A MISSION OF FAITH

By Linda Linonis

Students put their souls into ‘Real Break’ trip

In an Orthodox Christian Fellowship project, Marion Alberty helped clean up a cemetery and chapel in Istanbul.

POLAND — For some college students, spring break is about the opposite sex, alcohol and getting a suntan.

For Marion Alberty of Poland, the “Real Break” she took to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey, involved dirty and disturbing work.

Dirty in the fact the volunteer group cleaned up a chapel by sweeping, scrubbing and general cleaning and a cemetery, where they weeded, removed years of overgrown and dead foliage and planted flowers. Disturbing in the sense that the young people’s work in the neglected cemetery involved righting and repairing tombstones and sometimes encountering bones from desecrated graves.

Alberty, who will be 19 on Wednesday, took the trip March 14-21 through the Orthodox Christian Fellowship. The national organization has chapters at college campuses, including Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Alberty will be a sophomore civil engineering major in the fall at Cornell, where she is the incoming president of the OCF chapter there. The group formed in 1991. Her parents are Maria and Paul Alberty.

Alberty said OCF is an active organization, typically has 18-20 trips annually on spring break, and between 10 to 20 participants per trip. “The mission work is mostly international though some is in the United States,” she said. Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Greece, Romania and South Africa are among destinations.

“Registration for most of the trips fill up the first night,” Alberty said, noting there is high interest in this volunteer service. “It’s a good opportunity for young people,” she said.

She said participants may for the trips themselves; she said she was appreciative of the monetary support from family and friends. The cost was about $1,300. Alberty said she planned to take another mission trip in the future.

Alberty, a member of St. John the Forerunner Greek Orthodox Church in Boardman, had the chance to visit and volunteer in Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, which was the center of Orthodoxy for some 1,000 years. “There is a small community of Greek Orthodox there,” she said of the city.

Alberty said this trip was the first use of her passport; it was about an eight-hour flight from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Istanbul. The students stayed at a small hotel, close to where their mission project was. She said the students were advised to drink bottled water. Meals included cheeses, meat, fish and bread and candied fruit was often served. “The food was great,” she said.

Alberty said the patriarchal cemetery and the chapel in the church of St. Kyriakos, in the center of the cemetery, where the mission project took place, has been in disrepair and neglect since the 1950s. “There was a lot of destruction and violation of the area,” she said.

At the chapel in the church, she said the students “cleaned it up and scrubbed the floors and marble.” She said they also sanded and refinished wooden furniture.

In the cemetery, she said, wild dogs roamed, homeless people stayed there and in general, there was trash and disrepair. Three truckloads of debris were hauled away; flower beds were planted.

Accompanying the students were Bishop Savas Zembellis and the Rev. Mark Leonidis, both of New York City. “They gave a blessing ... for us to work on the altar and return everything to its dignity,” Alberty said. She added that the clergy led a procession in the cemetery and held a memorial service for those buried there. Bishop Savas is the director of church and society of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and Father Leondis, chairman of the board of Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

Students had some opportunity to visit some sites including Taxsim Square, where the major shopping, tourist and leisure district is located along with restaurants, shops and hotels, and the Church of the Life-Giving Spring. “We got holy water there,” Alberty said.

Alberty said the mission trip related to her faith in that she was able to see part of Orthodox history. “This really interested me,” she said. “I feel I was very blessed to grow up in the Orthodox church. I feel it has grounded me ... it is a faith-driven church.”

While many young people drift away from the faith they were brought up in, Albert said her participation in Camp Nazareth, a Russian Orthodox summer camp in Mercer, Pa., OCF conferences and retreats has helped “keep me in tune with my faith.”

Alberty said her favorite service is Pascha (Easter in the Western church).

“It’s very beautiful and there is a lot of emotion,” she said. “Passages from the Bible about the Passion of Jesus are moving.”

XVisit the Web site, www.myocn.net/index.php/Real-Break-09-Constantinople/, for photos, video and blogs of participants.