Orthodox Reflections

Sub Deacon Michael Boyar is a member of the board of directors of Share the Faith, a pan Orthodox ministry that funds and promotes Orthodox missions. He evidently knows a lot about the topic of missions, because he saved the parish of SS Peter and Paul in Detroit MI from certain death. In a recent post, entitled Orthodox Parishes in Danger of Closure Can be Saved!, Sub Deacon Michael tells the story of turning around his parents’ urban Rust Belt parish that had fallen on hard times. The previous rector had chosen to renovate the old, dilapidated parish hall to the tune of over a half-million dollars. The parish had been in demographic decline for some time, so that 7K a month burden proved the breaking point. The rector retired abruptly, and people started to leave.

This one parish story vividly illustrates problems that all too commonly plague Orthodoxy in the United States. Urban decay has caused many parishes to lose their natural population base. As once thriving neighborhoods got poorer over the past few decades, many people who could afford it have chosen to move to better locations. That included many members of the local “ethnic” communities that had founded, and sustained, many “ethnic” urban Orthodox parishes. These urban Orthodox parishes thus found themselves in completely altered neighborhoods surrounded by people of new races and ethnicities. Unfortunately, quite a few could not cope. Too many parishes had no meaningful plan of evangelism to reach the newcomers around them.  Cursed with too many deaths and not enough baptisms, often combined with poor financial decisions, many older Orthodox parishes have found themselves on the road to closure.

Which is probably how this story of SS Peter and Paul would have ended, had not Sub Deacon Michael Boyar stepped in. We recommend reading the whole post, but below we provide analysis of some of the keys to his success that everyone interested in Orthodox Evangelism should consider.

1) Make a Plan

Sub Deacon Michael formulated a plan for how to save the parish. He undoubtedly understood that you get absolutely nowhere without a map to your destination.  While having a plan might seem like common sense, it really isn’t. In Church, we often hear things like, “God will provide” or “God will show us the way”, as we sit tight and keep failing at what we already failed at repeatedly. How is God supposed to inspire you, when you are not even searching for inspiration? God can perform miracles, but those who count on that as Plan A are often disappointed. Sub Deacon Michael made a plan. He came up with a way to get started, which opened the door for God to bless and guide his work going forward.

2) Getting Support at All Levels

Sub Deacon Michael took his plan and met with Archbishop JOB. He presented it to His Eminence, and got his blessing to take up the challenge. Any transformation plan is likely to be a long, hard road. Executive support is critical. Having the local bishop on his side, Sub Deacon then presented his plan to the parish itself at an offsite meeting. While there had to be much pain in that room, Sub Deacon Michael was able to get the parish enthusiastic about his plan. That also is essential to success.  Leaders can’t lead where the followers won’t follow.

3) Orthodox Spirituality Comes First

Sub Deacon’s plan had a lot of important elements, but the most critical one was providing as many services as possible. Here is how he phrased it:

We started our “New Attitude” in November, 2009 and continued with as many services as we could. If there was no priest available, we did a Reader’s Service – even on weekday Holy Days; and then enjoyed coffee and a special treat for coming to church.

So much to unpack in just two short sentences. Above all, Divine Services are essential, whether reader services or Divine Liturgies. A Barna Group survey found that 60% of young Christians fall away from the tradition that raised them.  Research (along with 2,000 of years of Orthodox experience) indicates that those who stay in Church, and those who seek to convert, usually have two experiences in common. They have been influenced by someone who took Orthodoxy seriously, and they have had a real spiritual experience of God. Divine Services, followed by time together as a parish, facilitates both of these crucial needs.

Do not forsake the Divine Services, even if a priest is not available.  Too many missions make this mistake. When a priest is not available, reader services are much better than letting the Temple sit empty. Mission parishes can survive, grow, and develop primarily off reader services. St. Brendan the Voyager in Bullhead City, Arizona survived and grew for over 5 years with only occasional clergy support. During that time, the mission acquired a rental location, and even hand-carved their own iconostasis. By the way, regularly having reader services also teaches the parishioners how to do them in their own homes / home chapels. That is a tremendous skill to have for multiple reasons, as Abbott Tryphon recently reminded us. Temples can be closed again, as they were during the height of COVID. We could face persecution, as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is currently suffering. But on the positive side, reader services at home open the door to inviting our neighbors into our prayer life. If you are successful in bringing in friends and family to home services, that might even lay the groundwork for future missions!

