Recently the
Father John Anderson and Father John Mancantelli
were at a local restaurant sharing coffee when they were
approached by a young man curious about their clerical garb.
They explained they were Orthodox priests.
The young man then inquired: " 'Do you believe in Jesus?' "
Mancantelli related this week.
"The Orthodox Church is so little known," he said without a
hint of understatement. "So we thought we would invite the
community to come visit us."
Orthodoxy means "right belief" or "right worship" and was
for a millennium the original and only Christian church. The
Great Schism of 1054 split the church between east and west
- Constantinople and Rome. The split continues to this day,
despite efforts at rapprochement since the 1970s. The new
pope, Benedict XVI, has declared it a goal of his papacy to
bring the two closer together.
Mancantelli and his congregation at St. Nicholas of South
Canaan Orthodox Church are hosting an open house Nov. 5 from
3-5 p.m. followed by Vespers, the canonical hour that
celebrates the new day in the Eastern tradition. Anderson is
a retired pastor.
The Billings church, under the umbrella of the Orthodox
Church in America, is home to many ethnic traditions -
Russian, Serbian and Syrian. The Greek Orthodox Church in
the United States is affiliated with Patriarchate in
Constantinople.
The OCA, however, welcomes all Orthodox traditions and St.
Nicholas includes Serbs, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians,
Russians and Ukrainians. Former members were Egyptian Copts.
Mancantelli serves a mission church in Helena, which has
eight members.
Half of the hundred-plus members of the Billings parish are
from the ethnic churches and half are converts, said
Mancantelli, a convert himself.
The congregation was formed in Billings in 1988. In 1999, it
moved into the church at 401 Lewis Ave. The building
formerly housed a congregation of the Reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the
Community of Christ).
The parish is named after St. Nicholas of South Canaan, Pa.
Nicholas was a Serbian bishop who was imprisoned at the
Dachau concentration camp during World War II. Surviving the
Nazi brutality, Nicholas came to the United States were he
was a teacher and writer. He died in 1956 and was canonized
in 1987.
For the visitors, Mancantelli will give a brief introduction
to the Orthodox faith and answer questions. The choir will
sing selected hymns. The bookstore and library will be open
and refreshments served.
The physical structure has been enhanced with paint and new
carpets, Mancantelli said. Numerous icons, reproductions and
originals, cover the walls and the iconostasis, or icon
screen, in front of the altar. The iconostasis is from the
Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral in Los Angeles and stood witness
to the funeral of Russian classical composer Sergei
Rachmaninoff.
"It was originally part of a movie set, so it is of humble
origins," Mancantelli said laughing. Of the original icons
in the church, many were painted by a classmate of the
priest who was ordained in 1974. Icons are sacred paintings
that tell the Gospel stories in pictures and symbolism and
originated as a way to convey the Gospel to the illiterate.
It was as a graduate student in Byzantine history that he
first became interested in the Orthodox religion,
Mancan-telli said.
"There was no epiphany. It was a dawning awareness. I wanted
to have a job in service of the church."
He is married to Clara, who was raised in the Armenian
Orthodox Church. Orthodox priests must marry before they are
ordained. Those who do not take a wife before they are
ordained are then required to remain celibate.
"We want a priest to be mature and have the big decisions
behind him before he is ordained," he said. Bishops come
from the male monastic ranks.
The Mancantellis have four children: a son and a daughter
who are monastics, and two daughters who are married. There
are two grandchildren and another expected next year.
Mancantelli said, "People should understand that the
Orthodox Church is not a museum. It represents fidelity to
the past as we strive to live according to the teachings of
Jesus Christ in the present."
Because of their small numbers, the OCA is not very
organized and does not speak with one voice, Mancantelli
said. The bishop in charge of Billings is in Los Angeles
with an auxiliary bishop in Berkeley, Calif. Neither has a
full-time secretary.
"We ignore the issues and are not involved in society," he
said.
Those who have questions about the open house may call
254-1194.
Contact Jim Gransbery at
ggransbery@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1288.
By JIM GRANSBERY Of The Gazette Staff
Published on Saturday, October 29, 2005.
