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CHAPTER IV
THE STORM CLOUDS BURST
1930–1940
The decade of the thirties is the most decisive
in terms of Holy Trinity’s ability to stay alive. The controversies that arise during this period prove to be
the most violent. Although they involve such broad-ranging issues as the ju-risdictional authority of the newly formed
autonomous American diocese under Metropolitan Platon and his succes-sor Theophilus, the conflicts at Holy Trinity ultimately
take on every appearance of a confrontation of personali-ties grimly bent on a war of attrition. The outcome of this
struggle is finally determined, not by the Church’s own jurisdictional bodies, but by American civil courts. This
chapter in the history of the Yonkers parish will pro-duce not only judicial precedents affecting the entire church body that
came to be known as the “Metropolia” dur-ing this period, but also what is surely one of the most distasteful
scenes of a parish ever to hit the front pages of any American newspaper.
•
Calm before 1936: Vitality and Public Image
Documents surviving from the period between 1925
and 1936 give no evidence of disturbances at Holy Trinity. The existence of a second parish in Yonkers may have had
some-thing to do with this, offering an option to those who were unhappy with Fr. Kushwara; but how long “Christ’s
Holy Res-urrection Church” remained available is presently unknown. The establishment of corporate by-laws might
also have kept things in check, but that is only a guess.
Things in general looked fairly good for
the parish in the early thirties. Living memory holds it to be a time when people worked together to keep their church
going. The oldest living member of Holy Trinity, who would have been in his twenties at the time, recalls that during
the 1930s, the “Depression era”, there were people determined to keep the church going. At that time no
membership dues were levied, according to him; so a group of men volun-teered to go from door to door collecting donations,
and their efforts kept the parish solvent.
Press articles confirm the parish’s vitality
during this period. A newspaper clipping in English describes the dedication of an extension, which is known to have
been completed in 1932, giving the Holy Trinity church building its present form and dimensions. It consists of
a photo-graph with the following caption:
CHURCH ADDITION DEDICATED
Bishop Adam of New York dedicating the $30,000
addi-tion to the Russian Orthodox Church at exercises yes-terday before he celebrated holy mass at 10 A.M. The prelate
is assisted by the Rev. John Rusin of Phila-delphia.
The press report continues with this headline:
Addition
To Russian Orthodox Church Dedicated By Bishop
Prelate Blesses Edifice at Impressive Rites Preceding Mass at Holy Trinity--Parishioners
Urged To Oppose Persecution.
What follows contains as good an account as we can obtain of how things looked at Holy Trinity
in 1932:
The dedication and blessing of the church preceded the celebration of holy mass ...
The Rev. Father John, a monk of Brooklyn, was dea-con of the mass and the Rev. John Kushwara, Holy Trinity
pastor, master of ceremonies…
Relic Placed in Altar
In accordance with an old custom of
the Russian Or-thodox Church, bishop Adam placed the relic of St. Joe [sic], a Russian saint, in the altar.
In his sermon, Bishop Adam told of persecution for religious beliefs through the ages, pointing out that “even today,
in this enlightened age, persecution is not unknown.” Despite this, however, the church of God will always be
victorious, he said.
He advised the parishioners to remain staunch in the faith, congratulating them
on “their sacrifice in going ahead with the new addition in these days of depression.”
Father Kushwara added his congratulations and praised the loyalty of such a wonderful group of men and women.”
Entertainment
Given
Virtually the entire congregation and delegations from Connecticut and New Jersey attended the
exer-cises. The visiting clergymen were luncheon guests of Father Kushwara in the parish house. Luncheon for the visitors
and other guests was held in the school hall.
A concert by the choir and an entertainment by the Dramatic
Club was held in Sokol Hall on Yonkers Ave-nue. A balalaika orchestra played under the direc-tion of Luke Bakuta.
Father Kushwara directed the dramatic group. Theodore Prych [sic] was general chairman.
It was
revealed during the exercises that yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of Father Kushwara, who was ordained in New York
City. He studied at Lemberg University.
With the completion of the addition, the church is now
in the form of a cross. It is of red brick and has a capacity of 700 worshipers.
The capacity should
probably be understood as standing room at this point; according to living memory, pews were not installed during Fr. Kushwara’s
time.
Bishop Adam’s and Fr. Kushwara’s praises of the la-ity’s sacrificial
efforts appear to be well placed. This labor was rewarded with continued solidity, and indeed growth, as the nation
moved from depression into the Roose-velt era. Such, at least, is clearly indicated by press coverage received in 1935,
as the parish commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of its church building.
In fall of that year, a Yonkers newspaper
reported that this solemnity, featuring “impressive ceremonies” pre-sided over by Metropolitan Theophilus, had
attracted not only “ecclesiastical dignitaries” but city officials as well. Among those present at an afternoon
concert in “Slo-vak Hall” were the Mayor of Yonkers, along with other prominent community leaders.
The text of the article provides a picture of the occasion:
His Eminence Metropolitan Theophilius
[sic], head of the Orthodox Church in America, conducted the pon-tifical liturgy, assisted by the pastor, the Rev. John Kushwara.
The cornerstone of the church was laid Sept. 22, 1905, and the building completed in 1907. ...Today
there are 350 families consisting of more than 1,000 parishioners. The Rev. Kushwara has been with the church over 19
years.
The ceremonies yesterday included a processional march from the parish house to the church at 10 A.M., followed
by the liturgy. Assistants at the services included the Rev. Michael Illinsky, dean of the New York Cathedral, Archdeacon
Semoff and other visiting priests.
Once more the Holy Trinity Choir received favorable pub-lic attention:
During
the services the church choir, under the di-rection of Luke Bakoota, gave selections by Russian composers. Later His
Eminence Blessed the new St. Nicholas Ikon [sic] presented to church by the H.T.O Young Men's Club.
A concert and
reception for the guest priests were held at Slovak Hall in the afternoon. Among those attending were Mayor Joseph F.
Loehr, Public Works Commissioner Edward J. Murray, City Comptroller James E. Hushion...
Also present
were nine parishioners who founded the church, including Simon [sic] Turchick, Frank Rus-inko, Theodore Symanski, Michael
Ostrowski, Simon Ko-sar, Wassil Prokopchak, Dimitri Dran, Theodore Perish and Myron Harshany.
Simeon Turchick
and the other founders had reason to pride themselves in the good image Holy Trinity was forming in the community at large,
if the above is any indication of it. But how this was to change in the next five years, as relations between priest
and laity declined to their lowest point ever!
• Kushwara under Theophilus: the Early Phase
Hierarchical misgivings about Fr. Kushwara seemed to be a thing of the past during the early years
of Archbishop Theophilus’ tenure as Metropolitan. In summer of 1935 Kushwara was elected Dean of the New
York District – a po-sition which he, however, conceded to his predecessor at Holy Trinity, Fr. Ilya Klopotovskii, runner-up
for the Deanship.
The Rev. Kushwara thanks the meeting for his elec-tion, but refuses to be Dean of the N.Y. District
in favor of Rev. Klopotovskii, and consents to be the latter's alternate (assistant). The meeting unani-mously agrees
to this change.
In fall of that year Metropolitan Theophilus appointed Kushwara, now Archpriest, to his highest
advisory body, the Diocesan Council of the North American Church. His memo-randum states:
Due to the fact that
the Archpriest Peter Popoff is transferred ... and is resigned from the duties in the Diocesan Council, there occurs a vacancy
therein. To this vacancy I appoint Archpriest John Kushwara, Rector of the Yonkers Church.
In 1936 Kushwara was
elected Dean of the New York 7th Dis-trict, and this time he apparently did not demur. In Sep-tember of that year
we see him actively involved in this role, submitting Deanery Meeting Minutes to his Metropoli-tan. In 1937 Kushwara
was involved in the planning and preparations for the 6th All-American Council, to be held that summer.
During this same period Kushwara was involved in the plan-ning sessions for the establishment of a Carpatho-Russian Diocese.
In 1935 he prepared a report to Metropolitan Theophilus on the Carpatho-Russian Diocesan Convention, held on February 7, 1935,
in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with Bishop Adam presiding. The assembly’s unanimous opin-ion that “the cause
of lowered discipline and prestige of Orthodoxy here in America is the division of the faithful of our church into several
factions warring among them-selves.” The solution, as they saw it at the time, was “the uniting of the Carpatho-Russian
Diocese with the Met-ropolitan Archdiocese, headed by Metropolitan Theofilus [sic],” which, they were confident, would
hasten the end of discord.
The decision of this Carpatho-Russian Diocesan conven-tion, therefore,
was essentially to ratify the conditions already worked out between them and the Metropolia in 1934, viz.: “that our
Bishop Adam should be the first assistant to the Ruling Metropolitan with the title of archbishop from the moment these conditions
are accepted.”
This friendly state of affairs would take a very dif-ferent turn in a matter
of months, with consequences that would wreak havoc on Kushwara’s relationship with Metro-politan Theophilus and on
his pastorate at Holy Trinity. For the moment Archpriests John Kushwara, Vladimir Shiman-sky, and the other signers
of the report ended it simply with every assurance to Metropolitan Theophilus “of being Your Eminence’s humble
servants.”
• “Why not to remember Father John's service?”
The first signs of the renewed storm were similar to those of April 1922. It was now summer of 1936, and Fr.
Kushwara and the parish officers reported the following to Metropolitan Theophilus: “With great regret we have learned
that a few days ago a group from Yonkers visited Your Emi-nence to complain about relations within our parish.”
Protesting that they conducted parish business with all due propriety, they admitted that some of its members were resistant
to their management style, preferring not to respect the parish by-laws and discipline. “These,” they asserted,
“are the ones who have compromised our good name for some years; their behavior brings shame on the Russian people.”
Though they name no one, Kushwara and the parish officers accused their antagonists of “damaging the Ortho-dox mission
here.”
The question of parish membership dues – a theme that will recur continuously throughout this conflict
– now arises. Fr. Kushwara indicts his opponents with refusing to pay their assessment (kollekt) and other taxes,
whereas they claim that Kushwara and the officers refuse to accept the dues from them. This establishes a pattern of
confron-tation that will arise again and again over the next four years, as one side uses the non-payment of dues to exclude
the other from parish meetings and participation in the vote.
To this report, Metropolitan Theophilus added a few words
by hand which throw little light on the matter: “This paper has general interest, as well. Theophilus.”
Notes added to subsequent Yonkers documents, however, reveal how his feelings toward Fr. Kushwara would evolve.
