|
CHAPTER VI
HOLY TRINITY FACES NEW REALITIES
All available evidence indicates that
Fr. Pishtey spent the last years of his pastorate with a peaceful, happy and involved congregation. Minutes of parish
and church committee meetings demonstrate that he was keeping everything orderly and under control. Press coverage was
still good. The Yonkers newspaper gave the church a large spread at Orthodox Easter in 1971 and on Fr. Pishtey’s
golden wedding anniversary in 1972, less than six months before his death.
By the close of the sixties,
however, greater societal changes were beginning to affect Holy Trinity. Determined as the younger generation of adults
might be to keep their parents’ and grandparent’s parish alive, the demographic shifts described in Chapter V
were undoubtedly taking their toll on church enrollment and finances.
Also, the Church that governed their parish
was under-going certain transformations. During Fr. Pishtey’s late tenure, it would drop the “Russian”
and “Greek Catholic” part of its denominational name. There would be some rather sweeping reforms, too,
in the areas of the church calendar, liturgical language, and composition and election of church committees, or parish councils.
As seen in the preceding chapter, Fr. Pishtey had long since taken the parish through the transition
to English church services. This apparently caused no notable con-flict or loss of laity; indeed, the contrary was ostensibly
the case. However, calendar change and parish council eli-gibility presented certain problematic aspects that did not so easily
resolve themselves.
The former question had arisen as early as 1967 at Holy Trinity, when calendar
change had been discussed at their annual membership meeting. This is what they re-ported to Metropolitan Ireney:
On the question of “Change of Calendar” the meeting decided to defer action until the following All-American
Church Sobor at which time, having the di-rection of our Sobor of Bishops and the decision of the All-American Sobor, we shall
make our determina-tion. This same ruling applied to the question of the change in the name of our Church.
Their reservation of judgment on going from “Russian Ortho-dox Greek Catholic” to simply “Orthodox”
in their denomina-tional designation and on the calendar change might be a sign of strong feelings abroad in the congregation
at this time. There is no record of the former change creating a major controversy. The latter would stir
feelings – feel-ings that persist to this day among HTROC’s older members – when it came to affect the traditional
Russian celebration of Christmas on January 7th, but its implementation was still fifteen years away – and, as well
shall now see, there were more pressing realities to deal with at the Yonkers parish.
•
“We have some rough spots.”
Within the next three years, the effects of broader conditions were being
felt at Holy Trinity, particularly in the areas of church enrollment and finances. Membership numbers were dropping,
and parish funding was becoming a problem.
At the 1971 annual membership meeting, the treasurer’s report revealed
a total cash balance of just over $5,000, with more than $3,500 in outstanding debts. Senior Warden Russell Kantor stated
“that the income was not enough to carry the Church.”
It was at this point
that the parish bingo, instituted sometime before 1965 as an auxiliary fund-raising activity (cf. supra p. 211), began to
assume major importance. Hav-ing heard that “we have applied to bingo for funds,” Treas-urer Ed Wirchansky
“suggested having bingo pay for mainte-nance and salaries.” Thus bingo was to become an indispen-sable
part of the parish’s funding picture – and so it re-mains today.
Statistics reported at
this meeting reflected a de-cline in parish membership from what had been recorded throughout the previous three decades.
There were now 196 families and 185 unmarried adults on the HTROC roles. Fifty-one people had stopped paying their membership
dues and had been “removed from the files.” It was suggested that the 500-member figure being used for the
diocesan as-sessment be revised accordingly. Forty-nine children were currently enrolled in Church School. Five
boys had dropped out of the Scout troop. There were only fifteen non-committee members attending the parish meeting
that day.
Two possible areas of friction between parishioners and hierarchy emerged from Fr.
Pishtey’s report on the re-cent All-American Sobor. The participation of Masons in lay governance was one; the
calendar question was another. Both these issues were under debate in the newly autocepha-lous Orthodox Church in America
(O.C.A.).
“The question of the calendar was much discussed,” Fr. Pishtey reported, “and feelings
were high.” In fact the motion to go from the old Julian calendar to the revised “Gregorian”
one, which would synchronize the O.C.A.’s cele-bration of such fixed feasts as Christmas with that of the Greek Orthodox
and Roman Catholics, had been defeated; and the bishops would delay action on it for another decade.
