www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Is there a "Holy Wisdom" BC Church?

Just curious. If so, where? If not, why not?

Dan Lauffer

Only one in the US:

Eparchy of Passaic
Holy Wisdom Parish
Flanders NJ Rev Daniel Staniskis

I found a nice site for searching parishes:

http://parishesonline.net/scripts/dbSearch_GenURLMap.asp?Diocese=Byzantine%20Eparchy%20of%20Passaic

There is are two parishes named St. Sophia in the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Chicago. One in the Colony (Dallas area), and one in Hawaii. As I recall there is also a St. Sophia parish in the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton (Alberta).

Thanks. I think I'll look up the Chicago one since I live in the area. A trite thought...wouldn't it be rather exciting to serve a Church named "Santa Sophia" (Hagia Sophia)?

Dan Lauffer

I might of confused you a little, Dan. The parishes are in the Chicago Eparchy, not Chicago itself. The parishes are actually located in Hawaii and the Dallas area.

Diak,

I'm easily confused. As much as I'd like to go to Hawaii there are several other places I'd like to visit more.

Dan Lauffer

BTW Wouldn't it make more sense if all the Eastern Churches worked together. Kind of silly to have a Chicago Eparchy that extends to Dallas and Hawaii.

djs

thanks for the reference page

rose

Well, not really. Many of our Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches are very spread out and more oftentimes than not few and far in between. The parish of St. Sophia which I helped start just two years ago counts as it's members parishioners from as far away as LA and OK; many do drive 2 hours or so every Sunday for Divine Liturgy. I myself have almost an hour to drive; and I attend/participate in every service - even those during the week. We now have almost 150 registered families - most of whom aren't even Ukrainian.

St. Sophia is not in Dallas, but is actually located in the RC Diocese of Ft. Worth, from which we receive much financial and other support; most of which would never be forthcoming from our own Eparchy for one reason or another.

In any event, logistically and managerially it is actually very prudent to administer these disparate parishes under one Eparchy; especially given it's very scarce resources.

The only other Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church any where near here is the Protection of the Mother of God (Prokrova) in Houston, which is actually very nice and is about 45 years old. Our two Churches oftentimes share resources and parishioners many times attend each other's functions and services. Fortunately, most of our services here and in Houston are conducted in Ukrainian and are very well received - even by the immigrant Spanish population which seem to take to our language more energetically than those who count themselves as Ukrainian.

And believe it or not, we could really use a bilingual (Spanish/English) priest down here and our populations would increase four-fold....

Dear Novocilman,

You might want to contact our brother, Lauro, in Brazil.

He would know Basilian priests who speak Portuguese and Spanish.

From what I understand, he and others would be only too happy to send as many of them as possible to serve your community

Alex

Alex ,

Stirring again - just 'co you don't appreciate Basilians

Dear Angela,

I appreciate them very much!

SO much so, I would send every last one that we have in Eastern Canada to the States as well!

We must help our dear brothers and sisters with priest shortages, must we not?

Alex

And of course there is a Ruthenian parish in Irving, which is in the DFW area.

SHaron

I see - Alex being his usual helpful charitable self

Angela

St. Basil's, to which you are referring, isn't Ruthenian. It's a tiny Byzantine parish in an old neighborhood right next to Texas Stadium where the Cowboys football team play. (It's rumored the reason St. Basil's is slowly dying out is because the Cowboys continue to loose - the inside joke here is that the only reason anyone went to St. Basil's in the first place was to go to the game right after and get good seats.)

Divine Liturgy is held in a small house converted into a chapel and can be quite nice. The services are quite nice, and, surprisingly, a good half of the surrent parish are Orthodox who have no convinient Orthodox Church nearby to attend.


Many of our parishioners (including myself) used to attend St. Basil's but preferred to avail ourselves of Bp. Wiwchar's offer to send us a Ukrainian Catholic priest from the Ukraine so we could have our own church. So far, it's worked out beautifully.

Ya know, a group of us were discussing just such a possibility last night. This weekend Pokrova in Houston and St. Sophia in The Colony will be celebrating the Ukrainian traditionof "Svyata Vechera" and I'll bring your suggestion to light. I think it'll fly quite nicely.

Thank you very much for the information.