May Services
+There will be a general Parastos at Roselawn Cemetery on Thomas Sunday following Liturgy, beginning at the grave of Fr. Theodore Grishan.  This will be followed by a picnic, so coffee hour will be brief.
+May 7: St. Alexis Toth.  Let us celebrate the memory of this great evangelist for Orthodoxy in America, the only convert among our American saints.
+May 21: Ss. Constantine & Helen/Midfeast of Pentecost.  There will be no services here on the eve of the feast as we will join with our brethren in Colorado Springs for their patronal feast day.  A dinner will follow Vespers (no charge).  We will have Liturgy here the next day.

Pascha Photos
Thanks to everyone who actively helped make this Holy Week and Pascha so beautiful: singers, readers, servers, women who decorated the tomb, men who carried items in procession, etc.  It was especially amazing to see that families with young children, who seemingly have so little time, were among the most faithful in attending services and pitching in.  If anyone has quality, digital photos of any services from Lazarus Saturday onward (especially the baptisms/chrismations), or of our paschal meal together, please email them to Father for the website.

Mother’s Day Brunch
As a humble token of our appreciation, the men of the parish will prepare brunch after Liturgy on Mother’s Day.  The triumvirate of Rade, John E. and Pavel, who performed so ably on Christmas, will oversee this project, and the rest of us men had better not prove useless.  All men are asked to give $5 to Rade for groceries.  Let’s give our mothers/wives/godmothers a treat, and have a good time doing it!  Group 2 will not need to prepare anything for coffee hour that day.

Sponsorship
Many thanks to the anonymous donor who sponsored the re-plating of the baptismal box, and to the family who purchased a new BBQ grill for the parish.  We will get plenty of use out of both!  A donor is also needed to sponsor communion wine for the remainder of this year: $44 buys one case.  Speak to Father if you are interested.  We also need a weed wacker.  Your old one would be just fine.

Hall Floor Replacement
The upcoming replacement of the floor in our parish hall should go smoothly provided there are sufficient volunteers.  It will take place in several parts:

• Saturday the 17th the women will get together at 10:00 am to clear items out of the kitchen, remove table coverings, etc.
• Sunday the 18th after coffee hour, the men will move tables, chairs and other furniture over to the rectory basement.
• The floor will be removed and replaced Monday - Tuesday.
• Ladies can begin putting items back when they have their monthly meeting Wednesday the 21st.
• Men will get together Saturday the 24th to haul the heavy stuff back in.

It will be marvelous to have a new floor, among other things for the incentive we will have to keep it clean.

Women’s Group
The women of the parish will have their next meeting after the Liturgy on the Feast of Mid-Pentecost.  Old parish photos will be the main feature.

Father Away
Father and family will be away May 26th – 30th celebrating their wedding anniversary.  If Father cannot be reached on his cell phone (719-406-8833), please contact Father Anthony or Father Stephen in an emergency.  Carlsbad Caverns is the projected destination.  If you have any helpful tips, Father would appreciate hearing them.

March Treasurer’s Report

Bookstore
The bookstore has several new items in stock, especially compact discs.  One of these, A Treasury of Spiritual Songs, features a piece the choir is learning for the upcoming choir festival of our deanery.  Special orders are always welcome at the bookstore, and catalogues are available for your perusal.

Choir Festival
The annual Orthodox Choir Festival will be in Littleton, CO on Saturday, June 7th.  Times for banquet and concert TBA – all are encouraged to come.

Parishioner Profile: The Family de Chabert

Of all the parishioners of St. Michael’s, few have come from as far as the de Chabert family has in order to get here.  Pierre, Saturnina and Nicole have attended this parish since last summer, and were received into the Holy Orthodox Church on Holy Saturday through anointing with Chrism.  Who are our new brother and sisters in Christ?

Saturnina Viera was born in the 1930s on Vieques, Puerto Rico, an island known for its use as a bombing range by the US military.  Her father was a cattle and dairy farmer, and she was born into a Methodist family of Portuguese, English, Spanish and French heritage.  When she was not yet two, the family moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin islands.  They became Roman Catholics shortly thereafter.  It was on this tiny, Caribbean island that Saturnina went to college, became a schoolteacher (nine years teaching 1st – 3rd grades) and got married.  Her husband, Austin de Chabert, was also a teacher and came from a French and Native Caribbean (Taino) background.  The couple would eventually have six children, including Pierre (’66) and Nicole (’72). 