Who
were these people that had risen to challenge Fr. Kushwara’s leadership, and what were their reasons? Though Kushwara
brushed them off as merely needing to “cast pride out of their hearts, together with slander and anger” and to
return “with repentance,” the protests that began to pile up against him would soon reveal a problem incapable
of being solved by platitude.
As to who they were, two undated lists of names are preserved in the
parish files. One of them lists thirty-four “members not admitted to the annual meeting in Decem-ber 1936, not
registered and therefore in default of their annual assessment. The other one lists “members of the Yonkers
parish who complained against Kushwara.” This is comprised of 118 names, including Simeon Turchick, his younger
brother Gregorii, and Andrew Waipa.
It is remarkable that Turchick was now among Fr. Kushwara’s opponents,
as he had practically led the drive to bring Kushwara to the parish in 1917. What had gone so terribly awry? The
events of the coming year would produce documents that disclose this in ever more vivid detail.
A
group purporting to represent "the parishioners, founders, the choir and the unaccepted parishioners" of Holy Trinity
wrote to Metropolitan Theophilus that they felt compelled by “the misunderstandings which are going on for many years
between the Rector of the Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers, New York, Archpriest John Kushwara” to request Kushwara’s
dismissal and the assignment of another pastor. “There is no other way out for peace, quiet and calm in our parish,”
they concluded.
The transcriber of this document added: “The original is signed by eighty-eight
families representing two hundred and ninety-four people."
In the note he wrote on this petition,
Metropolitan Theophilus reveals an unwillingness to acknowledge the pe-titioners’ grievances. "The people
who signed this peti-tion,” he wrote, “are displeased with Father John Kushwara, but the parish as a whole is
satisfied and the church com-mittee has testified to that effect to me.” Theophilus’ personal confidence
in Kushwara was still holding steady at this point. “And also besides this,” he continued, “Father
John is for about twenty years honorably working in Yonkers; he therefore deserves approval and not dissatis-faction.”
To reaffirm his assurance that Kushwara’s chal-lengers did not represent the mainstream of the parish, Theophilus added
rather ambiguously: “It must be remem-bered that even practically majority rules.”
A second petition, submitted later that summer, pur-ports to represent the same group, though only the first page and, thus,
no names are preserved. Its thrust is ba-sically identical to that of the July petition, but again the Metropolitan’s
note is revelatory. This time Theophi-lus writes in English by hand: "Why not to remember Father John's service
and to get his advice in the [clarification] of personal misunderstandings; he is your pastor, not to be commanded."
Theophilus’ admonition to “remember Fr. John’s serv-ice” and the reminder
that “he is your pastor” resounded in one last massive rally of support behind Fr. Kushwara. In early 1917
Theophilus, who was apparently in San Francisco at the time, received two statements in English and Rus-sian, each with the
parish seal and three pages of signa-tures. They both bore the same message and date:
We, the undersigned, members of
the Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers, N.Y., consider the work of a group of members against our Rector as in-correct
and uncristianlike [sic]. For twenty years Very Rev. John Kushwara has worked honestly for the good of our parish and
we desire that he continue to work for the benefit of our Church and people.
Like the Metropolitan’s exhortations
on behalf of their Rector, however, this display of faith in him would have little effect on the course of events over the
coming months, as parishioners once again turned from the hierar-chy to the civil courts for redress of their grievances.
• “The Ridicule and Scorn of Our Neighbors”
It was as though there had
been no respite at all for Holy Trinity since the mid-twenties. Had the second parish dissolved and the dissidents returned
to Holy Trinity? Had Fr. Kushwara’s attitude toward his parishioners deterio-rated to such a degree as to produce
new a new uprising? Again, there is presently no evidence as to when “Christ’s Resurrection Church”
finally closed down; so the first question is difficult to answer. The answer to the second question, however, will
become plainer as the decade draws closer to an end.
What may have turned the tide finally against Kushwara –
at least from the hierarchy’s viewpoint - was a letter in English to Metropolitan Theophilus from an organization that
styled itself a “non-religious organization” yet rep-resented an exclusively Russian Orthodox group: the “Asso-ciation
of Russian-American Citizens, Inc.” with headquar-ters in Yonkers.
“Nearly all of us live in and around the
Russian Or-thodox Church located at the corner of Seymour Street and Ashburton Avenue. … we are all American citizens,”
they stressed, “and proud of our religion, but we feel that Your Eminence must lend your helping heart and hand to solve
a problem which needs immediate solution.”
They gave two basic reasons for such urgency:
both re-lated to Fr. Kushwara. One was their children’s future as members of the church:
We feel that his
unwise conduct, his failure to ap-preciate the dignity and responsibilities of his im-portant post will inevitably reach the
point where our younger generation will positively drift away from us. The majority of the parish cannot get their children
to take an interest in the church. This last points deserves your careful consideration.
The second concern was
for their good standing in their American community. “We as American-Russian Orthodox peo-ples [sic], are being
held up to the ridicule and scorn of our neighbors,” they lamented. Scenes from 1916-1917 seem to rematerialize
now, even to the extent of bringing the local police once more to Holy Trinity:
Disgraceful disorder and disrespectful
conduct attend upon all meetings of the parish and its officers. Will not your Holiness agree with us that it
is the worst possible shame when the local Police Department must be called in to call a halt to such rowdyism and disorderly
conduct, and to put a stop to any further bloodshed? And that is the sad state of affairs to which we have come - such
disorderly conduct at par-ish meetings that assaults have been committed by members against other members, vile and filthy
lan-guage has been used, and actual physical injury has been committed upon innocent parishioners - and most degrading is
the fact that the innocent children, misguided, have had some part in these scenes.
And it was to “the innocent
children” that they drew the Metropolitan’s attention again, as they concluded their ap-peal:
We feel that
the future of our local Church looks very, very bad. We appeal to you, in our capacity as a non-religious organization, intensely
interested in the future of our Church and our CHILDREN, to inter-vene in this terrible situation and bring order and peace
to us and to the innocent little ones. It is dreadful to anticipate the bitter heritage which they seem to be inheriting.
Will you not please ... take such immediate action as will keep our Church from breaking up and preserve for our children
those rights which only you can protect?
The letter, apparently received in the Metropolitan’s ab-sence,
was forwarded to his auxiliary Bishop Makary, with this note:
The enclosed letter is addressed to the Metropolitan Theophilus
but we wish to have you read its contents and take the matter up at your Wednesday night meet-ing. Please forward this
letter to the Metropolitan upon his arrival here in the East.
Before Metropolitan Theophilus could return to New York,
however, events in Yonkers quickened their pace, requiring Bishop Makary’s personal involvement with none too felici-tous
an outcome.
Faced with mounting opposition led by newly elected Committee President Andrew Waipa,
Fr. Kushwara made the next move, which was to call a general parish meeting. This was instantly countered with a court
injunction, re-straining him from holding the meeting. On April 16, 1937, Waipa, as “President of the Russian
Orthodox Greek Catholic Holy Trinity Church of Yonkers, New York, Inc.,” obtained the following decision from Raymond
E. Aldrich, Justice of the Supreme Court of Westchester County:
ORDERED that the said defendant JOHN KUSHWARA,
his agents, attorneys, servants and assistants, and each and every of them be, and they hereby are, jointly and severally,
restrained from holding or conducting or pretending to conduct the alleged meeting for which alleged notices have been issued,
for Sunday, April 18, 1937, except to adjourn said meeting until further order of the Court, of the Russian Orthodox Greek
Catholic Holy Trinity Church of Yonkers, N.Y., Inc.
A copy was forwarded to Metropolitan Theophilus, who added an ominous
note at top: "V-15-37. For the sake of peace in Yonkers, it is necessary to ask Fr. Kushwara to yield his post
as Rector to somebody. Official investi-gation. M. Theophilus."
Theophilus had at last seen “the
writing on the wall,” and a formal investigation would indeed begin. While the Metropolitan now seemed inclined
to move Kush- wara, Bishop Makary, to whom the matter was delegated during Theophilus’ absence, ostensibly did not set
out with the same presupposition. Soon, however, the final battle lines would be drawn, with Andrew Waipa, who had been
elected parish President by the general meeting of December, 1936, eventually siding with the Metropolitan against Fr. Kushwara.
• Jurisdiction Civil and Ecclesiastical
Fr. Kushwara himself contributed to this
in no small measure, again in the civil courts. His next move was evi-dently to appeal the April 16th restraining order,
and this precipitated another court hearing on May 12, 1937. Andrew Waipa had obtained the legal services of Murin &
Murin in Yonkers, who sought to have Kushwara’s motion dismissed. The result was that the Supreme Court Justice
M.B. Patter-son upheld Justice Aldrich’s April 16th order:
ORDERED that the action be and the same is hereby discontinued,
on condition that neither the plaintiff nor the defendant herein, nor their agents, servants or assistants, hold or conduct,
or pretend to conduct any regular or special meeting of the Parish of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Holy Trinity Church
of Yonkers, New York, Inc., until such time as the METROPOLITAN THEOPHILUS, of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church
of North America, or his suc-cessor, and/or the Sobor of said religious denomina-tion adjudicate upon the matters in controversy
as alleged in the Complaint herein; all without cost to either side herein.
Nevertheless,
this failed to bring the court battle to an end; in fact, it was just commencing. At some point in the whole process,
Murin & Murin submitted a 21-page brief revealing the state to which relations between Kushwara and the upper hierarchy
of his Church had come. According to them, Kushwara had contradicted himself be-fore the court. First he had declared
himself to be act-ing in obedience to the present episcopal authorities of his Church:
That at all times mentioned herein
the plaintiff was and still is a duly ordained priest of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, …that
in such calling and capacity he was and is gov-erned by and owes obeisance to the normal statutes for the parishes of [the
same] Church, the Metropoli-tan Theophilus ... Bishop Makary, his local bishop of said church, the canons and canon laws of
the Russian [etc.] Church of Yonkers…
Now, however, Kushwara was apparently arguing that he was not legally
bound to a church authority that was not con-stituted as such under state law. This argument, Waipa’s attorneys
contended, was patently flawed:
The fundamental error in defendants’ [i.e., Kushwara’s, for himself and the
parish] argument is that the ecclesiastical authority to which he is sub-ject must be incorporated or, if unincorporated,
such an association as is recognized as a legal person by the Civil Law of the State of New York.
Should Kushwara’s
position be upheld, Murin & Murin con-tinued, such would “ …render entirely invalid and unen-forceable the
laws of every church, Roman Catholic, Pro-testant Episcopal… and all others which are not congrega-tional in their
organization, as well as of the Russian Orthodox Church itself.” Their reasoning was this:
The point is that
when individuals organize them-selves into a church not based on the congregational model and establish a system of church
government[,] the rules, regulations, canons and so forth of that church government are binding upon all of the members of
that church whether or not the ecclesiastical authority be an individual such or a bishop or arch-bishop, an unincorporated
governing body or an incor-porated governing body.
