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The New Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Brooklyn

   The Russian people have long demonstrated their unmatched proficiency in creating the churches of God. From the dawn of Russian history, first Kievan Rus, and then Muscovy, were adorned as though from heaven with tabernacles, in which the ephemeral reflected the beauty of the ethereal.

Let us recall our churches, which from the 10th and 11th centuries lasted in Russia until the 20th century: the churches of the Holy Princes Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise – the Lavra of the Kiev Caves, Saint Sophia Cathedral, the Church of the Tithes in Kiev, the golden-domed Cathedral of St. Basil the Great in Ovruch, followed by Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Resurrection Cathedral in the New Jerusalem Monastery outside of Moscow, and a great multitude of other wondrous churches, the images of which now adorn albums compiled by students of Russian religious architecture. On par with these marvelous works of unparalleled art were smaller, poorer churches, whose worth lay in their historic significance.

The times in which we now live have clearly shown us that this is not all architecture and the memory of a bygone era, but a vivid, overflowing life that contains the answer to our sufferings and the key to our rebirth. Proof of this lies in those new churches now being erected in every part of the world by the Russian people. They also, as in days of old, are either wondrous works of art, as are for instance the new church of Holy Trinity Monastery and St. Vladimir’s Memorial Church to the 950th anniversary of Russian Christianity currently under construction, or they are the little churches quickly built with tin boxes, paper, and nails, cemented with the tears, sorrows, faith, and hope of the Russian people. These churches are built by the Russian people in the context of their exile and resettlement when they, robbed of their homeland, are forced to wander foreign lands. Such were the churches built in the many camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and in the Russian tent city on Tubabao Island, where a whole diocese or deanery was established, along with several churches and a cathedral. One of these greatly important memorial churches of the Russian Diaspora is now been brought to New York and opened in Brooklyn. This is the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, which on November 8/21 will celebrate its first patronal feast day.

The feast day of the Holy Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers is very dear to every faithful Orthodox heart. This holiday renews within our hearts, so often bound to this world, an awareness of our internal connection to the world on high, to our angels – guardians, servants of God’s glory, and guides to our salvation and spiritual fulfillment. The whole of Holy Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, bears witness to the service of the angels in the matter of our entrance into the kingdom of eternal glory, unattainable for the worldly. Such, for instance, is the narrative of the Prophet Daniel: "In the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is, the Tigris, then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude" (Daniel 10:4-6).

This was the chief of the heavenly hosts himself, the Archangel Michael. He was sent to reveal to the prophet the fate of the kingdoms of his day and the ultimate fate of the whole world. All of this was then confirmed in great detail in the Revelation to John the Theologian. These final judgments were described by the Prophet Daniel thusly: "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever" (Daniel 12:1-3). Our Lord Jesus Christ also confirmed the presence of the angels at the Final Judgment of the world: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:36-38). In another instance, the Lord said, "In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn" (Matthew 13:30). He also explained these words Himself: "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels" (Matthew 13:39). "As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 13:40-43).

The Holy Church, in whose life the fate of the whole world is mystically opened, anticipating the coming meeting of earth and heaven, intentionally established the feast day of the Holy Archangel Michael and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Hosts on November 8. The feast day is set in the ninth month (in antiquity, the first month of the calendar was March) in honor of the nine ranks of angels, and on the eight day of that month to denote the coming eight day, which will have no end, which will have morning but no evening – the unwaning day. "Grant us to partake of Thee more perfectly in the unwaning day of Thy kingdom," as we sing on the night of Pascha.

We marked all of this last Sunday, on the eve of St. Michael’s Day, in the new church in Brooklyn, built in near record time by the zealous efforts of Priest Alexander Sklyarov and his loyal helpers, and which will be a memorial to life in the camps in Germany. There our countrymen had to live out something not unlike the gates of the Dread Judgment, and there the spiritual eyes of many were opened, and they felt the protection of the guardian angel, delivering them from calamity and danger. The church was marvelously adorned and constitutes a comfortably sized house, now remade into a church.

May the Lord grant that these heightened feelings, which adorn the Russian man over the course of the centuries of his history, might not be extinguished in him here, in this land of freedom and material wealth.

1949

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Eastern American Diocese | Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia