St. Rocco window to be dedicated
By LINDA M. LINONIS
boardman
A new stained-glass window of St. Rocco now completes a “sacred space” in the front of St. James’ Episcopal Church.
The entrance area, once utilitarian with coat racks, has evolved over the last four years into an area for reflection and historical significance.
It is the site of the St. James Alcove on the left, where a stained-glass window of the patron of the church is featured. On the right is the historic statue of St. Rocco from the former St. Rocco Episocpal Church in Youngstown, which closed in 2007. Installation of a St. Rocco stained-glass window took place in mid-October.
A dedication and blessing of the new window is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday with an All Saints’ Day festival Eucharist.
The Rev. Kelly Marshall, rector, said the window installation completes a “renovation and redesign” that spanned four years.
The church marked its 200th anniversary in 2009; it is the oldest established congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio.
In anticipation of that event, the congregation began projects to upgrade the 1971 building. The parish family established a shrine to St. Rocco, when its sister congregation of St. Rocco’s closed. A memorial bequest from the family of Elton and Christina Beard made the St. James’ Alcove possible. A display case houses early ecclesiastical artifacts and archival materials, including a lectern Bible that was sent in the late 1820s by Connecticut Episcopalians to the fledgling congregation. Another display case features a changing exhibit, currently prayer books.
The anniversary also marked the installation of a Mary Magdalene stained-glass window in the chapel, given in memory of Mimi Wilson, a long-term church member.
Father Marshall said the memorial and gift committee worked with Williams Stained Glass of Castle Shannon, Pa., near Pittsburgh, on the St. Rocco window design. “There’s a legend of ‘friendly dog’ associated with St. Rocco. The story goes that the dog brought St. Rocco food when he took shelter in caves,” Father Marshall said. A dog is incorporated in the statue of the saint, and the new window. “St. Rocco is often shown wearing his pilgrim hat with a scalloped shell of St. James and with a dog,” the priest said. The shell is a symbol of St. Rocco’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the Cathedral of St. James, in Galicia, Spain. The window also includes red, green and white, colors of the Italian flag, because St. Rocco is highly venerated in Italy.
Father Marshall said he found it to be a wonderful coincidence that the namesake of the church and St. Rocco were intertwined in this way.
The rector also noted St. James’ members have made an effort to welcome former St. Rocco’s members. “It takes a while to get comfortable in a new space ... and experience your faith from the past and future,” Father Marshall said. A special place for the historic St. Rocco statute, once the centerpiece of a procession in the streets around the former church, is meaningful to former St. Rocco members and St. James members who now share the appreciation, the rector said.
Becky Olmi, chair of the memorial and gift committee, said she and the committee agreed that the “statue and window add so much more to the church.”
She also noted the St. Rocco area was another way to “bring people together” in the church. Father Marshall added that visitors sometimes stop at the church to see the historic statue.