A History of the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection of New York

Part II: 1943-2023

AMELIA ANTZOULATOS

Editor’s note: This is the second piece in a two-part series on the history of the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection in Manhattan. The first installment ran in the spring 2020 issue.

It’s easy to miss what you’re looking for in the city. So when you turn the corner on East 2nd Street and Second Avenue, heading past a line of restaurants, a Hare Krishna pilgrimage site, and a film forum, you almost miss the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection. Like most churches in Manhattan, it’s embedded within a stretch of concrete, but the closer you get, you might hear something that catches you off guard, like keys shaking in someone’s pocket: the rattle of a censer. 

Inside, attendance at the weekday evening vigils is scant these days, thanks to the pandemic. Around 80% of worshippers, many of them single people, use public transit, and they’ve become wary of traveling alone at night, according to Father Christopher Calin, Dean of the Cathedral. While weekend attendance has also dropped significantly, from 180 people pre-pandemic to about 100 now (plus virtual attendees), the community remains lively, with Venmo collections and virtual Sunday School sessions steady. Children and teenagers also serve in a variety of ways, and it is not uncommon for as many as fifteen people to be serving in the altar at once. With the Bishop’s blessing, girls carry candles in vestments custom-made for each liturgical season alongside boys who serve in the altar. It’s important to give them something to do during the service, says Fr. Calin, who, in a major concession to kids everywhere, admits, “because it’s boring.” 

Fr. Calin first arrived at the Cathedral in 1986 with Archdeacon Michael Suvak when they had recently graduated from seminary at Saint Vladimir's; he’s now the longest serving priest in the history of the parish. It’s a significant commitment, especially as the Cathedral nears the eightieth anniversary of its consecration–which itself was only a midway point in the storied, often tumultuous, life of the community.

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The congregation first gathered in 1870 in the parlor of its founding priest, Nicholas Bjerring. By 1901, with funding from Russian aristocrats and the direction of a new parish priest–Alexander Hotovitsky, who was later martyred and canonized as a saint–it built the Cathedral of St. Nicholas on 97th Street. But its stability was challenged by the Bolshevik Revolution when the emergence of a Soviet-backed, “Renovationist” Orthodox sect led to the attempted seizure and nationalization of churches in the United States that had been built with the aid of the former Czarist regime. The process was largely unsuccessful, except for a 1925 decision by the New York Supreme Court of Appeals transferring ownership of the Church of Saint Nicholas from the Diocese to the Soviet state. 

The St. Nicholas congregation found itself with no place to worship, but an Episcopal parish, St. Augustine’s Chapel, ultimately offered to take the group in. For the next seventeen years, both communities shared a church on East Houston Street, part of which the Metropolitan was allowed to consecrate in accordance with Orthodox tradition. As the chapel began to deteriorate over time, however, the St. Nicholas community eventually required more space to serve the needs of its members. New neighbors, like the all-night dance hall next door, also compelled the parish to move. In November 1942, it purchased Olivet Memorial, a German Reformed Church on East 2nd Street, for $50,000. Over the course of the next several months, generous individuals, as well as groups like the Sisterhood and the Brotherhood, dedicated their time and labor to the construction of a new Diocesan Cathedral. Fragments of the community’s past were incorporated into its new home, like the oak iconostasis built for St. Augustine’s Chapel; a pareccleassion dedicated to Saint Innocent of Irkutsk, the Russian missionary and namesake of the first archbishop of the Americas, Innocent of Alaska; and murals painted by eminent Russian artist S.V. Sokoloff, all depicting scenes from the life of Christ in the Western style popular in pre-revolution Russia. On October 24, 1943, a sobor of distinguished hierarchs and clergy joined Metropolitan Theophilus for the much-awaited consecration and dedication service. 

By the time the Diocese had purchased the building, the surrounding community was mostly Russian and Ukrainian, but a glance above at the rich wooden beams that vault the ceiling serves as a reminder that before it was Little Odessa, it was Little Germany. “I have bibles from the German days that I found behind radiators,” says Fr. Calin, “and little cards of events for German mothers and children that used to happen here.” From across the street outside, the “really cool” stained glass windows had caught his attention, too, behind which was an entire second floor of office space. In fact, this was one of the reasons the building was purchased in the first place, and from the 1940s to the ’60s, every room of the Cathedral bustled with activity.

