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ICONS BLESSED
110-year-old St. Mary’s marks 50th year on South Belle Vista
By LINDA M. LINONIS
youngstown
For an unknown reason, St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church has lacked an icon screen, a traditional fixture at churches of the Eastern Rite. It’s not so much that the screen was missing; it just was never there.
The situation recently was remedied when a screen and icons were installed in the church at 356 S. Belle Vista Ave. The church is marking its 50th year at this location and 110th year of its founding.
On Aug. 15, a blessing of the icons took place with the Very Rev. Eugene Yackanich, administrator of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh as main celebrant. Also participating in the service were the Rev. Richard Lambert, Monsignor Alexis Mihalik and the Rev. James Ragan, who all are from St. Mary’s and vocations from the parish. The Divine Liturgy was followed by a luncheon in Assumption Social Center. The date of the event is significant in that is the patronal Feast Day of the church.
Planning for the icon screen goes back about eight years; Father Richard will mark his ninth year as pastor in October. “I spent 24 years in Pittsburgh and now am at my home parish,” said the native of the West Side. He noted that he was an altar boy at St. Mary’s before attending the seminary to study to be a priest.
Father Richard said the icon screen was installed by Eikona Studios of Cleveland, a team of artisans and designers specializing in sacred spaces and creative projects. The screen, which projects an open quality, is positioned on marble flooring and rests on the base of the former communion rail. From the vantage point of the pews, the screen itself holds the main icons of St. Nicholas, the patron of the Byzantine church, and the Mother of God, on the left and the Lord and the Assumption of Mary, on the right.
Two smaller icons depict the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of God.
In the middle are royal doors, symbolic of the gates of heaven. Four circular icons will be installed in the royal doors along with icons in side deacon doors of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen.
Work on the project began in the fall of 2009. It also had the approval of Metropolitan Archbishop Basil M. Schott, who died June 10.
Father Richard explained that the altar also was redone. Previously, a baldachino, a four-pillar structure, covered the rectangular altar.
When St. Mary’s celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2000, a soaring mosaic was installed on the wall behind the altar and ceiling above. When the baldachino went back up, parish members agreed it obscured the mosaic, detracting from its expansive beauty.
The mosaic, on a sky-blue backdrop, depicts a procession of the Apostles. “It reflects the idea of the Last Supper and Eucharist,” Father Richard said. The mosaic also includes a rendering of Theotokos, the mother of God, with the child Jesus, and angels in the heavens.
The baldachino came down, Father Richard explained, and was recycled for use in rapidia, fans for processions, and six winged seraphim. They are on the altar, where there also is a processional cross and a Tetrapod, a table where sacraments such as baptism and the Eucharist take place, is positioned in the aisle area by the front pews. Icons of the current Feast Day are also displayed here. The message, “In peace let us pray to the Lord,” is written above the altar.
Pantokrator, a title referring to the Divine, dominates the ceiling above the pews at St. Mary’s, where the painting of Jesus keeps watch over the150 families who make up the church membership. The figure of Jesus is surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists — Matthew, an angel; Mark, a lion; Luke, a winged ox; and John, an eagle.