We face today an epidemic of loneliness and lack of real human contact. Having coffee and fellowship, even after weekday services when not everyone has very much time, is another chance for the Church to repair the damaging isolation our society is inflicting on her flock. People need each other. It is also a great opportunity for the spiritually mature to guide and influence those that are newer, or weaker, in their Christian Faith.

This focus on facilitating fellowship with God and fellow Christians, even by itself, could have produced a miraculous turn around in a parish such as SS Peter and Paul. But Sub Deacon Michael had even more plans.

4) You Can’t Get Enough Fellowship

Our need for fellowship with others, particularly other Christians, is not confined to coffee after services. Sub Deacon Michael intentionally set out to make the parish an integral part of not only his people’s lives, but also that of the surrounding community in which the most likely future converts were to be found:

The plan is actually simple: I believe that we all have Our Circles of Friends, including Our Neighbors, Our Work/School peers, Parent Clubs, Community Centers, Sports, Music, Hobbies, and of course, Our Family Groups; so to have our special circle of friends at Church is a slam dunk! As much as we need God and everything that Orthodoxy provides us, we need each other and to develop a social community of our Orthodox Family and Friends.

 

To give you an idea, in December, we concentrated on cleaning the temple thoroughly and decorating with as much color and lights as possible. The place looked amazing! We also wanted to do something special for the neighborhood, so we organized a special date for COOKIES WITH SANTA. We were lucky to have a Mexican gentleman to play our bi-lingual Santa Claus, for the many children (and adults) who came to visit him from the parish and the neighborhood. In January, we had “DINNER AND A SHOW” featuring our church school children’s YOLKA in performing the Nativity of our Lord, after they served dinner to all the folks who attended. In February, we started with a SOUPER BOWL brunch and contest, and again our Family Dinner on Valentine’s Day. In March, we had our annual BLINI BRUNCH on Forgiveness Sunday and a quite impressive RUMMAGE SALE (first one in several years). Everything was PASCHA IN APRIL, including teaching the art of PYSANKY and an exquisite dinner on Palm Sunday. People worked hard cleaning and decorating for the Holiest of Holy Days, and it showed! In May, we had our CHURCH SCHOOL GRADUATION (with announcements for the bigger kids), and a first class Dinner to celebrate.

What a lovely mix of activities and outreach to the neighborhood surrounding the parish! Sub Deacon Michael even thought of the need to use Spanish as a way to make neighborhood children and parents feel more welcome. Notice, as well, that there are some “ethnic” activities, but of the fun and inclusive variety. (Good food of any type brings people together!) The activities, however, follow the Church calendar and are never treated as substitutes for Orthodox Spirituality, but as complements to serve the needs of the whole person as made by God. The Sub Deacon is describing a warm, vibrant, welcoming place that people want come and be a part of.

There were a lot more activities, but let’s move on to the last important topic.

5) The Community Needs Your Help and You Need to Help the Community

The Epistle of James tells us in 2:26 that, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.”  A Christian community should shine brightly as a place of help, a place of hope, a place of service to others.  Parishes that are closed in on themselves, focused only on their own problems, do not attract others to the Faith. Christians are called to service in this world, even as we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. Sub Deacon Michael’s plan for SS Peter and Paul did not neglect the need for Christians to serve:

We also got involved with various organizations in the neighborhood (IE: Michigan Avenue Business Association, Southwest Detroit Business Association, City of Detroit Election Bureau, and by invitation of +JOB, I attended the first Urban Parish Summit in Cleveland, Ohio). We reactivated the Ladies Altar Guild, St Nicholas Men’s Club, and worked on plans for an updated Library and Bookstore.