To support this point Waipa’s lawyers provided numerous
court precedents; and, as things turned out, they made a successful case.
The misgivings first expressed
by Metropolitan Platon in 1923 concerning Fr. Kushwara’s allegiance to church authority, as well as the suspicions that
surfaced the fol-lowing year in this regard, were now being borne out. In fact, the court brief just cited furnishes
ample background on this aspect of the conflict, as the plaintiff’s attor-neys proceed to characterize Kushwara’s
attitude as “steeped in the worst possible bad faith.”
When Justice Patterson handed
down the May 12th order, he exhorted the parties to the suit to keep their disagree-ments within their own church community.
This is what en-sued:
Thereafter the ecclesiastical authorities therein named did take such matters and others incidental
thereto under advisement over an extended period of time. Numerous conferences, consultations, meetings, correspondence
took place, the defendant Kushwara taking a most aggressive and active part therein. And finally the decision was handed
down – that the defendant Kushwara was to remove from the Yonkers Parish.
According to the brief, Kushwara
and his supporters at first followed Justice Patterson’s recommendations and sought internal remedy. When the
church authorities re-fused to reverse the decision to remove him, however, he changed his tactics: “Only when all such
attempts proved fruitless did the defendant Kushwara and his followers de-cide that after all these selfsame authorities were
not in fact authorities but ‘usurpers’."
This was to be the stance that Kushwara
would hence-forth attempt to maintain before the civil courts: that Metropolitan Theophilus and his Synod did not, in ecclesi-astical
terms, possess legitimate jurisdiction over his parish in Yonkers. The next three years would prove the extent to which
the courts would vindicate this position. First, however, it is important to return to developments at the parish itself.
• Long Hot Summer of ‘37
It soon became clear why Bishop Makary’s
intervention in Yonkers was an unfortunate development. On June 3, 1937, he presided over a meeting at Diocesan headquarters
in New York at which the main contenders were present, in-cluding Fr. Kushwara, Parish President Andrew Waipa, Secre-tary
Pankraty Wichniansky, and six other Yonkers officers and trustees. Diocesan Council Secretary Father Vladimir Lilikovich,
whose name would loom ever larger in the Yonkers case over the coming three years, was present. An English extract of
his record of the meeting provides an account of what happened on that day.
First, the parish by-laws
were read. Then, after hearing the grievances brought by Fr. Kushwara’s adversar-ies, Bishop Makary made his assessment
of the situation.
"Under these circumstances,” he said, “I must defend the priest. Give me serious
grounds [and] I shall report them to His Eminence the Metropolitan.”
Though he did not
judge the matter to be of enough substance to warrant their referral to the Metropolitan, Makary was willing to give them
a public hearing. “I find it necessary,” he continued, “to convoke a special parish meeting, which
will have to decide this matter. In order that there be no argument as to who will have the right to vote at that meeting,
according to the parish by-laws, let the Court indicate.”
Metropolitan Theophilus, as it turns
out, did review the minutes on June 29, 1937, and noted his decision, also preserved in the English extract. “Archpriest
John Kositzky, Member of the Council,” he wrote, “is entrusted to fulfill what was proposed in the injunction
issued by the Civil Judge against Rev. John Kushwara, following all rules about parish meetings."
By June 29th Theophilus had also had time to read a complaint against Bishop Makary from the Yonkers parish. This document,
addressed to him in San Francisco, leaves little doubt as to why he did well to hand the matter over to Fr. Kositzky.
Writing in English only five days after the New York meeting, on paper bearing the gold foil seal of the parish, Waipa, Wirchnansky
and the other chief offi-cers of Holy Trinity Church voiced in no uncertain terms their objection to the choice of Makary
as arbitrator for Yonkers. Here is their version of the June 3rd meeting:
Bishop Makary advised us by letter
to bring our Com-mittee to the Diocesan Office on Houston Street, New York City, at 7:00 P.M Thursday, June 3rd, 1937.
Fifteen of us appeared there, accompanied by our at-torney. The attorney was there for the purpose of presenting our
case in an orderly and proper manner. Bishop Makary refused to permit the attorney to speak, and jumped up and shouted that
he, the Bishop, would leave the room. The Bishop dashed out of the room, overturning a chair, and refused to come back
until the attorney, in order to bring peace and or-der, voluntarily left the room. This refusal of the Bishop to permit
our case to be properly presented we claim was unfair and dictatorial...
The letter also contains the first documented
allegation of drunkenness against Fr. Kushwara:
Bishop Makary then asked us why we wanted the Priest removed. We
submitted 15 affidavits, showing drunk-enness while officiating at Mass, and numerous other grave and serious allegations.
After the reading of each affidavit the Bishop would remark, "That is nothing, that is nothing."
Deprived of
their lawyer’s assistance, the parish represen-tatives did their best to impress upon Makary the urgency of having Kushwara
removed “before the damage to the Parish became so great that it could not be repaired.” The Bishop’s
ear remained closed to this, however. “All the Bishop could say was ‘That is nothing’,” the
letter contin-ues. “Furthermore, he said ‘My duty is to defend the Priest’.”
Makary’s conduct led them to an unavoidable conclu-sion: “The Bishop, of course, clearly shows his prejudice by
so speaking. It is his duty to hear the facts, whereas the Diocesan Council has the duty and authority to de-cide.”
As revealed in the minutes, Makary insisted on refer-ring the matter of who was entitled to vote
at the parish meeting to the civil courts. When the parish officers pointed out to him that the courts had, in fact,
stated that such questions fell under Church jurisdiction exclu-sively, “the Bishop told us to go back to the Supreme
Court for the proper interpretation of these points.”
All this led to one evaluation only: “It
is clear… that the Bishop does not understand the law, and that in-stead of sitting as a referee, he acts as the defender
of Father Kushwara.”
With their letter the parish representatives submitted “printed
petitions” bearing the signatures of 118 paid-up members, as well as a list of 61 names of qualified members whom Fr.
Kushwara had excluded from the meeting he was planning to hold in April before the court stopped him.
“We are in the majority and our number is steadily growing,” they concluded. “We will not give up
this fight until you send us a new Priest… Hearings before Bishop Makary… do not help the situation. His
conduct did more harm than good.” Then, with a plea to send them “a real man and a true Father to our flock,”
they ended the letter to Metropolitan Theophilus.
Further harm was to come, though, before this round
of correspondence ended. It seems that the officers of Holy Trinity considered their June 8th letter and its enclosures
to be confidential. If this was so, their trust had been betrayed. “We have since learned,” they wrote
in English, again affixing the gold parish seal, “that these confiden-tial letters to Your Eminence and to Father Lilikovich
[to whom they had mailed duplicates] have been turned over to Father John Kushwara, our Pastor.”
“Our people love and respect you because we know you are a true Servant of God and an honorable gentleman,” they
continued, anxious to attenuate any hint of distrust. “We do not think that you will permit your confidential mail to
be turned over to and read by Father Kushwara, whom we again beg you to transfer from Yonkers.”
If Theophilus felt in the slightest offended by this, he did not reflect it in the note that he appended to this last letter,
which reads: “With regard to the Parish Coun-cil in Yonkers, by all means clarify this because not many letters were
received from the priest mentioned. M. Theo-philus.”
Of the long hot summer of 1937 we
have two first-hand reports that furnish not only detailed information on the course of events leading to the final conflict
with Fr. Kushwara but some vivid glimpses into the actual interplay of the people involved, as well. They stem from
two meet-ings that took place in Yonkers in August of that year: the first on the 8th and the second on the 29th.
• The Kositzky Report
Protopresbyter Ioann' Kositzky, pastor in
Ansonia, Connecticut, took his commission very seriously. Three days after the August 8th meeting he submitted a five-page
report in closed-spaced Russian typing. In the form of a journal, it begins on July 9th, when he received his offi-cial
instructions to investigate the conflict in the Yonkers (cf. p. 139 supra). He immediately responded with a petition
to Metropolitan Council Secretary Vladimir Lilikovich to issue formal notification of his forthcoming visit to the parties
involved.
Kositzky traveled to New York City on July 14th with the intent of examining the papers
concerning the Yonkers case at Metropolitan headquarters. There he ran into Fr. Kushwara, and as Kositzky had not been
able to locate a copy of Holy Trinity’s by-laws, Fr. Kushwara agreed to send him one.
Kositzky encountered two initial obstacles in arrang-ing for a parish meeting. First, Kushwara was not forth-coming
with the promised by-laws, for which Kositzky had to make a return trip to New York City on July 26th. There he again
found Kushwara, who now claimed that he did not have his own copy of the by-laws because it “was on file with his attorney,
who was on vacation at the moment.” Finally he obtained a copy of the by-laws from Bishop Makary, and the two
of them held a meeting with Kushwara and Fr. Lilikovich.
Here they dealt with the second obstacle
to the planned parish meeting: the 61 persons whose right to vote Kushwara had effectively attempted to block in April (cf.
p. 108). Acting on Metropolitan Theophilus’ instructions to call a parish council meeting for this purpose, Kositzky
obtained a decision to set it for August 8th, with notifica-tion to the parish given on the previous Sunday. Returning
home, Kositzky mailed due notices to both Fr. Kushwara and Starosta Andrew Waipa.
During that
same visit to Metropolitan headquarters, Kushwara made a personal comment to Kositzky, who thought it worth recording:
“Protopresbyter Kushwara told me that someone in Yonkers had expressed consternation at the ap-pointment of an investigator:
‘Why is an Ansonia priest in-volved in the business of the Yonkers parish?’”
Whether or not this produced any foreboding in Kositzky’s mind, he proceeded according to plan. On August 8th,
after serving Divine Liturgy at his Ansonia parish, he rented a car with driver and reached Yonkers at 2:15 in the afternoon.
The parish council convened exactly an hour later. Kushwara dryly introduced the two parties: ‘“This is
Protopresbyter Kositzky.’ And, pointing to the people, he said, ‘This is the Church Committee’."
Undaunted, Kositzky went right to work. He first read a note from Metropolitan Theophilus,
expressing his desire to restore harmony to Holy Trinity “because members of the parish had appealed to him for help.”
