Patriarch’s Special Visit

From the St Paul “Pioneer Press” … by Kay Harvey

In state for award, he blesses faithful at local church

The excited congregation of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in West St. Paul filled the pews Saturday to greet and pray with one of the highest-ranking leaders of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

A long stream of men, women and children moved through a receiving line to kiss the hand of Ignatius IV, the patriarch of Antioch, and receive his blessing during an afternoon reception at St. George. They then gathered for a prayer service.

“It is such an honor to have him here,” said church member Vicky Michaels of Apple Valley. “Most people go their entire lives without being in the presence of a patriarch.”

And so likely would members of St. George parish, if the visiting patriarch hadn’t traveled to Minnesota for another kind of honor. Today Ignatius IV will receive the prestigious Pax Christi Award from St. John’s Abbey and University in a ceremony on the Catholic school’s campus in Collegeville.

The 83-year-old patriarch, who hails from Damascus, Syria, is to Antiochian Orthodox Christians the equivalent of a pope, parishioners said. He is the spiritual head of thousands of Christians throughout the United States, Canada, South America, western Europe and the Middle East. The Orthodox church also believes the religious leader is the 170th successor to St. Peter, the apostle of Jesus who became the first bishop of Antioch.

Ignatius IV’s visit to this 400-member parish, where almost everyone takes on some volunteer role and where bake sales and ethnic dinners help stretch the operating budget, is indeed an anomaly, said John Chagnon of St. Paul, a church deacon.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he said. “That’s why you see all the hubbub and the pictures.”

Church leaders called the visit unprecedented.

Eight-year-old T.J. Perry of Eagan, wearing a suit, posed for a picture with the patriarch and church pastor the Rt. Rev. Archimandrite John Mangels before donning his altar-boy vestments to serve at an evening prayer service.

People arrived in a celebratory mood and wearing their Sunday best. Rami Jubran, 17, sported a pink tie and matching rose stuck in his lapel. That’s because he was later headed for his prom. But the church reception, he said, was his top priority.

“I had to come here,” he said. “The prom takes second place. This is a big, big thing.”

Ignatius IV wore a black robe, a dangling red pendant and black headgear — an alousi, Arabic for a round headpiece, from which flowed a latti, Arabic for a monastic veil denoting celibacy. He sat at the center of the event’s head table, flanked by other clergy clad in black. They included the Rt. Rev. Bishop Mark Maymon, bishop of Toledo, Ohio, and the church’s Diocese of the Midwest.

Along with more than 300 others gathered in the church social hall, the priests dined on tabouli, pita bread, stuffed grape leaves, kibbi and baklawa, all prepared by the men and women of the church. Many parishioners are descendants of the Syrian and Lebanese immigrants who founded the church, one of a handful of Antiochian Orthodox churches in the upper Midwest, in 1913.

Parishioners then filed into wooden pews in the church’s ornate sanctuary for a candlelit vespers service led by the visiting patriarch.

Ignatius IV was chosen for the award he will receive today for helping pave the way for preservation of religious manuscripts the university is collecting, particularly in places where access is hindered by war or other strife, said Mag Patridge of St. John’s.

“He has really been helping us in the Middle East, and that’s where we’re concentrating right now.”