Monessen church hits century mark

Joe Napsha -3/11/13

A century ago, Monessen was a busy mill  town, 11 years removed from its founding, when a group of Syrian  immigrants founded a church where they could worship with their fellow  countrymen.

“The Mon Valley was a melting  pot for Syrian immigrants … who came to find a new life. They (Syrians)  had a big following here,” said George Essey of Monessen, a member of St.  Michael Antiochian Orthodox Church’s centennial celebration committee.

St. Michael Antiochian Orthodox Church on Patton Avenue, Monessen, will continue its  centennial celebration on Sunday with a special service and a dinner. Orthos, a  pre-service, will be held at 9 a.m., followed at 10 a.m. by a hierarchical  Divine Liturgy concelebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Joseph of Charleston,  W.Va., and Auxiliary Bishop Basil Essey of Wichita, Kan. Essey is a Monessen  native who was a member St. Michael as a youngster, and a cousin of George  Essey.

A special catered dinner for parishioners and  families is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the St. Spyridon Greek  Orthodox Church Hellenic Center at St. Spyridon Lane, Monessen. Essey is  expecting a good turnout for the centennial celebration. The parish has about 75  members who come to the church from Mon Valley communities, as well as South  Park and Bentleyville, said the Rev. Fred Pfeil, who has been the priest at St.  Michael since 2004. In terms of the demographics, about half of the parishioners  are of Mid-Eastern descent and the other half are converts, Pfeil said.

The church opted not to have a special Middle Eastern  meal, the kind of traditional dishes that were prepared by parishioners and  served in October, said Joan Rakosky, another member of the church centennial  celebration committee.

“We wanted to free up everyone who usually bakes —  women and men — so they would not have to cook,” at the centennial celebration,  Rakosky said.

In addition to the food, parishioners will be able to  enjoy a special exhibit of church photos and commemorative booklets, Rakosky  said.

“There will be many artifacts from the church and the  Syrian community that will be on display at the reunion,” Rakosky said.

Most of the immigrants who formed the Syrian  community in the Monessen area were from Homs, a city in western Syria that was  the target of intense bombing this summer during the ongoing Syrian civil war.  The Syrian immigrants to Monessen opted to open businesses and become  door-to-door peddlers of goods, rather than toil in the manufacturing plants,  said George Essey, whose parents immigrated to the United States in the 1920s.

While the Syrian immigrants formed a congregation in  Monessen in 1913, it was not until two years later when the congregation had its  first church building. St. Michael Syrian-Greek Orthodox Church on Ninth Street  was dedicated in January 1915, according to a story in The Daily Independent, a  predecessor to The Valley Independent in Monessen.

The Syrian Orthodox Church has undergone some  transformations over the years, changing its name to Syrian Orthodox Antiochian  Church in 1935 and then to the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in the  1970s, according to Essey.

The congregation remained in that structure for  almost 80 years, before buying the former St. Anthony Croatian Catholic Church  on Patton Avenue in January 1992. Worship at the new church began in March 1992.

Joe Napsha is a staff writer for Trib Total  Media. He can be reached at 724-836-5252 or jnapsha@tribweb.com.

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