www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Kojak...What church is in this episode?

The Deer Hunter has at least one scene in which Father T. Stephen Kopestonsky speaks to the mother of the groom one on one - in Russian.

Fr. Serge

Good catch Father. I forgot about that scene.

There's some wiggle room on SAG cards, for example, foreign speech is not counted unless subtitled, or the movie uses a lot of it.

Also, if the movie isn't by a directors guild member, all bets are off.

I could not access the image, but I remember as a teenage Telly Savalas would come to Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral when he was performing on Miami Beach. I'll never forget that on Holy Friday Mr. Savalas' choffer parked his limosine in an no parking area. I saw the police writing a ticket and were about to put it on the windshield when I ran over to tell them that the limo belonged to Telly Savalas and that he and his brother and family were in the church. The police officer brushed me off and continued his business.

Well, I quietly went to Telly and told him what was happening. He thanked me and we went out to talk with the officer. The officer was facing away from the church while getting the vehicle info. Savals coughed to catch the officer's attention and asked the officer if there was anything wrong. I thought the officer was going to fall over.

So maybe the church was Saint Sophia.

It is definitely Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles. I know as I have been there many times.

The interior of Saint Sophia's has been shown in several television shows (e.g.,NYPD Blue and Days of our Lives)and TV movies with an exterior shot of a different church.

It was also the subject of an episode of California's Gold hosted by Huell Howser.

The interior has sometimes been described as "Hollywood Byzantine". The icons on the iconostasis are actually painted on canvas. It is an exquisite looking church.

At least two other Greek Orthodox parishes in CA(Fresno and San Diego)have churches that are based on the interior of Saint Sophia's but there is only one Saint Sophia's.

I loved Kojak. It is one of my favorite TV programs. It's interesting to know that Savalas was religious enough to attend Church (very few Hollywood stars seem to be). It is also nice that he made his character Kojak Greek and Orthodox. I have heard that the character was originally supposed to be Polish but either Savalas or someone else objected and the producers, in turn, made him more reflect Telly.

Also, St Sophias is a very beautiful cathedral. I have heard that Fox movie producer Charles Skouros really went all out when building it. Some of the Ikons are supposedly based off real Greek movie stars (or so I once heard from a certain OCA bishop of LA). Skouros vowed to build this magnificent church if God would a,llow him success in the movie industry (which happened).

I'd have to say that this photo of St Sophia Cathedral [stsophia.org] looks pretty confirmatory.

Many years,

Neil