Once burned out parish completes iconography

(The Times-Tribune) - Plush green carpet covers the once bare floors of All Saints Orthodox Church in Olyphant, and intricate icons shrouded in gold paint stand sentry on its walls.

The church has been restored to its former glory four years after it was scarred by fire, said the Rev. David Cowan, rector.

"Every visible surface was destroyed or damaged," he said.

Members were allowed back into the main worship hall in 2008 after conducting services in the basement for two years, but the repairs were far from complete. Scaffolding lined the walls and members sat in folding chairs instead of the honey-colored wooden pews installed a month ago.

"It just looked like a construction site, because that's what it was," the Rev. Cowan said.

He said he wanted members to return to their consecrated worship space as soon as possible, even if its restoration wasn't complete. He wanted them to witness the rebuilding process firsthand, the way God witnesses all of humanity's struggles.

"God actually wants to enter into the mess and bless it," he said.

Parishioner Dorothy Maday said it was heartbreaking to see what damage the fire had done to the church she was baptized and married in - it was like losing a piece of herself. When the carpets and pews went in a month ago, she knew she had that piece back.

"I was really raised in this church, and my whole life was here," she said.

Ivan Rumiantsev, a trained iconographer from Russia, restored 95 percent of the church's interior design with a meticulous hand. His final task was the church's icon screen, which contains three tiers of saints' portraits.

"He's very, very attentive to scale and proportion and size and having everything fit," the Rev. Cowan said.

Mr. Rumiantsev's style of iconography differs from the church's original design, portraying the human form in a more stylized manner. It smooths away facial wrinkles and minimizes shadows to depict a more God-like quality, the Rev. Cowan said. When the sun is shining, the radiant gold paint on the walls is almost blinding, he said.