Pierre had to show me St. Croix on a map.  It is a small place that he remembers as having nice beaches, but being very hot.  In 1977, the family relocated to a Miami suburb so Nicole could attend a special school.  There, they once visited an Eastern Rite Ukrainian Catholic church.  Though they were attracted to the Eastern tradition, the priest spoke English with a thick accent and they had trouble following the service.                                                                                       

They spent some 22 years in south Florida before moving once again, this time to Logan, NM.  And how did they enjoy their new home? “It is the worst place in the whole world,” Pierre recalls with a shudder.  Dry and desolate, Logan had few things to offer except for the fact that it is well away from hurricane country.  After going through Hurricane Andrew in 1999, the family never wanted a repeat performance.  Austin selected Logan because it is a small town where nothing happens, including natural disasters of epic scale.  In Logan, the family owned and operated a grocery store.  Aside from that, the only excitement to be had was the occasional trip to west Texas for shopping and culture.  It was on one such trip that they decided to pay a visit to the closest Orthodox church, located in Amarillo.  Because of the great distance and the lack of a resident priest, their exploration of Orthodoxy didn’t go very far at that time.

In 2006, the family was stunned by the sudden and unexpected death of Austin, who suffered a stroke.  Saturnina had been married to him for over forty years.  Without their beloved patriarch, the family could not remain in dusty Logan indefinitely.  A change was needed.  After exploring the surrounding areas, they decided to move to Pueblo.  “It is not as dry here,” Pierre explained, “It rains more.  People are more friendly and there is a lot more to do.”  If that’s what they think of Pueblo, one hopes one never sees Logan!  The family bought a home in Midway Ranches, about halfway between here and Colorado Springs.  While reading through Images, the magazine published by the Pueblo Chamber of Commerce, they came across a photograph of St. Michael’s iconostasis.  “It looked like it would be a nice place to pray,” Pierre explained of what brought them to church for Vespers not long after.  The family began attending Vespers regularly in the summer of ’07, and started catechism that fall.

What attracted them so strongly to Orthodoxy?  “Everything is as it was before they started changing things [in the West],” said Saturnina, adding that she likes the family atmosphere of this parish.  Welcome to the family, Pierre, Saturnina and Nicole!

Summer Camp
The Rocky Mountain Orthodox Youth Camp will be held from the evening of August 3rd to the afternoon of August 6th this year.  The cost is $115 per camper/counselor.  His Grace, Bishop Benjamin will be present once again, and the Feast of the Transfiguration will be celebrated at camp (no services here).  Parents: if you plan to send children, please notify Father by the first of June.  We will have to organize a fundraiser to pay for scholarships (perhaps a BBQ put on by parents and children).  Ideas are welcome.

From the Archives: A Parish Is Born (1900-1903)
Information on the early history of our parish is not easy to come by.  Few documents from this period remain in our archives, so secondary sources are all we have to go on.  We earlier examined the arrival of Uniates in Pueblo and the organization of a Greek Catholic Lodge.  The following information on the establishment of an actual parish is taken largely from St. Michael’s 1953 Golden Jubilee booklet, which had a more extensive parish history section than subsequent anniversary booklets…

The first significant date in the founding of our parish is June 10, 1900, when interested parties held a meeting in the schoolhouse of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in order to organize a Uniate congregation.  Saint Mary’s would have been a natural place for such an endeavor to begin.  A search of The Chieftain reveals that among the clergy assigned to St. Mary’s at this time was a Fr. Cyril Blatnick, who was to look after the “Krainers and Slavonians” (i.e. Ukrainians/Carpatho-Russians and Croats).  Those present at this initial meeting decided to incorporate their future church under the name: ‘Greek Catholic Church of St. Michael,’ giving it the same patron as the Greek Catholic Lodge founded in 1896.  The elected trustees of that corporation were: John Busha, Joseph Mikita, Paul Monchak and Michael Vasas.  On July 31, 1900, for the sum of $600, the trustees purchased the land on B and Palm Streets that would be the site of our original temple.  On May 20, 1901 the corporation again held a meeting at St. Mary’s school and elected Paul Monchak, Steve Petrovay, Vasil Yaroschak, Vasil Prichak, John Busha, John Kaschak, John Dunda and Joe Mikita as trustees.

Paul Monchak, chairman of the meeting and president of the newly elected trustees, signed papers of incorporation on June 3, 1901.  At this time the church still only existed in theory, for although they had a charter and a plot of land, there was no temple and no priest.  Throughout 1902 and the first part of 1903, the fledgling mission was served sporadically in private homes by Fr. Nicholas Seregelly, a Uniate priest from Denver who at that time was also serving the new Holy Transfiguration Greek Catholic Church in Globeville.  This Fr. Nicholas suffered greatly at the hands of the local Catholic hierarch, who viewed him and the “Eastern Rite” with suspicion, and denied him a salary.  Despite living in dire financial straits, Fr. Nicholas continued to serve the parish until 1903 when, according to the Denver Post, he died of starvation.  A temple had been built in Pueblo by this time, but now the priest was dead and the Catholic bishop was not inclined to allow a replacement.  Holy Transfiguration led the way in looking elsewhere.                                                
To Be Continued…

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