NY Episcopalians Open Doors to Burned Out Serbian Congregation

May 6, 2016

The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava

“The Parish of Calvary-St. George’s, in partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of New York, is honored to open our doors to Fr. Djokan Majstorovic and the people of St. Saba’s,” says Calvary-St. George’s priest-in-charge, the Rev. Jacob Smith.     

In a spirit of Christian friendship and unity with its roots deep in the 19^th century, the Episcopal Church in New York, led by Bishop Andrew M.L. Dietsche, has stepped forward to ensure that the congregation of the fire-gutted Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava on West 26^th St (http://stsavanyc.org/) will have a place to worship each week until they have a new permanent home – beginning with the 10 a.m. service this coming Sunday, May 8, at Calvary Church on Park Avenue South at 21^st St., and then on Sunday May 15 at St. George’s Church, located nearby at 4 Rutherford Place.

Calvary Church

“It is particularly fitting,” Dietsche said, “that we Episcopalians, of all people, should be blessed once again with the chance to stand by our Serbian Orthodox brothers and sisters and provide them with a roof under which to worship. Our diocese’s relationship with the Orthodox Church, and with St. Sava’s in particular, goes back over 150 years. In 1865, Trinity Episcopal Chapel on West 26^th St, which would later become St. Sava’s Cathedral, was the site of the first ever Orthodox liturgy in America. Nearly 80 years later, in 1942, my predecessor, Bishop Manning, oversaw the sale of that same building—the very one that on Sunday was so tragically gutted by fire—to the recently-organized St. Sava’s congregation.”