babochka:
We are an extremely tiny Parish , just 15 families
If you don’t mind me asking, as this is a very small group.
What’s the parish history? Was the parish much larger until industry moved away?
Or are you a newer parish constructed in the Sun Belt founded by economic refugees from up here?
We were founded as a mission in 1966 and established as a parish in 1968. Our parish was always small, but in the early years was attended by both Ukrainians and Ruthenian. In the 1980s, a Ukrainian Parish was established locally, resulting in a significant reduction in the size of our congregation.
It is really a miracle that we have managed to continue for as long as we have. This was my childhood parish. My family stopped attending when I was in 5th or 6th grade because we were attending a Roman Catholic School, which was across the street from our house. The Byzantine Church was a 30-minute drive away. Mostly, though, it wasn’t the drive. It was the involvement in parish activities that comes along with going to the Parish School.
I returned to the parish part-time in my late 20s. It was difficult because I was involved in a Roman Catholic parish , teaching catechism and working with the youth group . But I missed it so much and I knew when I attended my first Divine Liturgy after more than a decade that I was home . My parents followed me a few years later.
When I first returned, there were about 6 people in the church, including the priest. We didn’t have a full-time, resident priest for almost 10 years. It’s made it hard to attract new parishioners because the Liturgy was not always at a consistent time. When I got married, I brought my husband to visit. As we started to have children, raising them in the Byzantine Rite became more and more important to me, but my husband wasn’t terribly on board with the idea. He didn’t mind visiting once a month or so, but he did not ennvision himself as a Byzantine Catholic.
The bottom line was that the parish was important to me and if people like us did not make a commitment to it, it would not continue to exist. So I guess that is kind of making the point of people who say that they get aggravated by people who come around and just hang out with her feet in the water and never really jump in. But I have a lot of sympathy for those situations. We are a parish that requires commitment. In addition to the long drive just to get to church, we’re going to ask you, personally, to help out. We’re going to have cleaning days because we don’t have a janitor. We’re going to have fundraisers and ask the parishioners to do secretarial work, because we don’t have any paid staff. We have a lot to offer, but we don’t have programs and committees and regularly scheduled ECF classes.
These days, our weekly attendance runs around 60 souls. Visitors really excite us. That’s not too bad, but 15 families really can’t pay the bills. We get a lot of outside support, thanks be to God!