People will not believe that Orthodoxy can make a difference in their lives, unless they first see it transform the already Orthodox. 

The statement below is from the current SS Peter and Paul Website, and perfectly reflects the life of service to which all Orthodox Christians are called:

The inner-city ministry adopts a model of the parish/church community purposefully wed to the outreach ministries in the immediate neighborhood. This assumes a church purposely planted in the inner city, or a repurposed existing congregation which then provides the Orthodox in the greater urban area an opportunity to “plant” and support an Urban Mission among the poor.

 

In either case, the “ecclesia,” the gathering together of the faithful mission congregation, carries an added dynamic and a wonderful dimension.

 

The inner city Mission Church has the same core vision as all Orthodox Churches. We are called together to participate in the divine life through the Sacramental & Liturgical life of the Church; we grow in our understanding of the Faith through Pastoral preaching, and teaching ; we learn to take up our cross daily and follow Christ through the living tradition of our disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We seek our salvation through repentance and reconciliation.

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The inner city Mission Church has an added dynamic and wonderful dimension. It provides opportunity for Orthodox Christians to mature in their faith and love, to become more Christ like in sacrificial love through their focused mission to build Christ-centered community in the midst of poverty. From the kenosis (self-emptying love) of Christ’s Birth in the cave, through His ministry “having no place to lay His head” Jesus, the Son of Man, identified with the poor and was found in their midst.

While many Americans are writing-off our cities entirely, faithful Orthodox Christians are there serving the people in need of food, assistance, and most of all – Christ.

Conclusion

Needless to say, the parish started growing again and continues to survive. In fact, the parish is fundraising for a new kitchen and even had one of their own seminarians ordained to the holy Diaconate!

Before we close, let’s contrast that happy story with a tragic one. On July 18th, 2023 a Hindu temple and cultural center opened in a building that was formerly the cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America’s Bulgarian Diocese of Toledo. Located in Rossford, Ohio, the building where the Holy Eucharist was once celebrated is now a pagan temple. From the outside, the building still retains its distinctive Orthodox architecture, but it has now been profaned by demonic rituals.

How could this happen? Much the same as what happened to SS Peter and Paul. Commenting on Twitter, former parishioners talked of an ambitious building program the parish could not afford. They talked of losing their fulltime priest, because they couldn’t pay both his salary and the operating expenses. Unlike SS Peter and Paul, however, there was no Sub Deacon Michael to come up with a plan to save them. They were not able to grow, despite their impressive temple space. In the end, they sold the building and reorganized as a mission to serve the parishioners who were left.

The tragedy in Ohio is just one example of a paradoxical situation in American Orthodoxy. Even as the Orthodox Church is generally characterized by growth and vitality, many older parishes (along with too many missions) are in mortal danger of closing. This does not have to happen. SS Peter and Paul’s example proves a lesson we all need to learn – no matter where a parish is located, it can thrive. We can take that a step further and say – no matter where we plant an Orthodox mission, it can thrive. There is not one person for whom Christ did not die. Not one person for whom the Orthodox Faith is not the fullness of the Gospel. No matter whom you find outside your temple doors, remember that all of them really belong inside with you.

While keeping the example of SS Peter and Paul in mind, please also remember that Share the Faith offers financial support to struggling missions and parishes to help them keep their priests. Many priests resort to secular work to make ends meet when their parish or mission is unable to afford a livable salary. This drains the priest, curtails the services offered, and hurts the priest’s homelife. Reader services are a good option when no fulltime priest is available. However, for those missions / troubled parishes that have a priest attached, it is far better to keep that priest at the altar as much as possible. To that end, please consider donating to Share the Faith which is currently providing financial support for 7 missions / turnaround parishes, and plans to support many more over the next year. Also, if your parish / mission needs help to fulfill the Great Commission, have your priest apply for it. No Orthodox parish or mission should ever close its doors or lose its fulltime priest again.

–Alexander Kowal is a cradle Orthodox Christian of mixed Slavic parentage, a veteran, and a corporate lawyer with a passion for supporting Orthodox missionary efforts in the United States