The business at hand was to decide “who among those not invited to the April 18th meeting cannot be deprived of their
vote at the next parish assembly. This decision will be by a simple majority of votes …”
Things did not turn out to be quite so simple on that day. When Kositzky had read the list of Church Committee names
on file with the Metropolitan Council, Kushwara began what can only be termed obstructive behavior:
However, Kushwara insisted on knowing where the list was from. I answered that I had
received it among the other papers furnished by the Metropolitan Dioce-san Council. Then Kushwara started to complain
about the Council, and this bothered me. I objected and pointed out to Kushwara that we both belonged to the Council and that
whatever we did not like about it should be expressed at the Council, not at the pre-sent place or moment.
This,
of course, would do nothing to improve Kushwara’s standing with his ecclesiastical superiors, but events seemed to hearten
rather than deter him for the moment:
At that moment somebody shouted, "All on this list are members of the
church Committee!" I asked the Committee again and they answered, "Not all elected at the annual meeting are
members of the Committee." Others said, "All are members..."
Now the meeting
was hopelessly diverted from its original purpose, as the discussion became increasingly bogged down in other issues.
Wrangling over the composi-tion of the Church Committee led to a question about the parish by-laws themselves: “I required
them to follow the parish bylaws to the letter. Argument and protest ensued to the effect that the by-laws had never
been approved or accepted. ... Thus a question was raised about the by-laws themselves.” Kositzky then asked
the parish secre-tary to fetch whatever record would clear the matter up. Again Fr. Kushwara moved in:
The
Secretary stood and went to another room for the book... but Kushwara stopped him and said that the book was not to be found
there because his attorney had it. Kushwara then pointed out that during the last annual meeting the by-laws were accepted.
I asked him to read this part into the minutes, but he read some text that actually expressed the wish of the annual assembly
that the parish should live ac-cording to the statute in future.
This, not surprisingly, did not settle the matter.
“The question as to whether the parish by-laws were ever ac-cepted or just read at a meeting, not has not been solved
yet!” Kositzky reported.
The tone in which Fr. Kushwara now told Kositzky that he “had made a good start”
can only be left to the reader’s imagination. But if Kushwara intended to deflect discus-sion from the topic for
which the meeting was called, he could not have been more successful: “He asked the Commit-tee to determine who
had a right to vote at the next parish meeting; but another topic arose, and we jumped to a dis-cussion of bylaws in general
- and everyone ended up con-fused!”
It was very probable that Fr. Kushwara had planted the seed for this confusion
before the meeting had opened:
I said it was a pity that Kushwara could not see clearly how bad the situation was and
that this ques-tion should be resolved by the Church Committee. However, even those accepted by Kushwara as members
of the Committee were not of a single mind about who and how many members constitute a Church Committee.
No one
could have handled the situation more nobly than did Fr. Kositzky: “I suggested that if we could get to the origin of
this argument, it would be a start for clari-fying the conflict.” At this point everybody jumped in, and he was
literally “drowned out.” With the original question of the 61 votes unresolved, Kushwara also outma-neuvered
Kositzky on a solution to the secondary question that had superseded it. All he could do in the end was to extract a
promise from the members of the meeting:
I proposed to all present that they should swear here and now that they would
all accept the Metropolitan's decision, on appeal to him, as to whether there were 16 or 21 people on the Committee.
When I asked for a vote on this, all raised their hands and agreed to follow the Metropolitan's decision.
More than Fr. Kushwara’s manipulation of the situa-tion, its general mood disturbed Fr. Kositzky. “This
was the business side of the meeting,” he comments, “but I noted how many people antagonized each other during
the meeting. The passion aroused would lead to dangerous de-velopments.” And the sight on the streets outside
did not escape Fr. Kositzky’s notice, either: “After I left the building, I saw a crowd of women on the pavement
not far from the church, voicing complaints about policemen.”
As we know, this was not the first
scene involving parish folk and police outside Holy Trinity, and by 1940 they would become even more familiar – and
obstreperous.
Perhaps a further remark should be made before leaving the Kositzky report. From
certain passing comments by the author one cannot help but wonder about Fr. John Kushwara’s character. Reading
through the narrative, does one begin to gain the impression of a man who was calculating, ma-nipulative, perhaps even ruthless
– and at the same time insecure? Again, this must remain for the reader to an-swer, but if he is inclined to speculate,
he will not be any the less intrigued by Fr. Kositzky’s parting narrative:
Before starting for home, I bade Fr.
John and Matushka farewell. Fr. John invited me to have din-ner with them, but I had to decline. Then, as though
in jest, he asked me if I was afraid he might poison me. When I told him that my driver had to get back home, he asked
him why he was in such a rush. The driver’s answer seemed to satisfy him.
•
Protests, Police and Bishop Makary
The August 8th chaos brought Church authorities to a last resort. From San Francisco
Metropolitan Theophilus sent an order for Bishop Makary to hold a general parish meeting on August 29, 1937. This move
did not suit at least 47 parishioners, who signed a protest naïvely ad-dressed to the Supreme Court of the State of New
York on the first line and then to the Metropolitan, Bishop Makary, Fr. Kushwara, and finally the Synod of the Rus-sian Orthodox
Church. These people were ostensibly among those who had been deprived of the vote:
We, the undersigned, all of
us members in good stand-ing of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Holy Trin-ity of Yonkers, N.Y. Inc., do hereby make formal
PRO-TEST against the holding of the Parish Meeting of said Church called ... for Sunday, August 29th, 1937, at 1 P.M.... on
the grounds that we have been de-prived of permission to attend and vote at such meet-ing, all of which is contrary to the
decision of the Council as approved by Bishop Makary heretofore and the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Church as
heretofore unanimously adopted and approved by Rev. J. Kushwara. And we further deny that any and all action ... taken
at said meeting, is valid, legal or proper, and is absolutely not binding upon the Church Corporation.
If
this was a sign of things to come, it did not bode well.
The meeting was convened on the above date,
under the presidency of Bishop Makary. With him, his retinue and Fr. Kushwara, 143 dues-paid parishioners gathered,
including at least one of the founders, Simeon Turchick. Their mandated objective was “to discuss conflicts in
parish.” Its min-utes state at the very outset that: “No decisions came from this meeting, but all was reported
to the Metropolitan for judgment.”
However, the minutes are worth reviewing here because
they provide such a vivid picture of what the atmosphere of Holy Trinity was like at that time.
Bishop Makary’s
introductory remarks did not reassure all present. Some protested that he was under Fr. Kushwara’s influence –
an accusation he, of course, denied. Things must have started getting out of hand, because some-one rose to say: "Everybody
should have the chance to speak!” From this point the discussion seemed bent on an-other slide into another squabble
over membership status, which Kushwara did nothing to deter.
Another parishioner tried to quiet things down. "If
a person did not pay the dues,” he said, “he is deprived of voice; but we must establish peace, so all should
vote. We should be ashamed before other nations when they see us fighting on the street outside the church."
As it turned out, crowds were gathering in the streets at as he spoke.
Makary then restored order. “I will
hear everybody,” he said. “I hope this will help clear the case. It is im-possible to check the list of
debtors…”
Acting on his words, the bishop suggested letting the people outside into the church hall, but
those inside ob-jected that such a move would cause a great uproar. Makary then offered to let them enter one by one,
while a pro-todeacon in attendance read out the names of purported non-dues payers. This tactic led nowhere, and the
bishop then called for a review of parishioners’ complaints.
The first he called upon was Simeon Turchick, who
had published an affidavit in a Russian-language newspaper, the Novoe Russkoe Slovo.
"All should read this,”
said Turchick. “Everything is in the affidavit."
"This newspaper is not an official organ of our Church,”
Makary responded. “I haven't got these affidavits among my papers. Where are they?" Turchick
answered, "They are with my attorney." The bishop asked, "Was the paper sent to the Metropolitan?"
The founding member re-plied, "I don't know; everything is said there, and I'll say no more." With
that Simeon Turchick left the meeting.
Kushwara spoke up: "I'm leaving because I don't want my presence
to disturb those who want to speak to me."
"A priest must be present if somebody speaks against him,”
one of the parishioners declared, bringing noise and shouts from the audience.
Pointing out that the Novoe Russkoe Slovo
was not a legal document, Makary asked everyone who had signed an af-fidavit to make himself known, but no one stepped forward.
The meeting changed direction again when someone rose to say: "All troubles come from this Committee…
They talk about the good of the church, but in reality they do not need the church. They are destroying the church,
not building it; but our church will stay. These people are campaigning, not against Batiushka, but against themselves
and the church."
When Bishop Makary proposed to clarify each person's relationship with Fr. Kushwara by questioning
him individu-ally, noise again broke out.
Another parishioner tried to restore calm. "We cannot
get anything done with all this noise!” he protested. “Eve-rybody, quiet down and listen! …If anyone is
offended by Fr. Kushwara, tell Vladiko about it now. Each must speak for or against Fr. Kushwara.”
This again raised the question of who was entitled to speak, and the discussion threatened to degenerate into an-other argument
over dues. Fr. Kushwara opportunely turned it in another direction, this time bringing the dispute to its core issue.
"All this discussion is leading nowhere,” he said. “I ask Vladiko to clarify if
I should stay on as Rector of the parish.”
He then skillfully directed the debate against his enemies: “We
must stop the controversy in our parish! I wish us to discuss the actions of Warden Andrei Waipa, who is not working
for but against the good of the Church and the parish.”
Kushwara recalled how Waipa had chosen to file an
in-junction against the parish assembly of April 18th. He then launched several accusations against the Committee Presi-dent:
manufacturing another parish seal without the Com-mittee’s consent, agreeing to the opening of a saloon across the street
from the church contrary to the decision of the parish assembly, failing to attend services or com-ply with the parish bylaws,
and even “swearing” against the Church's bishops and priests.
Subsequent discussion led to a referendum,
which An-drew Waipa lost. The minutes record it thus: “It is noted that the congregation all voted against Waipa,
except one. They voted to ask the Metropolitan to dismiss Waipa as sen-ior warden and replace him provisionally.”
What followed seemed anticlimactic. Having thus bril-liantly succeeded in turning the tables on his major an-tagonist,
Fr. Kushwara concluded the meeting with an elec-tion of delegates to the Church’s upcoming All-American Council.
In his closing remarks, Bishop Makary suggested that those still not satisfied with the outcome of the meeting to write
a letter to him with their complaints. He urged all to live in peace and put an end to their conflicts. The meeting,
which had opened at 1:30 in the afternoon, ad-journed at 6:00 p.m.
Kushwara and Bishop Makary signed the minutes.
They bear a handwritten note by Metropolitan Theophilus: “Sept. 20, 1937. May love and peace be established with these
min-utes."