As the pro-church of the North American Diocese, the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection carried the unique administrative responsibilities of housing and overseeing a web of chancery offices for both the national church and a number of other organizations affiliated with it, such as the the Society for the Relief of Russian War Invalids, Inc., and the Father John of Kronstadt Memorial Fund, Inc. As Archpriest Georges Florovsky, then Dean of Saint Vladimir’s, noticed, the Cathedral’s growing capacities as a national institution were impressive, yet they often left little time for the locality of the parish community and the intimate care of its own members’ needs. In response, Florovsky founded St. Innocent’s English Chapel (located inside the Cathedral) in 1943 to serve as a church for his seminarians and to minister to the individual needs of World War II veterans and their American-born family members. 

Meetings of the Metropolitan Council and the Holy Synod of Bishops, as well as several All-American Church Sobors, were also convened at the Cathedral. With respect to events and activities of national importance, serving the Cathedral meant serving the national church, and local parishioners, like Mrs. Olga Kluge, leader of the Sisterhood, often dedicated their time and resources for a successful operation. During Holy Week, participation was through the roof and around the block, with thousands of people in attendance and members of the Sisterhood hard at work preparing the Cathedral ahead of time. The altar was usually full, too, with two or three hierarchs and several priests and deacons celebrating the liturgy. Similarly, nearly all ordinations were held in the Cathedral, and numerous bishops for other dioceses of the Church were consecrated there, as well.

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White flight in the 1970s spurred the growth of new parish communities in the suburbs, but also the steady decline of membership at the Cathedral. Chancery offices migrated to Syosset, Long Island, and All-American Councils (Church Sobors) moved to luxury hotels. The Cathedral’s administrative and symbolic role within the Church diminished, and its deteriorating space, poor financial accountability, and deepening debt reflected this. Meanwhile, the Chapel of St. Innocent continued to minister to the English-speaking community, and under the pastorate of Archpriest Stephan Plumlee, a fuller cycle of services had been initiated, and converts were slowly drawn to the chapel. As a professional psychologist and gifted preacher, Father Stephan facilitated greater outreach to the local community, as well. 

A small number of St. Innocent’s parishioners also became the de facto custodians of the Cathedral. After the death of Metropolitan Ireney in 1981, there were talks of selling the building to developers and disbanding the parish altogether. After the Council of the Cathedral approached the members of St. Innocent for help, the communities agreed to merge into one parish, but issues of liturgical language, the adoption of the “revised” calendar, and overwhelming financial responsibilities led to in-fighting and further erosion. In 1982, the Holy Synod decided to relocate the Metropolitan seat from New York to Washington, DC, where a new cathedral had been erected. The Holy Virgin Protection was then designated Seat for the Ruling Archbishop of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey. 

Though the decision reinforced a loss of status for the Cathedral, it also eased expectations and allowed it to be something it had not been for some time: a local parish community. Recognizing an opportunity, Archbishop Peter l’Huillier of New York and New Jersey called upon his friend Igumen Makary Rossello, then living in Mallorca, to take on the duties of pastor for the Cathedral. Makary had previously served as the Archbishop’s secretary in the Diocese of Chersonese in Paris, and as a young man still in his thirties, he possessed both an infectious enthusiasm and a versatility as a handyman and artisan. After his appointment as Priest-in-Charge in 1985, he took on the task of cleaning and repairing the edifice. Invited by their friend Fr. Peter Baktis, the assistant priest at the Cathedral, Calin and Suvak would also soon arrive, finding themselves, mostly by accident, part of a core group of newcomers willing to rebuild and renew the parish. The giant padlock on the room upstairs, for example, would eventually come off after Fr. Makary, who himself had never seen the inside, struck a deal with the snooping twenty-something year old Calin: he would fetch his lock cutters as long as Calin helped him fix whatever lay behind the door. It was “a disaster,” as it turned out, filled with piles of debris and hanging light bulbs. It had previously been an auditorium. The basement downstairs, also locked, had holes in the floor. “The whole building was rotting around the edges,” remembers Calin. 

