New Orleans' Greek Orthodox celebrate a little history

The Russian Grand Duke's long-ago gift to local Greek Orthodox congregation on display this weekend

Published: Friday, March 09, 2012, 9:30 AM

By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune

 

For the first time in years, the city’s one Greek Orthodox congregation on Saturday will display a sampling of its old Bibles, antique icons and other treasures -- including a silver cross that seems have been a gift from Russian Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, whose 1872 visit to New Orleans helped give birth to the Rex organization and modern Mardi Gras.

View full sizeMichael DeMocker, The Times-PicayuneThe 'blessing cross' dates from 1849 and was hand-tooled in Moscow.

 

The so-called “blessing cross,” used by a priest to trace the sign of the cross in the air before a congregation, dates from 1849 and was hand-tooled in Moscow, said Maggie Maag, a parishioner at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, who has been preparing the exhibit for months.
The congregation knows that Alexi visited the church, then in the 1200 block of North Dorgenois Street, and presented it with several gifts.
“There’s a good probability this was one of the gifts from him,” she said.
The cross and other items will go on display at the cathedral’s Hellenic Center to raise money for the congregation’s charitable ministry, and to finance further preservation of the artifacts.
Admission is $50.
Besides old photos, sacred liturgical objects and sacramental records from the 1870s, the exhibit includes the congregation’s most precious antique icons.
Icons – paintings on wood of Jesus, his mother or the saints – for centuries have been an important and distinctive part of Orthodox ornamentation and worship.
They are not themselves worshiped, but provide images to be venerated by the faithful.
“These are the portraits of our family,” said the Rev. Grigorios Tatsis, the cathedral dean.
The oldest icon, a representation of the Holy Trinity, dates from about 1865.
Dating from 1864, Holy Trinity is widely considered the oldest Greek Orthodox congregation in North America – in fact, in the Western Hemisphere.
Its first members were Greek and Slavic cotton and sugar merchants who had been trickling into the New Orleans port since at least the 1770s.
Those early Orthodox Christians were not all Greek – an early priest, Agapius Honcharenko, was Ukrainian – but common Orthodox theology trumped differences in ethnicity, Tatsis said.
Maag and other volunteers for months have been inventorying, cataloguing and researching the histories of the objects that have long been in storage.
Some will come out briefly for display on Saturday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Two lectures follow immediately in the cathedral next door, at 1200 Robert E. Lee Blvd.
One presenter will provide the research of Professor Richard Campanella, Tulane geographer and author, on the settlement of Greeks in New Orleans. Lee Farrow of Auburn University in Montgomery, will discuss her research on the Archduke Alexei’s visit to New Orleans in 1872.