The New
Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Brooklyn
Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky)
The Russian people have long demonstrated their
unmatched proficiency in creating the churches of God. From the dawn
of Russian history, first Kievan Rus, and then Muscovy, were adorned
as though from heaven with tabernacles, in which the ephemeral
reflected the beauty of the ethereal.
Let us recall our churches, which from the 10th and
11th centuries lasted in Russia until the 20th century: the churches
of the Holy Princes Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise – the Lavra of
the Kiev Caves, Saint Sophia Cathedral, the Church of the Tithes in
Kiev, the golden-domed Cathedral of St. Basil the Great in Ovruch,
followed by Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, St. Basil’s Cathedral in
Moscow, Resurrection Cathedral in the New Jerusalem Monastery
outside of Moscow, and a great multitude of other wondrous churches,
the images of which now adorn albums compiled by students of Russian
religious architecture. On par with these marvelous works of
unparalleled art were smaller, poorer churches, whose worth lay in
their historic significance.
The times in which we now live have clearly shown us
that this is not all architecture and the memory of a bygone era,
but a vivid, overflowing life that contains the answer to our
sufferings and the key to our rebirth. Proof of this lies in those
new churches now being erected in every part of the world by the
Russian people. They also, as in days of old, are either wondrous
works of art, as are for instance the new church of Holy Trinity
Monastery and St. Vladimir’s Memorial Church to the 950th
anniversary of Russian Christianity currently under construction, or
they are the little churches quickly built with tin boxes, paper,
and nails, cemented with the tears, sorrows, faith, and hope of the
Russian people. These churches are built by the Russian people in
the context of their exile and resettlement when they, robbed of
their homeland, are forced to wander foreign lands. Such were the
churches built in the many camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and
in the Russian tent city on Tubabao Island, where a whole diocese or
deanery was established, along with several churches and a
cathedral. One of these greatly important memorial churches of the
Russian Diaspora is now been brought to New York and opened in
Brooklyn. This is the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, which on
November 8/21 will celebrate its first patronal feast day.
The feast day of the Holy Archangel Michael and the
Other Bodiless Powers is very dear to every faithful Orthodox heart.
This holiday renews within our hearts, so often bound to this world,
an awareness of our internal connection to the world on high, to our
angels – guardians, servants of God’s glory, and guides to our
salvation and spiritual fulfillment. The whole of Holy Scripture,
both Old and New Testaments, bears witness to the service of the
angels in the matter of our entrance into the kingdom of eternal
glory, unattainable for the worldly. Such, for instance, is the
narrative of the Prophet Daniel: "In the four and twentieth day of
the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is,
the Tigris, then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a
certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold
of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the
appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms
and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his
words like the voice of a multitude" (Daniel 10:4-6).
This was the chief of the heavenly hosts himself, the
Archangel Michael. He was sent to reveal to the prophet the fate of
the kingdoms of his day and the ultimate fate of the whole world.
All of this was then confirmed in great detail in the Revelation to
John the Theologian. These final judgments were described by the
Prophet Daniel thusly: "At that time shall Michael stand up, the
great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and
there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was
a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall
be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And
many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And
they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament;
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and
ever" (Daniel 12:1-3). Our Lord Jesus Christ also confirmed the
presence of the angels at the Final Judgment of the world: "For what
shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man
be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy
angels" (Mark 8:36-38). In another instance, the Lord said, "In the
time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first
the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the
wheat into my barn" (Matthew 13:30). He also explained these words
Himself: "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are
the angels" (Matthew 13:39). "As therefore the tares are gathered
and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The
Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of
his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and
shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and
gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun
in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear"
(Matthew 13:40-43).
The Holy Church, in whose life the fate of the whole
world is mystically opened, anticipating the coming meeting of earth
and heaven, intentionally established the feast day of the Holy
Archangel Michael and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Hosts on November
8. The feast day is set in the ninth month (in antiquity, the first
month of the calendar was March) in honor of the nine ranks of
angels, and on the eight day of that month to denote the coming
eight day, which will have no end, which will have morning but no
evening – the unwaning day. "Grant us to partake of Thee more
perfectly in the unwaning day of Thy kingdom," as we sing on the
night of Pascha.
We marked all of this last Sunday, on the eve of St.
Michael’s Day, in the new church in Brooklyn, built in near record
time by the zealous efforts of Priest Alexander Sklyarov and his
loyal helpers, and which will be a memorial to life in the camps in
Germany. There our countrymen had to live out something not unlike
the gates of the Dread Judgment, and there the spiritual eyes of
many were opened, and they felt the protection of the guardian
angel, delivering them from calamity and danger. The church was
marvelously adorned and constitutes a comfortably sized house, now
remade into a church.
May the Lord grant that these heightened feelings,
which adorn the Russian man over the course of the centuries of his
history, might not be extinguished in him here, in this land of
freedom and material wealth.
1949