If the calendar
issue raised any feelings at the HTROC parish meeting of December 26, 1971, the minutes do not re-flect it. On the other
hand, the Masonry question did elicit concern:
Victor Kusiak announced that he was confused as to who was for and who
was against masonry [sic]. Fa-ther advised the members that some priests fought very bitterly for it [at the Sobor]
and all the bish-ops were against it. Al Fedak told the committee that Masons are taught to support the Church and some
Churches have masons [sic] on their committees be-cause no one else will serve. Father said in closing that the most
important thing right now is tolerance and understanding. We must meet and talk things over. The Church teaching
has always been non-masonic.
As judged from this, there must have been some Masons among HTROC’s members
at the time, perhaps even on its governing board; but there is no further documented evidence that their eventual elimination
from parish government through-out the O.C.A. caused any major rifts in the Yonkers con-gregation.
No, it was the more immediate problems of maintaining the parish under changing demographic and economic condi-tions
that would occupy most of its attention throughout the next two decades. HTROC’s ability to weather this storm
would rise and fall upon the determination and soli-darity of its leaders.
With new realities dawning upon it,
the annual parish meeting of 1971 ended with an expression of both these strengths. Senior Warden Russell Kantor concluded
his words by saying “that we have some few rough spots but we always come out on top.” To this note
of determination, Fr. Pishtey added one of solidarity: “We can master our-selves and take the bumps,” he
said. “We have some rough spots but the best part is making up and … we are all up to the job.”
It was not long after this that Fr. Pishtey entered a period of illness that would take his life. During these last
weeks Bishop Theodosius, future Metropolitan of the O.C.A., served the liturgy at Holy Trinity in Fr. Pishtey’s stead.
Fr. Pishtey’s passing was marked with all the solem-nity that the Church could muster. An honor guard attended
his vigil, and the choirs of St. Vladimir’s and of St. Tik-hon’s Seminaries joined their voices to those of the
parish choir for his funeral rites and requiem. Every Church dig-nitary from Metropolitan Ireney on down was, of course,
present. The Yonkers press covered this with a large pho-tographic spread.
•
Holy Trinity after Fr. Pishtey
The Friday following Fr. Pishtey’s death on November 2,
1972, a notice was posted on the door of the hall that read: “No bingo tonight, due to death of priest.”
If, as one account has it, this was a last-minute decision by the bingo committee, it is just one more indicator of how vital
a component bingo had become in parish financing!
This in no sense denigrates the activity or those
in-volved in it. It simply points to a parish that was find-ing new ways to cope with its changing environment.
The minutes of its public meetings over the next few years pro-vides a good review of the problems Holy Trinity faced and
the coping mechanisms it used to meet them.
A week after Fr. Pishtey’s committals were concluded,
the Church Committee called a special meeting, whose main concern was the procurement of a new Rector. No member of
the clergy was present, though District Dean Fr. Daniel Hu-biak, soon to become Fr. Pishtey’s successor as O.C.A. Na-tional
Chancellor, had offered to meet with them; and it was pointed out that the present meeting should not have been convened without
him.
The urgency of finding a priest evoked financial prob-lems, especially with regard to membership
assessment pay-ments. One committee member noted “that if we do not pay our obligations, we would not get a priest.”
A proposed move to bring the parish up-to-date on its levy, however, was voted down.
The next Committee
meeting was held on a more formal footing with Fr. Alvian Smerensky presiding as one of sev-eral interim priests. Issues
related to the search for a Rector were in themselves a sign of the changing times. The neighborhood had become such
that “a priest with chil-dren [would] not want to come to this location unless we provide for a private school for them.”
A compensation package of $15,000 per annum was agreed upon and adopted, after it had been made clear
that fees for religious services performed away from the parish church would go to the priest. In spite of this,
the next month produced no candidate for the Rectory.
“The Metropolitan,” reported Fr.
Youschak, presiding over the parish’s annual meeting in January of 1973, “is quite concerned about the specific
needs that are required for a pastor for our parish. So far, there have been 13 contacts and only 3 replies. Many
do not wish to submit themselves as a candidate.”
This same meeting gives signs
of an ongoing membership problem. Although 679 people were still on the rolls, 74 letters had gone out to people delinquent
on their dues payments. Youth statistics were all the more portentous. In addition to the existing decline in
the boy scout pro-gram, Sunday school attendance was down to twenty-five, with only two teachers actively participating.
