Source: Eastern American Diocese (ROCOR)
July 23, 2019
From July 12-14, Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America & New York performed an archpastoral visit and led the centennial jubilee celebrations of the Old Rite Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie, PA. On Saturday, July 13, His Eminence served the All-Night Vigil, and on Sunday, July 14, celebrated Divine Liturgy.
Concelebrating with the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad were Bishop John of Caracas & South America (administrator of the Old Rite ROCOR parishes), parish rector Archpriest Pimen Simon, Abbot German (Ciuba; rector of St. Stephen the First-Martyr Church on Old Forge, PA), Abbot Tikhon (Gayfudinov; rector of Holy Protection Skete in Buena, NJ; personal secretary to the Metropolitan), and Archpriest Theodore Jurewicz, Priest Hierotheus Popoff and Deacon Markel Wassell (parish clerics).
Two choirs sing the divine services in the traditional style. Many parishioners received Christ’s Holy Mysteries.
The parish of Holy Nativity Church was firstly established in 1916 by Russian Old Rite immigrants, arriving in the United States in the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. These were priestless Old Rite believers, known as "shore-dwellers." Many of those arriving immigrants settled in Erie, where there were jobs in mines and pulp mills. The factories were situated at the time on the shores of Lake Erie, north of the current church. Around 1916, community leaders decided to build a church. The first church was built in 1919, and dedicated to the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.
...Read the rest at Eastern American Diocese (ROCOR).