That his pious wish was to go unfulfilled is a matter of history. Although the opening statement
of the August 29th minutes would tend to render Waipa’s ouster null (cf. supra p. 150), he would bring it to the attention
of the civil courts before the end of 1937, as the last phase of the war with Fr. Kushwara began.
Meanwhile controversy
raged about the Makary meeting. A petition composed by Waipa and the officers elected with him, joined by some trustees
and parish founders Simeon Turchick and Dmitri Dran, gives a different picture of the meeting than that of the minutes Kushwara
had signed:
Of Kushwara's opponents only a few were invited to attend without vote. Therefore, the majority
of the parishioners were outside in the street, being kept out of the parish hall by police, who arrived at the church in
eight cars. As for those who got into the hall, Kushwara brought the police in to expel them.
If this is
accurate, the cards had indeed been stacked against them from the beginning.
This petition also contains
the most exhaustive list of grievances against Fr. Kushwara on record. To them we will return in the next section, but
first there is another narrative of the Makary meeting to consider.
On or about the 1st of November
the Holy Trinity Church Committee submitted a “Protest,” specifically disputing the accuracy of the August 29th
minutes. Informing the Metro-politan that they had delivered another protest to Bishop Makary on August 31st –
one which apparently had gone un-heeded – they repeated the allegation that not all the pa-rishioners had been invited
“as stipulated in Your letter,” but rather only Kushwara’s supporters. They pointed out that even
Bishop Makary had stated that the other parish-ioners should have been included. They confirmed the in-volvement
of police, whose presence at such meetings was becoming all too familiar:
The police kept parishioners who did not receive
in-vitations from entering the parish hall. They were standing outside, and Protopresbyter Kushwara told the police
not to let them in. He also asked the po-lice to remove some parishioners who were in the hall with invitations but
were against him.
Then the authors went on to relate that Kushwara had blocked a vote by secret ballot, even after
Bishop Makary had attempted to implement it. This cleared the hall of any remaining opponents, with the result that
“only Kushwara's supporters and old members stayed and voted for Kushwara.” As for the election of the new
Church Committee, they commented: “So, Your Eminence blessed this election without knowing the circumstances.”
To add to what they saw as a mockery of the elective process, they pointed out that, when two of the officers were re-elected,
Kushwara attempted to reverse even that. They also called his elec-tion of a delegate to the All-American Council illegal.
“Your Eminence,” they concluded, “we ask that You im-mediately decide what action You and we should take
to re-move Kushwara from the parish and establish peace amongst us.” This time Theophilus added a note dated November
1/14, 1937 – brief but portentous: "Get all materials needed for decision."
That decision would be to proceed against Fr. Kushwara in the civil courts. To understand it fully, however, it is necessary
to review other material that had come to the Metropolitan’s attention before the end of 1937.
•
“Kushwara's evil deeds”
The undated petition submitted by Andrew Waipa and the
other parish officers in the wake of the August 29th meeting contains the most detailed and vehement complaint against Fr.
Kushwara to emerge from this period. In two and a half pages of closely typed Russian text, it lists twenty-three specific
accusations, which will be summarized here.
Again the charge of public drunkenness appears:
“Archpriest John often came to church services so drunk he could not stand properly before the altar.” When
admon-ished about this by parishioners, Kushwara rebuffed them as “Bolsheviks” and “thieves.”
This drove “around 50 Russian families and 80 Lemko families” to withdraw from Holy Trinity Church.
Again, concern for the children of the parish was raised. Fr. Kushwara had “driven away”
fifteen Readers, whose work as teachers and choral directors directly touched the lives of the young. “As a result
many of our youth in the church choir came to detest Kushwara and to stay away from church.” After Kushwara moved
to expel the “R Club” from the parish, they claim, “about 100 of our young people lost their
interest in the church; some of them left for Protestant churches.”
The parish officers also
accused Kushwara of manipu-lating the membership dues system to his advantage: “Amidst his disputes with parishioners,
Kushwara in 1936 refused to accept membership dues from those who criticized his behav-ior.” Not only did he thus
eliminate 228 members from the church rolls, they alleged, but he allowed only 135 of the remaining parishioners into the
parish meeting of December 1936.
At least half of the space in the petition is taken up with grievances
concerning Kushwara’s conduct of parish meetings and related business. When his new Church Commit-tee called a
general meeting to review parish by-laws, Kushwara was so determined to thwart it that, according to the petition, he went
so far as introduce some violent ac-tion into the agenda: “When the parishioners arrived for the meeting, some women
who supported Kushwara entered the parish hall and started to fight, throwing eggs, stones, and dirt. Kushwara was standing
on the porch and shouting: ‘Fight! It's your hour!’” It was after this that Kushwara, with
the support of Bishop Makary, attempted to set up the April 1937 meeting on his own terms, and the Church Committee obtained
an injunction against it. This circumstance and those surrounding the meetings of August 8th and 29th have been recounted
in the previous two sec-tions.
Banking on such temporary advantages has he might have gained at this point, Kushwara
then moved against his oppo-nents on another level. “Kushwara sent written informa-tion,” the petitioners averred,
“to the city police and post office workers about our Russians who worked there and asked that they be fired.”
“Kushwara's evil deeds,” they summarized, “continue after more than fifteen years and are becoming
worse.”
They then turned to Metropolitan Platon’s establish-ment of a “second parish,” as has
been related in Chapter III above. Since that began, in 1922, various clergy had also intervened independently on behalf
of the disaffected: “In the last fifteen years services for parishioners who do not like Kushwara have been provided
by other priests from different New York parishes - often by Protopresbyter Leonid Turkevich, now Bishop Leontii.”
Fr. Benedict Turkevich’s brother Leontii had himself conducted funerals in Yonkers which
Fr. Kushwara, ostensi-bly out of personal acrimony, had declined to serve. These evoke particularly dramatic scenes:
Ten years ago Protopresbyter Turkevich served the fu-neral for Feodor Gira, one of the founders and former treasurer
of our parish. Kushwara refused to perform the funeral service in the church. During the trans-fer of the body from
the house to the cemetery, the funeral procession stopped at the church, and Proto-presbyter Turkevich read the Gospel and
prayers and then proceeded to the cemetery. The same thing hap-pened at the funerals of Nikolai Babei, Ivan Vanko and
other parishioners.
Other items include the Rusinko incident of 1923 (su-pra, Chapter III); Kushwara’s abuse
of one of the founders, Vasilii Prokopchak, whom he told to "hang a stone from your neck and jump into the sea”;
and his refusal to provide a funeral because of the fee offered: “Recently a poor Rus-sian man, A. Patrosh, died in
Yonkers. When Kushwara was asked to serve his funeral for $10, he asked for $24; so the service was done by a Uniate
priest for $10.” One par-ish family even had to resort to the services of the “Liv-ing Church” in
New York to obtain baptism for a newly born, the petitioners allege. Not only baptism but also commun-ion was refused
to those who in any way opposed their Rec-tor.
Finally another incidence of violence is traced to Kushwara’s instigation:
Recently Church Committee members, Secretary Pankraty Wirchniansky and Ioann Fritz, got into a fight with somebody in
the church hall. Fritz was beaten, and now the case is in court. The one who was fighting with Fritz is a supporter
of Kushwara. He is testi-fying that Kushwara is guilty of prodding him to fight.
In their
final summation Waipa and the other parish officers bring forward a topic that may have caught the Metropolitan’s attention
as much as all of the above:
From what we have already written it is clear that the struggle with Kushwara continues,
as it has for more than fifteen years. It has acquired greater harshness since the time that Kushwara worked with Bishop Adam
to oust Metropolitan Platon, who was well liked in our parish. We never supported Kushwara's efforts to take our
parish into a separated jurisdic-tion. We do not support him now because we know from past experience that he is a man
of bad character, who can betray Your Eminence too.
Regarding Kushwara’s collaboration with Bishop Adam,
it is recalled that in 1935 he had co-authored a report to Metro-politan Theophilus on the Carpatho-Russian Diocesan Conven-tion
held in February of that year (supra, p. 123). This represented the submission of an independent group of Car-patho-Russian
parishes under Adam to the North American Russian Diocese under Theophilus.
This in itself is not proof that Kushwara
had previ-ously “worked with Bishop Adam to oust Metropolitan Platon” (presumably as bishop over Holy Trinity)
or that he had tried “to take our parish into a separated jurisdiction.” However, there is some indication
that this might have in-deed occurred. Leaping ahead to 1940, we find the follow-ing statement in the Westchester County
Supreme ruling on the Holy Trinity case:
Prior to 1934, about ninety Russian parishes in Amer-ica, known as Carpatho-Russian
parishes, were under the jurisdiction and supervision of Bishop Adam, and, undoubtedly, the Metropolitan Theophilus, soon
after his election, had a meeting with Bishop Adam for the purpose of negotiating a friendly pact between them. As a result,
Bishop Adam agreed to submit himself to the jurisdiction of Theophilus. Adam was elected first assistant to the Metropolitan
Theophilus and was appointed a member of a committee of three bish-ops to divide the North American continent into dio-ceses
and to Adam was allocated the territory of Pennsylvania and …After this, the Metropolitan Theo-philus had jurisdiction
over Kushwara’s parish at Yonkers, which had previously been under the supervi-sion of Bishop Adam, and there was peace
between the factions from 1934 until early 1938 …
It is a matter of record that Kushwara had
opposed the election of Archbishop Alexander at the 1919 Sobor (supra, pp. 93-94) and that he had fallen under suspicion of
at-tempting to take the parish out from under Platon in 1924. When added to these facts, the petitioners’ reminder of
Kushwara’s relationship with the errant Bishop Adam was probably the most damning of all their accusations.
The petition bears the signatures of Parish President Andrew Waipa, together with those of almost all the persons whose names
appear in the body of the text. It is also one of the last public documents on file to bear the signature of parish
co-founder Simeon Turchick, who must have experi-enced nothing less than distress about the man whom he had so enthusiastically
supported in 1917.
The “R Club of Yonkers”, already listed as a victim of Fr. Kushwara’s
abuse, sent the Metropolitan a statement typed in English, which they concluded by saying:
We as young members of the
Holy Trinity Congregation and also the members of the Tikon [sic] "R" Club feel that we should let your EMINENCY
[sic] know the con-sequences of Reverend Kushwara's "Deeds", for the reason that our Church Committee wish not
to extend to you any more information regarding the wrong do-ings [sic] of Reverend Kushwara.
Although the
last sentence implies that their statement is supplementary to the petition of the parish officers, they largely reproduce
several of the grievances aired in the earlier document.
• “Such a Bewildering Letter”
The only surviving communication from 1937 defending Fr. Kushwara in fact discloses the culminating event of that
year: Metropolitan Theophilus’ reassignment of Fr. Kushwara.
