Archive: Around Town

Holy Apostles Orthodox Church celebrated its fifth anniversary Saturday with a passel of priests and The Most Reverend Michael, Archbishop of New York and the Diocese of New York & New Jersey.  The Saturday service attracted record attendance, and celebrations continued throughout the weekend.  Archbishop Michael participated in the two day celebration, lauding the congregation for growing the church and encouraging further growth through spiritual discipline and hard work.

"It's a glorious day when you look back on the fact that the Lord planted in this place a good community," said Archbishop Michael.  "A good parish, a good church.  Like the leaven that the Gospel speaks of we see what has happened here.  People have been chrismated.  Babies have been baptized.  Scores of people have come to the sacraments.  Outreach is being doing in the community and to those in need.  The face of Orthodoxy is being manifest in this area."


The church's priest of the past three and 3/4 years, Fr. James Worthington, says the church has grown exponentially from a dozen or more people in 2010 to 65 today.  He says the congregation has been enjoying a growth spurt, in part because the younger congregants are more open about sharing their religion with friends.

"We have these older folks for whom faith is a private matter," he says.  At an annual meeting in my third year here they said, 'This one college student is bringing all his friends.  How does he get them to come?'  I said, 'He's right there, why don't you ask him.'  He was texting on the phone and they asked, 'How do you get them to come?'  He said, 'You ask them.' and went back to texting.  Because him we've had at least five people join the church.  Then they invite people in, and they invite friends."

Fr. James has been a priest for six years.  He began as a priest at churches in Rahway, NJ and Herkimer, NY before moving to Lansing, which has proven a good fit for his family.  He replaced Father Timothy Halowatch, who commuted from Endicott to lead services in Lansing for the first 14 months.

"I just love what I do," he says.

In September Fr. James noticed that last Saturday, the exact anniversary date, was open on the Archbishop's calendar.  He invited him to be part of the celebration.  Local clergy also attended, including Fr. Tom from Saint Catherine's, three priests from Endicott, Fr. Jason from Elmira, and Fr. Michael from Auburn.  A deacon from Rochester and one from Herkimer also attended.  About 15 people sang in the choir, and the church burst with higher than usual attendance for a special service.

The anniversary service began at 10am Saturday.  At the end of the Liturgy the Archbishop was presented with a $555.00 donation to the Distinguished Dioceses  and Benefactors fund that is used to support struggling, aging parishes and mission parishes.  Everyone then retired to the Lansing Community Center for the food and community part of the celebration until 4pm, when they returned to the church for the Vespers service with Archbishop Michael.  He participated in Sunday's morning service as well.

The congregation has rented the old All Saints Catholic Church since the Lansing church was begun.  It is well suited to the Orthodox service.  As it turns out, that may not be a coincidence.  Fr. James says that when the salt companies in Lansing imported workers they not only built houses for them to live in, but also two churches.  Saint George's Church was built at the top of Syrian Hill for those who came from the Middle East to work at the International Salt Company on Salt Point.  After three years of meeting in private homes, All Saints Catholic Church was built in 1913 near the entrance to what is now Myers Park for those of 'Russian' extraction who worked where the Cargill salt mine is now located.  Architecturally All Saints was similar to Saint George's, with a small entryway on one end of a simple rectangular house-like structure with a peaked roof.

Eventually the Catholic congregation grew to over 100 families, which meant a bigger church was needed.  In 1932 the church at the corner of Ridge and Myers Roads was built.  The congregation worshiped there until 2007, when they moved into the current church, that doubles the size of the old church.  In 2010 they rented the empty little white church to Holy Apostles.  The wooden structure with gothic-style windows and a pulpit decorated with arches and Christian icons is almost perfect for the Orthodox congregation.

"Even the iconography on the back wall -- inside the cross it says IC XP, which stands for 'Jesus Christ is Victorius'," Fr. James says.  "That's something you don't generally see in Roman Catholic churches.  So there was a Russian influence.  It works really well. The two issues we are faced with -- one is a theological issue that it faces west.  Orthodox churches generally face east, toward Jeruselem.  But even the ones in Jeruselem still face east, because scripture talks about the Messiah coming out of the east.  The other issue is just space."


Fr. James says the congregation is already beginning to outgrow the little church, in part because it houses the community activities as well as the liturgical.  He is hoping for exponential growth to continue over the next half decade, but that will mean finding a new home.  Holy Apostles is a 'mission church', which means it receives a grant from the national Orthodox Church to help pay its expenses until it is able to sustain itself financially.

"Because of that grant we have services six days a week," he says.  "We have all the Holy Days.  We support two college Orthodox Christian Fellowship chapters, one at Cornell and one at Ithaca.  Cornell has been the one that has provided a lot of growth for the parish -- a good proportion, not a majority."

But it also means the church isn't quite big enough yet to be self-sustaining.  A collection has been taken up that will eventually pay for a new church, but it is only a start.  The priesthood has been looking for an alternative property, but for now the congregation will have to continue to fit in the existing space.

"It's been a tremendous blessing to have this space, but it's not ours," Fr. James says.  "We approached All Saints, but ultimately they wouldn't sell it to us.  So we have to find somewhere to be.  I don't think the parish is done growing, so we are looking for someplace.  We are at an interesting point now where we have outgrown our space, but we don't have enough capital yet to do anything about it.  We do want to be in Lansing in a place that offers all the things a church is supposed to offer.  What can we do, not to take from the Town, but to be a church that charity and blessings flow out of?"

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