrainian Liturgy."

In fact, up here people don't want the cosmopolitan sameness and dullness that a non-ethnic parish would bring.

Learning another language is no big deal and in St Catharines, about half of the parish are former Tridentine Catholics who have learned the Liturgy in Ukrainian. (They say it is simpler than Latin, but I don't know about that . . .).

So our parish "praxis" up here seems quite different from the experiences of some of youz guyz down there.

The Administrator does go on about losing members and closing down parishes (but we love him anyway!).

But I think it would perhaps be too simplic sociologically to draw that connection between parish closings and ethnic language, at least here in Toronto (Canada).

In other words, why do we assume that if we had all English liturgies that the parish wouldn't close anyway?

And, from what I can tell, those MOST in favour of Ukie Liturgies are those who speak Ukrainian the least - their ancestors came here 100 years ago and they are very attached to the symbol of the language for various reasons - all of which Hritzko has doubtless memorized .

And, Mother Sharon, (are you still reading this? ), ethnic foods aren't the only reason why our parish is attractive to others.

It is a totally different cultural experience of the Gospel.

If we were going to say, like the evangelistic Administrator, that we are "going to preach the Gospel," there are lots of churches that do that up here as well.

What we are preaching is not just the Gospel, but an entirely distinct spiritual cultural experience OF the Gospel.

Are we saying the Latin Church does not preach the Gospel or that it does not have the fullness of truth?

I hope not, or else we'll be hearing from Iconophile and Amado!

We are not, let me reiterate, ONLY preaching the Gospel but a unique way of looking at it which is what makes the Byzantine Churches so unique.

And part of the heritage of those Churches is the wider cultural context in which Byzantine Christianity itself became inculturated and developed and which goes well beyond ethnic foods and traditions.

Our new, non-ethnic members come to our Church because they really do want to experience that uniqueness, both in spiritual and in cultural terms.

Ethnic food is just one of those happy perks that comes with it all!

A good day to you!

Alex

I like pirogi AND tamales, but I can't say I've had them in the same meal! LOL!

Living in a town that is 98% Mexican-American (literally) I have access to the BEST tamales, and other Mexican foods, at the one and only grocery store in town. Where most grocery stores have a 'deli' with sandwiches and fried chicken, we have almost a buffet line (except they dish it up for you). They have all-you-can-eat lunches on weekdays for $5, and on the weekends they sell tamales for $10 a dozen. Sometimes I pick up a pound of carnitas, some fresh salsa, and a package of freshly made tortillas for dinner. Holidays they are outside with a big barbecue making grilled chicken - $5.99 gets you a whole chicken, split down the middle and grilled over open flame. OK, I'm making MYSELF hungry!!!!

Tammy

Of course!

My point is that our parishes should not use ethnicity a requirement for membership.

The �unique way of looking at it� is not something that is incompatible with the blended North American culture. If it is then it violates the spirit of proclaiming the Gospel and must be altered or abandoned.

One need not become a Greek, an Arab or a Slav in order to become a Byzantine Christian. One need not even find these ethnicities attractive! Just as each of these groups accepted the Gospel in its Byzantine form and let it (re)form their culture so, too, are we to give the Gospel in its Byzantine form to North America and let it (re)form the North American culture.

Where would the Slavs be if the Greeks who gave them Jesus Christ insisted that they abandon their Slavic ethnicity for a Greek one? Imagine the impact on Slavic Christianity and culture if SS Cyril & Methodius had insisted that the Slavs learn Greek in order to worship God? Or use Greek liturgical chant instead of developing their own chant?

We must do for North America what SS Cyril & Methodius did for the Slav.

Look to the day when there are 75 million Byzantine Catholics in the United States (who are lead by the Patriarch of Washington).

Look to the day when there are 10 million Byzantine Catholics in Canada (who are led by the Patriarch of Toronto).