This comes from the Church Committee whose election
he had engineered at the August 29th parish meeting, as it is signed by Harry Korwach as President of the Church Commit-tee,
Josef Krusko as Secretary, Dimitri Kodnia as Treas-urer, and the Sobor delegate-elect Theodore Olear as a Trustee.
Their
letter testifies to a staunch loyalty towards their Rector, who had now been asked to leave Yonkers:
When we learned
that your Excellency had sent our priest, the Reverend John Kushwara, a letter in which you proposed that he leave for another
parish, mem-bers of the Church Committee decided to sacrifice our jobs and visit you to seek information for the cause of
such action.
At the same time their sense of betrayal by their Metro-politan is inescapable. “For
we visited your Excellency just a few weeks ago,” they continue. “At that time you gave us your blessing
in our work; you praised us for our strong stand for our Church and our pastor; and now we re-ceive such a bewildering letter.”
Insult was added to injury on the day they took off from work to see the Metropolitan:
We decided
that some grave misunderstanding had caused it and hastened to see you and to confer with you, as children with their father,
and together, clarify the situation for the good of the Church. Wednesday morning, November 17, we went to your resi-dence
but there your Excellency’s secretary refused at first to even let us enter the house, the house for which we had given
more than our share of money to purchase.
“Your Excellency,” they protested, “we are not holdup men
or highway men but members of the committee of the Holy Trinity Church of Yonkers.”
Nevertheless, they decided
to sacrifice another day’s wages and returned to New York City, encountering only added frustration:
But Thursday,
November 18, you not only did not re-ceive us, but we were not even allowed to enter the house. At the door, some unknown
person told us that you were not receiving but that we should return to Yonkers, tell our pastor to phone to your Excellency
and that you would appoint a day for an audience with you.
However, when at their behest Kushwara telephoned
Theophi-lus, he flatly refused to receive any delegation from Yonkers.
Could there have been any harsher
blow to their pride, it was the way in which word of their pastor’s removal spread through the community. Having
received the letter on a Tuesday night, Kushwara had confided it to his Commit-tee members with strictest instructions not
to divulge its contents so as “not to spoil our Thanksgiving Dinner and bazaar Sunday, November 21.”
Their efforts to keep the secret proved futile, however: “… and Wednesday when our parishioners went to the shops,
they were informed by their fellow workers that in 14 days our pastor was proposed to leave our parish.”
One cannot help but feel sorry for these men, to whom the events of August 29th had given good reason to believe that their
election to the Church Committee had been in ac-cord with the will of their hierarchs. Now that same hier-archy had
caused them public humiliation:
We are Orthodox Christians, gave our hard earned money for the building of Churches and
the support of priests; for our Orthodox faith we were stoned by Uniats [sic] and Catholics. Today, we Orthodox peo-ple
are informed by Uniats and Catholics of our Church affairs.
It would be only a matter of days now before the people
of Holy Trinity would once more turn to the civil courts for redress, and the conflict that Metropolitan Theophilus had thought
to relieve by means of a simple transfer would drag on for another two and a half years.
•
“It could disrupt our entire Church.”
Fr. Kushwara and his supporters, who filed
suit in the local court to remove Andrew Waipa as President of the Church Committee, initiated the legal proceeding.
Waipa countered in December 1937 with a suit of his own, and now began the Waipa vs. Kushwara case, which was not to be re-solved
until 1940.
Waipa’s primary claim was this: “I am presently recog-nized by our Church
authorities as President of the Par-ish.” Kushwara at first contended that the Church authorities of reference
were not legitimate. Thus the lines were clearly drawn: Kushwara and his group on one side, and Waipa and his group,
with Metropolitan Theophilus and the North American Russian Diocese (hereinafter the “Metropolia”) on the other.
Kushwara won in the first round largely because of a supporting affidavit given by Bishop Adam Philippovsky. Theodore
Murin of Yonkers, then attorney for Waipa et al., reported this with no small alarm to the Metropolitan:
“Mr. Justice
Aldrich handed down his decision in the above entitled matter yesterday,” wrote Murin, “and briefly, he refused
our application for a temporary injunc-tion, but gave us permission to serve a new Complaint and make new application within
twenty days.”
Murin attributed Kushwara’s gain to Bishop Adam’s in-tervention on his behalf:
The
lengthy affidavit submitted by Adam Philippovsky who bluntly asserts that he is the recognized Arch-bishop of the North American
Diocese, and that no power exists in yourself or the Metropolitan Council to interfere with the Yonkers Church or with Father
Kushwara, was unquestionably the reason we were not successful.
Murin saw a danger here that allowed for no delay in
re-sponse:
He claims that the Yonkers Church and Father Kushwara are under his exclusive jurisdiction. It is obvious
to us that this claim, if upheld, would eventually result in a total disruption of our entire Church or-ganization, and would
form a profound effect upon all our parishes in this country.
Two days later Murin again warned of the greater
dangers inherent in the Kushwara lawsuit:
The recent developments, especially the contention of Adam Philippovsky and
Rev. Kushwara, to the effect that Your Eminence is not the ruling Archbishop of the North American Diocese and that the Normal
Stat-ues are not controlling, has raised a legal question which very clearly affects the entire North American Diocese.
It is obvious that if we are unable to up-hold your authority, then Bishop Adam will proceed to take over such other Parishes
as he may see fit.
The proportions of the case were, in fact, so great that Murin was no longer willing to take
it on alone:
The entire problem from the legal angle has assumed such proportions that our conscience and common sense
plus our legal training forces [sic] us to say that we must have additional legal help. We are willing to go ahead with
the matter ourselves ... [but] the wiser course, under all the circumstances, at this time would be yourself and the Archdiocese
to retain the very best available legal talent regardless of expense, to assist and advise us.
Murin, who - to
judge from his language - must have been Orthodox himself, reassured Theophilus that he would charge the parish only enough
to cover his expenses. On the other hand, hiring another law firm would cost something, and the Metropolia itself should
be ready to bear that expense. The parishioners had all they could handle with Murin’s ex-penses.
“They are in the main, poor people,” he wrote, “who could not possibly afford to pay for the additional
legal services of the type which we recommend. We all feel that it is only fair that such additional expenses be borne by
the higher Church authorities.”
Eventually the Metropolia would retain the services of another
lawyer, Isidor Tankus of New York City; and his work would turn the tide in their favor. In the meantime, the Metropolia
confirmed Waipa’s group as constituting the legal parish committee: “The Metropolitan Council has the honor
to inform you that you and those elected with you as Church Committee continue to be the legal Committee of the Holy Trinity
Church of Yonkers, N.Y.”
Murin had requested one other thing from the Metro-politan:
At
the moment, the most effective manner of bringing this situation to a successful termination would, of course, be an affidavit
from Bishop Adam, admitting that he was in error and that he recognizes you as his superior and that he has no jurisdiction
over the Yonkers Church and Father Kushwara. If Your Eminence feels that you might procure such writing from him, we
are certain that it would terminate the case.
Attached to this correspondence is a letter translated into English
under the title “Repentance of Adam Philippovsky.” Though this is undated, it of course could not have been
written in 1938 as it is addressed to Metropolitan Platon (†1934). But it must be the evidence that Murin requested.
It contains no reference to Yonkers, or to any specific parish; rather it constitutes a general apology and recog-nition of
Platon’s authority:
Realizing, by the receipt of the Ukaze of the Holy Bishop's [sic] Synod Abroad of February
27th (14th of March) of this year all doubts should disappear con-cerning authority, given by His Holiness the Patri-arch
to Your Eminence, admitting, that I was abso-lutely not guided by any personal ambitions, achieve-ment or wish in seizing
authority of which I was sus-pected, I decided to turn to Your Eminence and beg of Your Lord [sic] forgiveness for the Unpleasantness
which it caused.
Whether or not this statement, testifying as it does to Theophilus’ predecessor’s
legitimacy, immediately settled the question is unclear.
In any event, the jurisdictional question
did not serve Kushwara’s purposes when Waipa and the Metropolia lawyers filed a complaint to restrain Kushwara from
acting as Rector at Holy Trinity. Justice Patterson, who heard the motion to dismiss, summarizes this complaint:
The action ... in effect demands a judgment that the defendant John Kushwara be permanently restrained and enjoined from
acting or attempting to act as rector of the defendant church and from exercising any of the functions, rights or duties of
rector of said church, and that he be ordered and directed to vacate the parish house and other buildings belonging to said
defendant church and to surrender possession thereof to his successor as rector of said church, who was appointed by the Metropolitan
Theophilus ... and that defendant church be enjoined and restrained from accepting and recognizing the said Kushwara as rector
or priest ...
This document reveals that Kushwara had asserted three points in his defense: first, as we have
seen, that the Metropolia did not have legitimate ecclesiastical jurisdic-tion; secondly, that it had no legal personality
under state laws; and thirdly, that it was infringing upon his civil rights.
"It is my opinion,” Justice Patterson
continued, “that the complaint as now amended has cured the infirmities pointed out by Mr. Justice Aldrich in his complete
opinion dismissing the first amended complaint herein, and the com-plaint as it now stands states a good cause of action.”
On the first of Kushwara’s claims, he makes the fol-lowing judgment:
The whole attack on the sufficiency
of the com-plaint [by Kushwara et al.] seems to be based upon the organism of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church and
the authority of the Metropolitan Theophi-lus. It is asserted that there is [sic] no adequate allegations in the complaint
as to the legal status of the Russian Orthodox Church or of the Metropoli-tan...
A reading of the
complaint does not support this contention. The pleader is not required to state his proof or evidence of the existence
of a fact neces-sary to allege a cause of action. It suffices when he states the fact. The complaint states succinctly
and chronologically the various steps and changes in the governing or ecclesiastical body of the church which is finally vested
in the Sobor and the Metro-politan of America.
Kushwara had further claimed that his Church
had to be “incorporated, or, if unincorporated, such an association as is recognized as a legal person by the Civil
Law of the State of New York.” Patterson denied the need for such status when the case involved “the
laws, canons, rules, regulations, etc., governing the conduct of its own affairs and of the persons who are subject, by virtue
of their po-sitions in the church, to such ecclesiastical authority.”
Patterson dismissed
the civil rights contention out of hand:
This litigation does not involve any individual civil rights of the defendant
Kushwara. He claims and can claim nothing in his individual right. His only claim is such as may have accrued
to him as a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, the extent of that right being limited in any case to occupancy of the
church premises and the conduct of services therein in accordance with the Russian Orthodox faith. His right is not
determined by the Civil Law of the State of New York, but by the ecclesiastical law of the re-ligious denomination of which
he is a part.
