No, it’s not a mosque.
Beginning Dec. 5, the edifice on which the cupola sits will be the new home for the congregation of the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, the only Orthodox Christian parish in Santa Maria. Church
members say the sanctuary is literally a godsend.
“It’s beautiful,” said parishioner Helen Manolas. “I didn’t think we could accomplish this much, but God has blessed us with his will to build a building, and I hope he’ll bless us with more people to the church.”
The parish began in 1979, formed by John Warren, a former choir director from Los Angeles who moved to Santa Maria for business. The 15 Orthodox families he contacted made up Santa Maria’s original Annunciation Mission, which met in private homes and at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church before taking up a more permanent residence in a two-room storage building owned by Marian Hospital.
The modest meetinghouse was the parishioners’ home until 2004, when construction concluded on a parish hall off Bradley Road. The hall has served as the mission’s chapel ever since, but will soon be replaced by the sanctuary, now receiving its finishing touches.
The church now boasts more than 50 regular members, and overseeing the growth has been Father Lawrence Russell, who’s been the parish priest since 1991.
“The effort has been very consolidated and patient by the community that has lived here throughout those years,” Russell said. “We’re thrilled and proudly humbled by this opportunity to build, along traditional Orthodox architectural lines, a church that we’re offering out of our love
for God.”
Modeled after a monastery near Smolensk, Russia, the worship hall carried a price tag of about $450,000, funded by a steady stream of donations from parishioners and a few surprise benefactors.
Last November, Chris Hillman, former guitarist for the psychedelic rock group The Byrds, raised $50,000 to partly fund the building’s construction, performing three benefit concerts at Edwards Barn in Nipomo.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodoxy allows and even encourages its priests to be married, and to Father Lawrence’s wife Cheryl, a longtime member of the congregation, the meetinghouse represents just how far the church has come since its humble beginnings.
“It’s so exciting. We feel very blessed,” she said. “We call it a beacon in the community.”
The building has caught the attention of locals, some mistakenly believing it to be a Muslim mosque; Father Lawrence has heard the questions.
“I’m kind of bewildered,” he said. “I typically say, ‘Doesn’t the 10-foot cross on top give it away?”
A convert to the Orthodox religion himself, Russell said the church is still battling American ignorance in many parts of the country.
“We’re making a lot of efforts to familiarize people with the Orthodox Church,” Russell said. “It’s an idiom of Christianity that is somewhat unknown in the West, but even more so in the western part of our country.”
Briefly, Orthodox—literally meaning “right or correct worship”—traces its lineage to the original 12 apostles. The church split from Roman Catholicism in 1054 A.D., and became, for all intents and purposes, the religion of Russia and Eastern Europe.
Parishioner Olga Howe, whose parents emigrated from Russia to Canada during the Russian Revolution, lives in San Luis Obispo and attends the Santa Maria church.
“The Orthodox Church feels that it’s retained the true spirit and true liturgical language from way at the beginning,” Howe said. “There had to be agreement among all the ethnic groups, the patriarchs, and the hierarchy in the East for things to develop. Whereas in the West it was top down from the Pope.”
The roots of Orthodox Christianity in America can be found in 18th century Alaska, owned by Russia at the time. Orthodox missionaries visited fur trappers and translated liturgical texts and prayers into Aleut and English. The religion descended to the lower 48 states with America’s purchase of Alaska in 1867, and spread south down the California coast and eastward.
At the Church of the Annunciation, the typical Sunday worship service—known as the Divine Liturgy—is performed entirely in English. It includes concepts familiar to most Christians and Catholics, including recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and Communion. Prayers and scripture readings, however, are sung and most parishioners stand throughout the service.
Prayers and rites are performed using candles, incense, and miters. Behind the chapel’s central altar sits the “iconostasis,” a wall composed of three doors, representing the meeting of heaven and earth. On the iconostasis hang golden Judeo-Christian icons; St. Elizabeth and St. Gerasim holding the Christ child, imported from Russian monasteries. The central, or Holy Door, veils the “Holy of Holies” altar, the most sacred part of the church.
According to Russell, sacred symbolism is embedded even in the church’s architecture. Russell explained that after persecution by the Roman Empire, Orthodoxy had the freedom to pursue its own building styles, patterned after the images of heaven set forth in the Old and New Testament.
To believers, the golden cupola represents the vault of heaven itself, shaped like a candle to represent eternity and the presence of the spirit of God. Even the dome’s interior represents the hierarchy of heaven, with Christ at the top, descending with the Mother of God, then to the prophets and saints.
“In St. Paul’s words, we’re surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, the souls of righteous men and women made perfect,” Russell said. “We believe that in the services of the church, that the church on Earth literally, by God’s presence in it, becomes heaven itself, and we’re joining the worship of those people who have gone on before us.”
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With jurisdiction from the Orthodox Church of America, the church’s services are “Pan Orthodox”—members come from Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Palestinian, and even Ethiopian backgrounds. At one time, Russell said, 11 different ethnicities were represented in his congregation.
“It has always been a community with a very ethnically diverse flavor,” he said. “Wherever you go as an Orthodox person, to an Orthodox church, you’re going to find the same faith, and you’re going to feel right at home in that community.”
Parishioner Howe said the church tries to encourage people to overcome their ethnic divisions. Though it’s not known how many Orthodox Christians might live on the Central Coast, she said, churches have sprung up in Lompoc, San Luis Obispo, Goleta, and Santa Barbara.
However his parishioners have been brought into the fold, Father Lawrence said the small, but tight-knit Orthodox congregation will continue to increase its visibility locally through charitable events and good works.
“We’re very happy to be part of this community,” Russell said. “We’re hopeful that both the beauty of the architecture and our presence will be a continuing positive influence in Santa Maria and on the Central Coast.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas can be contacted at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 2-9, 2010.