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Out of the box
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
PINELLAS PARK -- Two characteristics will distinguish the new edifice being planned by St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. The first is a slab of concrete from the balcony of a St. Petersburg apartment that bears, believers say, a miraculous image of a cross that appeared suddenly in 1986. The chunk of concrete, on which the outline of the cross remains clearly visible, will be the new building's cornerstone. The second distinguishing feature will be the church's classic basilica architecture, modeled after an ancient site of pilgrimage in Syria and churches of similar style in Greece and Italy. Bishop Antoun Khouri officiated at the recent groundbreaking ceremony on the church property at 6447 76th Ave. N and blessed the cornerstone. About 300 people attended the event. The Rev. Thomas Joseph is pleased with his congregation's progress. "It's a very, very rewarding feeling for everybody," Joseph said. "It's a rewarding feeling for me as a pastor, for I've seen the growth. It's a rewarding feeling for the people who have been here a long time, because they are seeing their seeds are beginning to give fruit. And it's equally rewarding for the people who have come to the church in the last few years. ... The new edifice is going to be reflective of what they were searching for in a traditional background." St. Nicholas is the only full-fledged Antiochian Orthodox church on Florida's west coast. The Antiochian Orthodox Church traces its origins to the church in Antioch, the capital of ancient Syria, that was established by the apostles Peter and Paul. Though the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America was founded in the late 19th century to serve immigrants from Syria and Lebanon, today it embraces Americans of all races and cultures. Among its 220 churches and missions are African-American and Hispanic congregations. The Great Schism of 1054, caused by a disagreement over papal supremacy, the Nicene creed and other issues, split the Christian Church in two, creating the Orthodox faith in the eastern part of Christendom and the Roman Catholic Church in the West. For Khouri, senior auxiliary bishop to Metropolitan Philip Saliba, primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, the gathering March 9 was the third major milestone he has celebrated with the parishioners of St. Nicholas. In March 1986, he officiated at the groundbreaking of what then was the mission of St. Nicholas, and in 1999 he was present when the congregation celebrated its mortgage burning. Najib Jacob, a subdeacon born in Jerusalem, is one of the church's original members. He helped to start the church in the late 1970s, and early services were held in his home. Today, St. Nicholas has two buildings of its own and a diverse congregation of many ethnic groups. Helping it grow are a number of converts to the Orthodox faith. It is the Jacob family home at which the slab of concrete with the miraculous cross has been kept since 1986. Jacob and his wife, Anna, were the ones called when the cross appeared on the balcony of a couple who attended St. Nicholas. "A lady parishioner of ours, who was a pediatrician from Egypt, had a visitor, a friend of hers from Germany," Jacob said. The St. Nicholas parishioner was talking to her friend about Patriarch Cyrilos VI of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and explaining that many miracles have been reported by people who have prayed for intercessions from him since his death in the early 1970s. "While they were talking about it, a flash of light came on. She thought it was from the cars passing by," Jacob said. Then she saw the cross on the balcony floor. "She called me in the morning, because I was chairman of the parish council, to come and look at it and bring a camera with me," Jacob said. "Three priests came and looked at it and they called the metropolitan. He told them to have the cross removed and don't let anybody step on it and I went to the owner of the complex and he gave us permission as long as we replaced it. The metropolitan said that that would be the cornerstone of our future building." While the image in Northgate Apartments in St. Petersburg was declared a "miraculous appearance," an article in the St. Petersburg Times seemed to tell another story. It reported that an unidentified woman said she had lived in the apartment before the St. Nicholas parishioners and that the image had been created by her son while spraying gold paint on a cross on the balcony. Believers remained unfazed. "A miraculous event happened," said Joseph, who was not at St. Nicholas at the time. "I don't think that the business of spray painting was of any consequence to anybody." In any event, the concrete slab will be used as the cornerstone of the new St. Nicholas church, which is expected to be built in the next two years. The new church, said Bruce Foltz, chairman of St. Nicholas' building committee, will incorporate traditions of ancient Christianity in its design. Most of the original buildings built for Christian worship were in the basilica style, said Foltz, a professor of philosophy at Eckerd College. Later, he said, the design was embellished to include such innovations as vaulted ceilings, but in the Middle East, where Christian communities became isolated after the Muslim conquest, the original basilica remained. Specifically, the exterior of the new church will be modeled after the basilica of St. Symeon the Stylite that was built in Syria during the fifth century. St. Symeon is said to have sat praying on a 60-foot pillar for nearly 40 years. When he died, the church was built on the site where he prayed. The interior of St. Nicholas will be based on such churches as the sixth century St. Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt, where Moses encountered God in the burning bush, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. Joseph, who has been at St. Nicholas since 1996, said the congregation had specific reasons for choosing the basilica style. "Its roots go back to a time when the Christian Church was united, and it's a kind of architecture that you would find in the East as well as in the West," Joseph said. "Our particular congregation is a combination of people from the East as well as from the West and we wanted to have something that would be commonly recognized." It also is a practical design and relatively inexpensive, he said. The church's altar, as is traditional, will face east. Designing the church is Michael F. Sofarelli, of Sofarelli and Associates Architecture Inc. in Largo and an adjunct professor of architecture at St. Petersburg College. The new church, approximately 5,000 square feet, is expected to cost between $500,000 and $750,000 and seat about 250. St. Nicholas' growing congregation is cramped in its current quarters, Joseph said. "We have pretty much maxed out what we have. We not only need room in the church, but we need a Sunday school facility," he said. He added that one of the two buildings now on the church's property will be demolished after the new sanctuary is built. The current sanctuary was acquired when a bank donated its offices to St. Nicholas. The only cost to the congregation was moving the building to its property and constructing an addition. The first liturgy celebrated in the building was in June 1991. Six years later, St. Nicholas was able to buy its parish hall at auction from Pinellas County for $110. Church members donated the more than $50,000 needed to move the building to its new home. Joseph marvels at what his once tiny congregation has accomplished. "Sometimes I think I'm dreaming," he said. "All of us just feel very grateful and rewarded and very thankful to God that this has come together so very quickly."
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