www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Photo Gallery St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church, Pleasant City, Ohio

Here are some pictures of my parish, taken by another parishioner.

The exterior looks remarkable similar to St. Michael's in Binghamton, NY, erected in 1916. To anyone's knowledge, were there any connections, as in families moving in either direction? I am not aware of a connection, but the similarities are striking.

DMD,

I'll ask about a possible connection to St. Michael's in Binghamton, NY.

Interestingly, this church was also built in 1916, replacing an earlier and smaller wooden structure. If there is no connection among the people of the parishes, I wonder if there might be a connection to be discovered among the builders or designers of the two buildings.

The listing in the parish directory of the Archeparchy's website includes some other pictures and an entry on the history of the parish. http://archpitt.org/component/zoo/item/PleasantCityOH


Caleb

Likewise, St. Michael's replaced a 1907 wooden structure. Perhaps there was a building somewhere in Europe that had been seen by emigrants leaving the 'old country' and they attempted to describe it to an architect? That could account for the similarity.

Over the years in looking at structures of many Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the Northeast, I have noticed that there are many similarities in the architectural details. I am going to venture a guess that this could be related to the fact that many parishes hired the same architects and builders to construct their churches or as DMD pointed out many may have simply wanted to copy a church structure in the old country.

A first generation Carpatho Russian, who is now a priest, told me that a lot of the earlier churches are built in the vaguely Hungarian provincial style.

That may be, but there were no immigrants in the Binghamton area (or few) from the old Bereg or Ugoch regions of Rusyn settlement in Austria-Hungary. They were many from old Spis, Zemplyn and Sarish near the current Polish Slovak Ukrainian borders.

Now, St. John's (now Orthodox) Greek Catholic parish in Perth Amboy, NJ was clearly inspired by the pilgrimage shrine of Mariapocs, and their founders were of Bereg and Ugoch.