Yule log tradition burns bright in Aliquippa
-
Parishioners from St. Elijah Serbian Orthodox Church in Aliquippa sing carols yesterday as they watch a fire burning a small oak tree for Badnji Day, the day before Orthodox Christmas.
Share with others:
A happy crowd huddled yesterday under the old picnic pavilion at the bottom of the cemetery hill, sweetly, softly singing a hymn in Serbian, buoyed against the wintertime damp by the prospect of Christmas Eve festivities and a few sips of strong fruit brandy.
Then a gun -- loaded with blanks -- loudly cracked one, two, three times. The forgetful jumped and, grinning, covered their ears. A white-haired priest, the Rev. Stevan Stepanov, strode forward and steadied a young oak tree, the church's yule log-to-be, or badnjak, just behind the shelter, as his friend, Rich Chesla, sawed through its trunk.
The two men carried the little tree, its dried leaves quaking with each step, over the concrete floor of the shelter and toward a waiting pickup truck, then paused.
"Hristos se rodi!" the priest proclaimed in a ringing bass voice.
"Vaistinu se rodi!" the crowd replied.
"Christ is born!" the priest said again, in English.
"Indeed, He is born!" his parishioners answered, in English.
They repeated the exchange once more, in Serbian, then loaded up the tree for its short pilgrimage to St. Elijah Serbian Orthodox Church in Aliquippa, where it was carried into the church hall and leaned against the stage, a symbol of Christ's youth and strength and a reminder that Christ said, "I am the trunk, you are the branches."
Later, Father Stepanov would anoint the tree with honey, wine and oil symbolizing the sweetness of Christ's teachings, the warmth of the Holy Spirit and the anointing of Christ.
As evening fell, members of the church, clutching their own sprigs of oak leaves to take home, would gather outside to be blessed, then burn the tree on a leaping bonfire, a symbol to them of Christ's crucifixion, its blowing sparks representing his teachings spreading out to the world.
Many Serbian families also celebrate American Christmas on Dec. 25 by giving gifts. But for Serbs, Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7 is the real holiday, their community's religious celebration.
"What happens is that this is like your bigger family, so you don't have to celebrate by yourself," said Mim Bizic, a member of St. Elijah.
A tradition for Serbian Orthodox churches throughout the world, including those in Pittsburgh communities such as Aliquippa, Midland, Monroeville, McKeesport, Clairton and Hermitage, the Serbian Orthodox Christmas Eve, or Badnji Day, and its rituals are -- like many things Serb -- wrapped in symbolism and history.
Following Serbia's defeat in 1389 by the Ottoman Turks on Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds, Turkish persecution forced the church underground, said Father Stepanov. Their churches in ruins, the Serbs celebrated Christ's birth by going into the woods to cut a yule log -- the otherwise innocuous act of cutting firewood transformed by symbolism and belief into a Christian celebration that could be observed secretly at home.
Carried to the United States by Serbian immigrants who came to work in its mills and factories, the tradition is still celebrated in churches and homes each year at dusk on Christmas Eve. (The Orthodox Christmas Eve is actually celebrated on what the Orthodox Church considers Dec. 25, according to the Julian calendar. The rest of the Western world, however, uses the Gregorian calendar in which Dec. 25 falls nearly two weeks earlier, leading to celebrations on different days.)
In the old country, men from the village would go into the woods to select a tree. In Aliquippa, church member George Vula of Center used to grab some friends and a pickup truck and go looking for a little oak tree along Interstate 60. Problem was, they had to keep a sharp eye out for state troopers.
"We had to stop that because we were getting stopped too much and our people were getting too old to be climbing up hills anymore," said Mr. Vula, now 78.
For the past 25 years or so, the church has planted an oak tree each spring to serve as a yule log later. And although the church has shrunk from 800 large families in the 1960s to about 500 smaller families today, many of its members continuing the tradition yesterday were people in their teens and 20s.
One of them, Natalia Paich, 27, left Aliquippa for an accounting job with Deloitte & Touche in New York City when she graduated from Penn State University in 2002. But her great-grandfathers and grandfathers on both sides of her family worked in the now-closed mills at Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. and the American Bridge Co., and her attachment to the region pulls her home several times a year.
"Every time I come home, I want to move back," said Ms. Paich, as little girls in white cardboard angel wings and tinsel halos sang carols on the hall's straw-covered stage, the straw a reminder of Christ's birthplace. "It's such a sense of community and belonging -- I'm always sad when I have to leave."
Correction/Clarification: (Published Jan. 9, 2008) This story on Orthodox Christmas Eve should have translated "Hristos se rodi" as "Christ is born" and "Vaistinu se rodi" as "Indeed, he is born." The story incorrectly translated the Serbian phrases as originally published on Jan. 7, 2008.
First Published January 7, 2008 12:00 am