Yet that weekend marked the beginning of a new era, and volunteers would come after work to renovate, plaster, and repaint the Cathedral. Two years later, in 1987, the sanctuary’s interior was refurbished with an iconostasis filled with icons painted by Fr. Makary’s cousin, Daniel Breno, a gifted disciple of master iconographer Leonidas Ouspensky. (The old icons were sent to the Cathedral of the Ascension in Mexico City, where they’re still in use.) When a fire destroyed the back wall of the sanctuary in 1993, Breno repainted it to feature more women saints, and today it showcases the Old Testament matriarchs and patriarchs in the traditional Byzantine style.

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Though Fr. Makary at first only held services on weekends and feast days, he allowed the newcomers to lead vesper services on Wednesday and Friday nights, so long as they used the narthex instead of the church. There, with the great acoustics, the main doors opened, and the incense wafting out onto the street, the Cathedral began attracting members as curious passersby, hearing the singing, would step inside to check it out. Many eventually converted, and post-vespers classes open to Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike also helped grow the community. So did the efforts of choir director Barbara Heckman, who recruited young people to come to practices. She was tough—“like a mama bear,” Calin says—but the choir gained popularity and renown under her leadership, and members bonded during rehearsals. Olga Dorochovich, originally a Brooklyn public school teacher, ran the Sunday School and made sure there were always activities for the youth. Perhaps even more important, she took charge of the filing and paperwork, which had fallen into a backlog during the Cathedral’s many years of administrative disarray. Makary, who has since returned to Spain, remained with the Cathedral for nine years before Fr. Calin took over in 1994. 

In the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the Cathedral welcomed an influx of Georgian immigrants, so much so that it became well known across the diaspora and even abroad in Georgia. The community used the chapel for a while before finding its own space, but many retained their membership at the Cathedral. After King Michael of Romania visited the Cathedral in 1991, members of the Romanian community also began attending more frequently. By Fr. Suvak’s estimates, today about 30% of the parish are Georgian, 40% are of Romanian or Slavic background, and 30% are converts to the faith. Regardless of background, people found themselves drawn to the beauty of the faith and to the community, especially younger people living alone in the city. “We were and continue to be radically welcoming,” Calin says. “That is really what saved this place–welcoming anyone who came through the door.” At the same time, he says he makes it “very clear who we are and who we are not,” and there is no space for religious fundamentalism or displays of nationalism in the sanctuary. A special notice on the Cathedral’s website reaffirms the OCA’s autocephaly from the Moscow Patriarchate, and according to Calin, there is no polarization in the parish when it comes to the crisis in Ukraine.  

Engagement with the greater neighborhood also remains an important part of the Cathedral’s culture. A 1988 Nativity Fast Retreat, featuring a number of speakers, marked the start of renewed inter-Orthodox relations with the other parishes in New York. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Cathedral hosted coffeehouses and street festivals, and for the past twelve years, it has been a member of the organization Local Faith Communities of the East Village. It has also worked with Meat Loaf Kitchen, Meals on Wheels, and City Harvest, distributing a second collection on their behalf each Sunday. 

As for its own finances, the Cathedral has long been solvent, and it finds ways to support its own members, especially through scholarships for college-bound youth. Once listed for sale for $1.4 million and dismissed as an old building in shambles, the building is now valued at $34 million; but aside from that, Calin says, it “has a lot of history. It deserved to be saved.” Yet he recognizes how fragile it can all be, and he hopes the community at the Holy Virgin Protection can continue. Perhaps his own aptly titled, original 1993 History of the Cathedral offers the best look forward: “Continuity of Life in Unity of Faith.”

Amelia Antzoulatos is the Assistant Editor of Jacob’s Well. She works with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and her home parish is the Cathedral of Saint John the Theologian in Tenafly, New Jersey.