News article highlights life of Met. Nicholas

(post-gazette.com) - In a religious culture plagued by in-fighting and schism, Metropolitan Nicholas of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the U.S.A. has worked to heal rifts between Orthodox and Catholic Christians.

On Tuesday, some Byzantine Catholics will join a 5 p.m. celebration of his 75th birthday at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Johnstown.

"He has a passion for church unity," said the Rev. John Petro, rector of SS. Cyril & Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary, North Side. "It's not about giving academic lectures on ecumenism, but a living experience of coming together to pray and work on common projects."

Metropolitan Nicholas has worked for reconciliation while supporting missionary outreach to a secular world. He is battling cancer and was unable to give an interview but will be at Tuesday's service.

He was born in New Jersey, to Eastern Catholic immigrants from Carpathian mountain villages of Europe. Eastern Catholics are loyal to the pope, but follow the practices of Orthodoxy, which always included a married priesthood.

In 1929, the pope banned married Eastern Catholic priests from America. Eastern Catholics here felt betrayed. Thousands left the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh and in 1938 formed the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.

"It was a very bitter and painful experience in those days," said the Rev. Michael Rosco, who edits the Carpatho-Russian news. "It caused splits in families and certainly splits in churches. It took a long time for that to begin to heal, and it took a person like Bishop Nicholas to get the process of healing going."

As a student at Christ the Savior Seminary in Johnstown, the future bishop helped out at the East Pittsburgh parish of the future Father Rosco, then 5.

"Even then I remember his very warm personality," Father Rosco said. "He was a wonderful role model, and probably one of the reasons that I became interested in the priesthood."

Ordained in 1959, he served for three years at SS. Peter & Paul in Windber, Somerset County.

In 1962 he went to study at the prestigious Halki Orthodox seminary -- since closed by the Turkish government -- at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. He spent time on Mount Athos, the nation of monasteries on a remote peninsula off Greece.

He returned to Johnstown as prefect of Christ the Savior Seminary, where Father Rosco became a student.

"He emphasized that first and foremost we should be men of prayer," he said. "He said we must remember that it is our duty, above all others, to preach the gospel, to administer the sacraments and to be the example of Christ that a priest is supposed to be."

A parish assignment took him to New York, where in 1979 he became abbot of a new monastery. In 1983 he was elected an auxiliary bishop in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. But the next year Bishop John of the Carpatho-Russian diocese died unexpectedly. Bishop Nicholas was chosen to succeed him.

He immediately embarked on renewal. That included translation of services into English while preserving the unique Carpathian tunes to which the lyrics were chanted.

"He has a great love for Carpatho-Russian plain chant," said Father Frank Miloro, the chancellor. "He understands that unless we preserved it in the English language, the chant would disappear."

Today the diocese has 10,000 members in about 80 parishes. He championed mission parishes in the south and west, which have drawn new converts.

His work to heal relationships with Byzantine Catholics began with an invitation from the late Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Judson Procyk to participate in a 1999 celebration of the Catholic jurisdiction's 75th anniversary. Metropolitan Nicholas, along with Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Maximos, was given a place of honor. During the service Metropolitan Procyk offered them the kiss of peace. It was a gesture, Metropolitan Nicholas said later, that would have been unimaginable 50 years earlier.

"Christ is in our midst. Do not let this moment pass away," he reported telling the Catholic.

He soon wrote an editorial for his diocesan newspaper, saying that the experience was "like two brothers who had been estranged coming together and embracing again," said the Rev. John Petro, rector of SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary on the North Side.

Subsequent exchanges have included Father Petro preaching in the Orthodox cathedral and a Carpatho-Russian priest joining the Catholic seminary's faculty.

While sacramental unity is far off beyond local control, "he has been able to put aside the church politics and recognize the fact that we are one people," Father Rosco said.

In October, during what has become an annual address to students of both seminaries, he made several proposals: joining for prayer, pilgrimage and works of charity; a common studies program for their seminaries; and supporting an international proposal for calculating the date of Easter by a strictly astronomical formula so that all Christian churches celebrate together.

"Let us ask a question about unity that needs to be asked, especially now. Why have we tolerated its absence? Why has the perversion of unity -- why has disunity achieved so much acceptance and respectability?" he asked.

"It is time to stop going alone in disunity. Let us go together once again ... joined together in the unity of the mountain of Zion, under the headship of Jesus Christ."