 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Greek Orthodox church schism affects burials A bitter dispute put two St. Michael parishes where once there was one. A flash point now is uncertainty over a cemetery and burial rites Sunday, February 11, 2001 By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
CLYMER, Pa. -- By Judy Klein's telling, the episode was despair deepening at every turn.
It was Dec. 27. Word came that her 80-year-old aunt died in Sandusky, Ohio.
The woman was the sister -- and, for years, tight companion -- to Klein's 75-year-old mother, Veronica Wanchisn.
But six hours later, before Klein could break the news to her mother at the Greensburg, Ind., home they shared, Wanchisn died too -- unexpectedly, of a heart attack.
The sisters were returned to their native Indiana County for burial.
But there, Klein said, she was first told that her mother could not be buried alongside her father at St. Michael Orthodox Greek Catholic Cemetery.
It was fallout from a 4-year-old dispute that split the church into two congregations and drew her mother to the breakaway parish, Klein figured. No, it was simply a misconception, stirred by the confusion of the moment, a church official said.
The way was cleared for the burial. But the Jan. 2 service -- on a day when the temperature topped out at 22 degrees -- was barred from the cemetery chapel and relegated to an outdoor tent. And the Rev. George Mitchell, pastor of the breakaway parish Wanchisn joined, was banned from officiating.
"My mother had said to him, 'Father George, I want you to bury me,' " Klein said. "I said, 'Father George, you're going to do it, even if you do the service from the roadside.' And he said, 'Judy, I can't. They've forbidden me.'
"It just seemed like somebody was trying to break me."
By some forecasts, though, this could be the last storm before the calm as the 3-year-old battle for control of a 94-year-old parish, part of the American Carpatho-Russian Greek Catholic Church, leaves the courts and is settled in detente.
It's a newly forged truce in a fight that flared over retention of the parish's longtime pastor, broke St. Michael church into two unrelated congregations, saw 14 members of the original parish excommunicated and chilled friendships in Clymer, an old, Indiana County coal town of 1,500 people.
"Everybody is living with the results of the outcome," said the Rev. Frank Miloro, chancellor for the American Carpatho-Russian's 75-church diocese, based in Johnstown. "They seem content."
For the most part.
There is only an oral commitment for now over use of the church cemetery, and that has bred unease.
But the legal dispute -- which pitted diocesan loyalists against dissidents, started in county Common Pleas Court and worked its way through appellate courts -- officially ended last week with clerical housekeeping. Church records were transferred back to St. Michael church from dissident church officers who were deemed guilty of causing a parish split and were subsequently excommunicated by the diocesan leader, Metropolitan Nicholas.
"There really aren't any other battles to fight," said Thomas Bianco, a lawyer representing the breakaway parish
"This should close the book," said diocesan attorney Michael Vaporis of Indiana, Pa.
In the aftermath, what was once 190-member St. Michael Orthodox Greek Catholic Church remains, still in control of its 70-year-old church building, still part of the Johnstown diocese, with about half its congregation remaining.
The breakaway congregation -- with at least 90 members, according to Mitchell -- is now St. Michael's Mission Church, aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. It worships just past the edge of town, in an office converted into a church. Members are working to replace it with a permanent church.
And, by Klein's reckoning, that might have exacerbated trouble for her mother. The woman's obituary asked that memorial contributions go to the St. Michael's Mission Church Building Fund.
"I think they were trying to get back at me," she said.
The Rev. Robert Salley, pastor of St. Michael Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, said he was barred from talking about the case, even though it's being settled.
When her family arrived in Indiana County to make funeral arrangements, an anonymous caller to a cousin's house said the cemetery was not available, Klein said.
St. Michael Church controls the cemetery, six acres deeded over to the church by Clearfield Bituminous Coal Co. to help bury victims of a 1929 mine explosion. According to Miloro, the church never denied Wanchisn the right to be buried next to her husband.
"I think there was confusion. From the outset, we never denied them use," he said.
"Diocese policy is not to fight over burying people," Vaporis said. "If the grandmother is in the cemetery, and the grandfather wants to be buried, we'd allow it, even if he's not Orthodox and not in good standing."
But Miloro said the diocese banned Mitchell from officiating at the cemetery -- part of the refusal by the American Carpatho-Russian church and companion churches to recognize the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia as Orthodox.
"A nonorthodox priest is not allowed to perform services," Vaporis said.
"My mother specifically asked for him," Klein said. "But he said, 'Judy, I've been forbidden to set foot in the cemetery.' "
Instead, the diocese assigned a priest living 14 miles away -- a clergyman Klein said she didn't know at first, but who turned out to be an aunt's brother-in-law.
She wanted Mitchell to do the service, Klein said, but the replacement worked nicely.
Still, absent a written agreement between the two churches and diocesan assurances, members of St. Michael's Mission Church remain uneasy about future burials, said Fred Julock, vice president of the Mission Church board.
"There are quite a few members of the Mission Church with spouses buried in St. Michael's cemetery," he said.
And Julock wonders about himself -- a man with family buried at St. Michael's Cemetery but one of the 14 excommunicated by Metropolitan Nicholas.
Nicholas has said nothing about that, Miloro said.
And he probably won't, Miloro predicted, until the situation arises.
|
||||||||
