Chicago, August 31, 2017
Photo: saintdemetrioslibertyville.com The Liturgy will be celebrated by His Grace Bishop Paul (OCA-Midwest) and other Chicago hierarchs and area clergy. The homily will be delivered by His Grace Bishop Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Eastern America. The service will be sung by the Pan-Orthodox Choir of Greater Chicago.
Today, there are nearly 80 Orthodox parishes in the greater Chicago area. The Orthodox presence in the area began in the late 1800s when the “Greco Slavonic Brotherhood” was created, including immigrants mainly from Sparta, Corfu, Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Carpatho-Russians and Galicians from then Austro-Hungarian Empire. Priests arrived in 1892, and St. Vladimir’s Church, which is today’s Holy Trinity OCA Cathedral, Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, and Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Church were created.
The 125th anniversary of Holy Trinity OCA Cathedral was earlier celebrated over the weekend of June 10-11 with parish tours, an ethnic dinner, and the celebration of the Saturday night Vigil and the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy on Sunday celebrated by His Grace Bp. Paul. Several saints have worship and celebrated at the cathedral, including St. John (Kochurov), St. Tikhon of Moscow, and St. Alexis Toth. The cathedral was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and designated an official City of Chicago Landmark in 1979.
Chicago was the home to the famous Russian wonderworking Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God for nearly six decades. During the World War II German occupation, the Nazis removed the icon from the Tikhvin Monastery, from whence it was taken to Pskov and subsequently to Riga, Latvia. When Riga was evacuated, His Grace, Bishop John [Garklavs] of Riga—later Archbishop of Chicago and Minneapolis—in whose care the icon was placed, took the icon to Bavaria, where it was venerated by Orthodox faithful who had been displaced because of the war. While Soviet agents had spotted the icon, Bishop John was permitted to take the icon to the US in 1949, where it was venerated for many years at Chicago’s Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago. After Archbishop John’s repose in 1982, Archpriest Sergei Garklavs, his adopted son and Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, became the icon’s guardian. In July 2004, the icon was returned to Russia and once again enshrined in the Tikhvin Monastery.