There now occurred a reversal in the course of the litigation. Now the Metropolia could proceed
with a case to remove Kushwara via the civil courts. From here on he was to be the defendant, and Waipa with the help
of the Metropolia could be the plaintiffs.
In concluding his decision of June 6, 1938, Justice Patterson made a plea
that is highly revealing of the pub-lic image of the Church that was taking shape in the strug-gle for control of Holy Trinity.
“I again earnestly implore the parties to the litiga-tion,” he said, “to reconcile
their differences.” Then he continued:
That cannot be done by recourse to our courts. It can be done
only through the exercise of forbearance and moderation, which I am sure is a cardinal tenant of the religious faith of those
involved. There is a seeming absence of a spirit of obedience to consti-tuted authority and solicitation for the good
name and greater influence of the church, which should be the first concern of those interested in this litiga-tion.
For
two more years a war of attrition between the two par-ties would drag on, unabated – it would seem - by any “so-licitation
for the good name and greater influence of the church.”
• The Last of Bishop Adam
It is unclear how much longer Bishop Adam was involved in the Yonkers conflict. Second-hand
information indicates that he was out of the picture by 1939, after he and Kushwara had made their last ploy to legitimatize
their ju-risdiction. A Russian-language bulletin titled “Kushwara’s Lies in the Light of Truth,” which
appeared in May of 1939, gives the following version of that last ploy:
Afterwards Kushwara and Philipovsky
organized a new intrigue. They wrote a letter to the court declaring that both had been under the Moscow Patriarchate
for a long time, having signed a declaration from the Church to the Soviet government to that effect. How-ever, the
Moscow Patriarchate wrote a special letter in which it pointed out that Adam Philipovsky was not an archbishop or a bishop,
but only an archimandrite, so that neither Adam nor Kushwara had any authority. Kushwara’s letter will be discussed
in the White Plains court, where it will certainly be decided that Kushwara and Philipovsky are not authorized.
Judge Young’s decisive ruling of January 3, 1940, puts dates and some more facts to this. Continuing from the
ci-tation on page 164 above, we read:
… and there was peace between the factions from 1934 until early 1938,
when Adam was suspended from the Church by the Metropolitan Theophilus, after which time, Adam sought recognition of Benjamin
and Ser-gius for himself and the defendant Kushwara, but, in the end, both Adam and Kushwara were unfrocked by Sergius by
an order dated August 13, 1939.
• Courts, Police and Headlines: 1939-1940
Attorney Isidor Tankus proved to be well worth the “added expense” to the
Metropolia. Kushwara was no easy target. To judge from the correspondence between Tankus and the central
church hierarchy, every conceivable bit of evidence had to be brought forward to defend the Metropo-lia’s claims to
legitimacy and prove the contradictory na-ture of Kushwara’s relationship to his superiors. Among the voluminous
documents Tankus requested for this purpose were such items as the confirmation of the temporary inde-pendence of the Church
in America from the church in Soviet Russia (1920), personal dues paid by the parishioners and Kushwara for the upkeep of
the Metropolitan, and the reso-lution passed by the New York Sobor, giving the Metropoli-tan “power to transfer a priest
from one parish to another if 40% of the parishioners so desired.” Treasurer Pank-raty Wirchniansky submitted
to the court proof of eight payments, some of which bore Kushwara’s own name, to show that “such payments were
made by virtue of our Parish being an integral part of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America.”
To interpret the mass of papers that the trial re-quired, Tankus relied heavily on Fr. Vladimir Lilikovich
as ecclesiastical expert:
On Friday, June 23, 1939, I was served with papers in behalf of Father Kushwara, to
dismiss the injunction case against him. The papers are voluminous and con-tain mostly Ecclesiastical matter, and it
is of prime importance that I obtain at once the co-operation of Father Lilikovich, and affidavits from Archbishop Ar-seny
and also Archbishop Vitaly, in opposition to the application to dismiss the complaint.
Perhaps Lilikovich
did not always seem as ready to cooper-ate as Tankus would have liked, for he re-emphasized this point: “I respectfully
request that Your Eminence issue a written order at once to Father Lilikovich to place himself at my disposal…”
Tankus’ skill and unremitting pressure was having such an effect that David Gorfinkel, Kushwara’s
lawyer, at one point asked for an out-of-court settlement. His reply was this:
Confidentially, now, I have given
that other matter a good deal of thought, and I do not believe that a “Kiss and Make-Up” proposition would be
acceptable. From reliable sources, I am convinced that your cli-ent would have to take the punishment which, I pre-sume,
closes the door to further negotiations. All I can do for your client would be to save him his job, not at Yonkers, but at
some other place, which, per-haps, would be agreeable and satisfactory to him.
Tankus also successfully forestalled
Gorfinkel’s move to prolong the trial through an adjournment, and the trial date was finally set for October 30,
1939. He was prepared to bring every force to bear on it, as he wrote to Metro-politan Theophilus: “I take pleasure
in informing you that the case against Father Kushwara was finally set down for trial for October 30th before Judge Young
at White Plains.” Two bishops would be included among the witnesses: “It will be of the utmost importance
that Bishop Arseny and Bishop Macary [sic] … be present to testify at the trial.” Besides Fr. Lilikovich,
other clergy were called in as expert witnesses on canon law, one of them as far away as Ohio.
On January 3, 1940, the Westchester County Supreme Court, Justice J. Addison Young presiding as Referee, ruled against Kushwara.
Letters and telegrams immediately went from New York to California, where Metropolitan Theophilus was again in residence.
“We have won a sweeping victory,” Andrew Waipa and the Committee wired the Metropolitan,
“and when Judge signs pa-pers, Kushwara will be out. We beg Your Grace to bless our great victory…”
“I am very happy to inform you,” Isidor Tankus wrote to Metropolitan Theophilus, “that Kushwara has
lost the case completely, and that the Judge has found in our fa-vor.”
Fr. Vladimir
Lilikovich wrote a report to Metropolitan Theophilus in which he summarized the current status of things:
Today Judge
Young issued the final decision on the case of Yonkers Parish. According to this decision, Kushwara has to hand Church
property over to A. Waipa before February 3rd. If Kushwara’s lawyer tries to stop the execution of Judge Young’s
decision, he will have to take it to the Appeals Department of Higher Court of Brooklyn, but the probability that he would
win the case by doing this is very low.
An appeal, Lilikovich pointed out, would be too expensive for Kushwara.
In addition to what he already owed his law-yer, he would need to raise between $5,000 immediately to cover costs. The
parishioners appeared equally relaxed about the whole matter:
Last Sunday, on January 21, there was a parish meet-ing
in Yonkers presided over by churchwarden A. Waipa. People were informed about the course of the case and everyone was
satisfied with it. Tankus was also present there. The decision to ask you to ap-point me priest for the Yonkers parish
was made.
This last wish was not to be fulfilled. Kushwara’s old ad-versary, Fr. Alexander Kukulevsky
, was appointed tempo-rary administrator of the parish.
For this purpose you will represent our Church authority at the
coming transfer of the church prop-erty of this parish to the members of the Church Com-mittee headed by Mr. A. Waipa, and
also see to it that all formalities connected with the decision of the civil Court in White Plains, N.Y. are fulfilled…
and also accept upon yourself the duty of seeing that the spiritual needs of the Yonkers Holy Trinity par-ish are satisfied,
appointing if necessary some mem-ber of our clergy for this purpose.
Despite Lilikovich’s
confidence that Kushwara would not undertake an appeal, this is precisely what he did. By March 6, 1940, he had filed
an appeal of Judge Young’s de-cision at the Appellate Division in White Plains, N.Y. Waipa and the parish officers
sent a letter to Metropolitan Theophilus in San Francisco, to report that they had met with Metropolia Secretary Fr. Dzvonchik
at the Houston Street Church headquarters in New York City to discuss this new turn of events. The primary concern was
the additional legal costs, on which they had reached the following agree-ment:
Father Dzvonchik and S. Gargarin proposed
to us the following: “that we should take upon ourselves half of the cost of the Appeal which would amount to six hundred
and fifty dollars ($650). This to be paid in small installments to the Metropolitan Council over a period of two (2)
years… we have decided to inform Your Eminence of our decision, which is as follows:
Realizing that when the time
comes to take over the church properties of the Holy Trinity Russian Ortho-dox Church, we are going to have a big debt to
pay. Therefore, we cannot undertake the responsibility un-less we have a Competent Priest for our Pastor, and such a
Priest must be of our own choosing.
If they thought thus to guarantee the services of Fr. Lilikovich
as their pastor, they were again to be disap-pointed.
Kushwara could not have clung more stubbornly
to the parish if he had known a hoard of gold to be buried under it. On April 16th Fr. Dzvonchik wired Metropolitan
Theophi-lus that White Plains court had denied his appeal. "Con-gratulations,” he wrote, “Yonkers case
won. Official no-tice will follow. Very important you prepare definite steps concerning Yonkers parish and appointment
of priest.”
In fact a panel of five judges summarily dismissed the case. On April 16th the following notice
appeared in the New York Law Journal: “Waipa. res, v. Kushwara ap-- Action for injunctive relief in disciplinary proceedings
to trans-fer defendant Kushwara as pastor of defendant church. Judgment in favor of plaintiff unanimously affirmed,
with costs. No opinion."
On the same date Attorney Tankus wrote to Metropolitan Theophilus:
"Today I received official news of the unani-mous decision of the Appellate Court, consisting of five Judges, who have
affirmed Judge Young's decision that Kushwara must obey your orders and leave the church.”
"In view of the unanimous decision,” he added, “there is nothing that Kushwara can do now but to obey the
order of the Court.”
Acting on Tankus’ advice to proceed with the naming of a new pastor, the Metropolitan
Council wrote to Fr. Kushwara:
Sir:
By a decision of the civil Court, now confirmed by the Appellate
Division, the Holy Trinity Church and the Parish house in Yonkers must be transmitted to the care of the representative of
H.E. Metropolitan Theophilus, the Head of the R.O. Church of America.
The Metropolitan Council invites
you to voluntarily submit yourself to this decision of the Civil Courts, and to vacate the premises occupied by you by Monday
April 22, 1940, and to transmit on that day all par-ish property according to inventory, to the Very Rev. Alexander Kukulevsky,
District Dean of New York.
The Metropolitan Council hopes that by such volun-tary execution of the
court order you will make un-necessary the application of police force, which would be undesirable for all concerned.
The attitude of H.E. the Metropolitan towards the Yonkers parish continues to be express in his resolu-tion full of humbleness
and benevolence: “Let peace and quiet reign in the Yonkers parish!"