The person then in charge of the program resigned, with the expecta-tion that the yet unfound new Rector would assume responsi-bility
for it.
Suburban flight was having its effects on parish youth life. Although the parish meeting
minutes say nothing of this, it must have been apparent by then that Russian Or-thodox children were becoming ever scarcer
in the neighbor-hood. As the December 13th minutes revealed, the Hollow’s schools were no longer considered suitable.
Parents living in ever more distant suburbs and enrolling their young in private schools would – it is reasonable to
assume – trans-port them with ever less frequency to the old parish for sports, scouts, and other “extracurricular”
pursuits.
Not only this, but when a proposal to expand the church grounds came before the meeting,
one objection was that “expansion was out of the question since we have few people showing up at our affairs.”
Holy Trinity was no longer a place for adults to gather in their leisure hours, any more than it was for their children.
The one exception to all this was bingo, which contin-ued to thrive during these years. Volunteers
for the bingo committee increased, as did the proceeds going into bank accounts from it. At the Church Committee meeting
of the following month, the bingo chairman reported thirteen new recruits for his committee; and a suggestion was made that
“the bingo money should be spread in several banks.” A month later the Committee meeting, presided
over by newly appointed Rector Vadim Pogrebniak, received news of record bingo revenues that had netted over $1,200.00 in
the last four weeks.
• 75 Years Old and “Not getting any younger”
By the beginning of 1974, the parish’s anniversary year, bingo reigned supreme. The
annual membership meeting learned that almost half a million dollars had been raised through bingo in its eleven years of
existence. Of this over $300,000.00 had gone to support parish expenditures, leaving a balance of almost $200,000.00
in the bank. In the previous year alone bingo had brought in over $57,000.00.
On the other hand, bingo proceeds
would become in-creasingly encumbered. There was an outstanding mortgage balance of over $59,000.00 on the Educational
Building and Rectory. Parish maintenance, seminary support, and capital additions were estimated at approximately $20,000.00
for the coming year.
Furthermore, all depended on an aging volunteer group. The Bingo
Committee literally kept the parish afloat at this time, but as its chairman pointed out: “Most of the members
are the same as eleven years ago and they are not getting any younger. We are not getting younger people to join.”
This was hardly surprising in view of population dis-placement away from the Hollow, which was taking
its toll on the parish’s youth in general. The Boy Scout program was by now moribund, as the report from that
sector re-vealed: “The boy scouts had a very successful year al-though they are leaving, and others must replace
them; oth-erwise we may have to drop the scouts.”
While Fr. Pogrebniak’s involvement
in the Sunday school program had raised its numbers somewhat, the general trend in parish membership was still sliding.
As it ap-proached its 75th anniversary, Holy Trinity was down to 400 members in good standing; and delinquency rates on the
per capita assessment, now standing at $15.00 per year for mem-bers of Holy Trinity, had hardly abated. Even the turnout
for the Annual Meeting foreboded no good: “Father thanked everyone for attending but expressed disappointment that in
a parish this size, only about fifty people have attended the parish meeting.”
With more people
rushing back from Sunday services to ever remoter suburban homes, which in due course would ex-tend as far away as Connecticut,
fewer and fewer were likely to remain in the Hollow for Sunday afternoon activi-ties of any kind – even a membership
meeting.
This was the state of Holy Trinity when it completed its first three-quarters of a century.
Its local Slavic population base was dwindling, and – as was seen in Chapter V – was being replaced by ethnic
groups that had nothing in common with it in terms of history, race, or language.
Such is reflected
in the parish’s 75th anniversary sou-venir book, which tends to evoke more past glories than fu-ture prospects.
The parish history section basically re-produces those of earlier years and provides no information on the present state of
things. Photographs from the past compete strongly with those of the present. From the lat-ter are gone boy scouts,
basketball teams, and cheerlead-ers. The largest group pictured is, predictably, that of the Bingo Staff.
In summary, the seventies brought home to Holy Trinity the same realities that many other American parishes built
for the former immigrant “ghettos” were facing throughout the old industrial North. During the succeeding
decade its people were to wage a valiant war to keep their church alive, but their valor needed to be matched by consistent
pastoral leadership. The gap produced by Fr. Pishtey’s death, after 32 years as Rector, would not soon be filled;
and without pastoral continuity to direct the people’s en-ergies, their struggle with the new environment could eas-ily
be diverted into internal strife.
|
