Orthodox priest is able to return home for the holy days
His grandparents once worshiped there
As many Orthodox Christians prepared to mark Christmas on Saturday, the holy day had a particularly poignant meaning for one priest.
The Very Rev. Nicholas Ferencz led his first Christmas liturgy at St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church in Rankin — the parish of his grandparents.
Father Ferencz has served much of his 36-year ministry in churches around Pennsylvania, but he was recently assigned to St. Michael. He presided at his first Divine Liturgy of the Nativity of our Lord at that parish, whose interior looks much as it did in his grandparents’ day.
Although he grew up attending a different church with his parents in McKeesport, he recalls frequent visits to his grandparents. The local parishes shared many ethnic traditions, he said.
“It all feels like I’m back in the neighborhood, I’m back in the family,” said Father Ferencz, whose new parishioners even include a third cousin. “It has a very familiar feel to it.”
The parish is part of the Johnstown-based American CarpathoRussian Orthodox Diocese of the USA, with roots in an immigrant Slavic group from a region straddling present-day Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary.
Many of this group’s original immigrants “in the whole Pittsburgh area, especially this area of Braddock and McKeesport and Rankin, came from the same general area,” said Father Ferencz. “There are a lot of similarities in customs and traditions.”
While some Orthodox churches use the same Western calendar that Catholics and Protestants do, others use the older Julian calendar, which puts Dec. 25 some 13 days later, or Jan. 7 on the Western calendar. Most such churches also hold Christmas Eve services.
Those celebrating under the old calendar include many Orthodox with Slavic roots, such as Russian, Ukrainian,
Serbian and Carpatho-Russian churches, as well as others, such as Coptic churches. Still other Orthodox churches, such as the Greek Orthodox, use the same date as Western churches for Christmas.
Father Ferencz previously led other southwestern Pennsylvania parishes as well as in Scranton, and he also was a dean at Christ the Saviour Seminary in Johnstown.
“Father Nik shares his extensive knowledge of biblical and religious history with our parishioners, but we also appreciate his intimate understanding of the challenges of daily life in a former mill town,” said parishioner Christina Duranko.