Kushwara did not comply with
this, and on the weekend of April 20th-21st police force had to be applied, as near riots were stirring in front of Holy Trinity.
At that time the Yonkers newspaper reported Kushwara’s attorneys as stating “that in the event the appeal
fails Appellate Division, they will go directly to the Court of Appeals for a chance to reargue the case. As far as
is known, the Appellate Division has issued no order setting the date for Father Kushwara to vacate the parish.”
Amazingly enough they did carry the case to the Court of Appeals, and only after it refused to hear the case did Kushwara
and his attorneys finally give up: “Father Kushwara's acceptance of the new pastor comes a few days after the Court
of Appeals refused to review the Appellate Division's decision affirming the order of Official Referee Young ousting him
as priest.”
The headline that spilled across the front page of the Yonkers Herald Statesman on Monday
April 22nd shows how Holy Week of 1940 ended at Holy Trinity Church. "Violence Flares at Greek Catholic Church As Ousted
Priest's Backers Fight Lockout," it read.
A four-column photograph shows Andrew Waipa placing
a padlock on the front doors of the church. Its caption says:
Shortly after this picture was taken, a free-for-all
broke out in front of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Holy Trinity Church last night when 200 pa-rishioners, aligned in
rival camps, demanded entry to the church. Andrew Waipa, shown attaching a chain and padlock to the church door to keep
the Rev. John Kushwara, pastor, out, was punched in the eye and given hospital treatment after the scuffle. Mr. Waipa
is the leader of a movement to oust Father Kushwara as pastor. On the church door he has posted a copy of a ruling by
Official Referee J. Addison Young, upheld Tuesday by the Appellate Division, or-dering the priest's removal form his pastorate.
The entire article is worth reading because it draws us into the actual atmosphere that reigned at Holy Trinity during
those days. It explains that “followers of the Rev. John Kushwara, pastor who faces an ouster from the church,
broke two padlocks off the doors so Palm Sunday services could be held as scheduled.” It goes on to relate that
Waipa had to be treated at Yonkers General Hospital for his injuries and that “police broke up disturbances at the church
both last night and Saturday night, after the priest's followers broke the padlocks off the church doors put on by Mr.
Waipa's followers.”
It then reports the status of Fr. Kushwara’s appeal:
Today
Father Kushwara remained in charge of the par-ish, while his attorney, Ulysses S. Adler, was apply-ing to the Appellate Division
for permission to carry the ouster case to the Court of Appeals. The Appel-late Division announced its decision Tuesday,
by which it unanimously upheld a ruling of Official Referee J. Addison Young on Jan. 3 removing Father Kushwara as spiritual
leader of the parish.
The article describes how the violence began:
The trouble
started Saturday night when Mr. Waipa and some of his followers appeared at the church doors and placed six padlocks on the
doors. Mr. Waipa was armed with a copy of Justice Young's order, upheld by the Appellate Division. An angry crowd
of 200 parish-ioners gathered, and the padlocks were ripped off. Police were called and quickly dispersed the crowd.
After being treated at the hospital, Andrew Waipa went to the Special Sessions Court to file charges
against his assailants, Frank Liptak and Theodore Perich, who were or-dered to appear in court. From there he proceeded
to po-lice headquarters, where he informed the officer on duty that he planned to place new padlocks on the church doors.
He apparently obtained police protection, with the support of City Judge David Gorfinkel, Kushwara’s erstwhile attor-ney.
In spite of the 200 people still milling around the church, Waipa was successful in securing the doors the sec-ond time.
In view of these events the parting words of the Met-ropolitan Council in their April 19th letter to
the Yonkers parishioners ring ironically today: “May this Holy week help us to forget the old strife and forgive
one another the possible offenses and in common peace and love to unite to glorify Christ."
Following the
refusal of the Court of Appeals to hear his case, Kushwara resigned himself to the inevitable. His only choice was to
surrender the parish that he had served for twenty-three years. Peace was at last on its way to Yonkers.
•
“The Rights of the Russian Church Confirmed”
Accompanying Fr. Kushwara’s April
19th letter from the Metropolitan Council was a message to his parishioners. In concise and simple language it reveals
the significance of the Yonkers case to the Metropolia as a whole.
Thank God the court litigations have ended in your
parish. The rights of the Russian Church in America are now defined and confirmed also by the civil laws of this country.
Metropolitan Theophilus, unanimously elected by our Church and beloved by all, is also recognized now
by the civil authorities as Head of our Church. Your Yonkers parish is recognized as its unalienable part.
This elevates Yonkers from merely the setting of a local quarrel to that of decisive event in the history of Ameri-can Orthodoxy.
Speaking on January 3, 1940, Justice J. Addison Young in effect “naturalized” the Metropolia. The
crux of Jus-tice Young’s decision is given in these words:
I think the proof is ample to show
that Theophilus was legally elected as the Metropolitan of the Church in North America. If this be so, it follows that
the order issued by Metropolitan Theophilus, transferring the defendant Kushwara from his present parish to an-other, is valid
and should be upheld and enforced.
“Proof” is over five legal pages, in which Young synthe-sizes the
history of Russian Orthodoxy from the 988 conver-sions to the 1917 Moscow Sobor and, from that point on, the history of the
Russian Church in America, in which he con-siders the conflict between Archbishop Benjamin and Metro-politan Platon and the
rival claims of Bishop Adam over the Carpatho-Russian faithful. From all this he draws the fol-lowing conclusions:
The proof shows that Theophilus was elected Metro-politan by the General Sobor of the Russian Church of North America held
in Cleveland in November, 1934, and that, so far as possible, this election was rec-ognized by the Synod and likewise by all
Metropoli-tans of the Russian Church throughout the world, as well as by the Orthodox Churches, and it appears also that the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States has recognized and acknowledged Theophilus as Metropolitan… It seems
to me of the greatest impor-tance that there should be a titular head of this Church recognized throughout the North American
con-tinent as such, and I think the proof is ample to show that Theophilus was legally elected as the Met-ropolitan of the
Church in North America.
With this Young at the same time refuted Kushwara’s primary contention –
that Theophilus lacked the ecclesiastical authority to remove him from the Yonkers parish – and vali-dated the existence
of the Russian Metropolia as a member of the American religious community. In a sense, on Janu-ary 3, 1940, Americans
welcomed Russian Orthodox immigrants into their family of churches.
• 1940 Epilogue
One can now only speculate as to what the scene was like when Fr. Kukulevsky conveyed the following message
to the parishioners at Holy Trinity sometime in May of 1940, but according to the paper in which it appeared, this is what
he read to them:
I announce to you that by the blessing of H.E. THEO-PHILUS, Metropolitan of America and Canada, Proto-presbyter
Joseph Stephanko, Chancellor [Kliouchar] of the Cathedral Church, has been temporarily assigned as Rector of the Yonkers Holy
Trinity Parish. A per-manent priest will be installed later.
The Metropolitan expresses his hope that the Or-thodox people
of Yonkers will accept Protopresbyter Stephanko as appointed by Church Authority, will for-get their old disputes, and will
reach the coming Feast of Christ's Resurrection in peace and joy, as Christians should.
Fr. Stephanko’s arrival
went without incident. The Satur-day Religion Section of the Yonkers Herald Statesman car-ried the banner headline:
“New Pastor Assigned to Holy Trinity as Father Kushwara Steps Down.” A picture of Fr. Stephanko appears
under the words: "Long Legal Strife Is Ended; Father Stephanko New Priest" and "Ousted Cleric De-clines Comment
on Forming New Parish -- Accepts Court De-feat as Final."
“The long, bitter legal battle,”
the report continues, “came to a peaceful end today, with Father Kushwara relin-quishing the pastorate to the Very Rev.
Joseph Stephanko of New York City.” It then describes the terms of the trans-fer of powers:
Appointed temporary pastor by the Metropolitan Theophilus in an attempt to heal the breach between the two factions of the
church, Father Stephanko takes over today. Father Kushwara will leave Mon-day.
Up to this point
things had, not surprisingly, re-mained tense at the parish. On May 12, 1940, two observers from New York City had gone
to Yonkers to visit the parish. In their report to Fr. Stephanko they noted that 500 people had attended the Liturgy
that day and that a total of $16.30 had been collected at that service.
They described
how the Church Committee members, made uneasy by the presence of the observers, pretended not to notice them during the Liturgy.
Later, when an observer asked “How are you?” one of the Committeemen replied la-conically, “We continue
to fight.”
The events at the money-counting, as they describe them, bespeak a sad, bitter situation:
During the money counting the Senior Warden's hands and lips were trembling. After the money had been counted,
Fr. Kushwara appeared. He told me [George Corshune, the author] that I should speak to Attorney Tankus about the letter,
which Kushwara had received the day before, forbidding him to conduct Liturgy on Mother's Day. Kushwara said he
would disregard an order from a Jewish lawyer like Tankus, telling him not to conduct an Orthodox Liturgy. I replied
that it was not an observer's business to speak with the lawyer.
"Please complain to Tankus directly,"
I said.
"I don't believe you," Kushwara replied. "You will see Tankus." Then he left.
After this, the observers stated, they departed hastily as the Committeemen were going from nervous to hostile.
Returning to the June 1st newspaper article, we find the following information about Fr. Kushwara’s plans for the future:
The settlement, however, does not preclude the possi-bility that Father Kushwara may attempt to set up a new parish
for the faction that supported him in more than two years of legal strife. His followers de-clined comment and Father
Kushwara said he could not comment on that report “at the present time.”
There was no delay
in setting up the new parish, St. Mary’s Carpatho-Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church in Yonkers. In its “Golden
Jubilee” book, Fr. Elias Kozar, Rector in 1990, records that St. Mary’s was founded on Memorial Day, May 30, 1940.
He goes on to say:
The Divine Services were celebrated initially on Sun-days by the Very Reverend John Kushwara, the
founding pastor, at the Y.M.C.A. on Riverdale Avenue. After several weeks, a house was purchased at 77 High Street,
to which a new structure was attached, and the overall building became Saint Mary’s Church and Rectory as one unit.
How many of Kushwara’s followers left Holy Trinity with him is not certain. Holy Trinity’s 1941 parish
history reports only this: “At that time there were 218 families in the parish. Because of the court cases,
as usually happens, his supporters left the parish.” However, several of Kushwara’s former parish
officers are found among the names of St. Mary’s founders, including Starosta Harry Korvach, Joseph Krusko, and John
Hodio.
Fr. Kushwara died on December 17, 1950, and to this day St. Mary’s reveres his
memory.
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