St. George's Roman Catholic Lithuanian Parish,   6527 Superior Avenue.  Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Office - (216)-431-5794, Hunger Center - (216)-391-9160  Parish Hall - (216)-391-8233, Fax - (216)-391-8233 eMail - info@SaintGeorgePar ish.Org English Language Masses: Saturdays 8:00 AM, 5:30 PM, Sundays  9:00 AM, Weekdays 7:30 AM Lithuanian Language Masses: Sundays 10:30 AM Confessions: Saturdays 5:00 PM Sundays: 8:30 AM, 10:00 AM

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WORSHIPPING
Saturday, September 24, 2005

Robert L. Smith
Plain Dealer Reporter

An hour before the 10:30 a.m. Sunday service in Lithuanian, Virginia and David Rubinski are in the churchyard hurrying to set up for the fall picnic. The annual gathering is important to the morale of an ethnic parish striving to survive in the old neighborhood - East 67th Street and Superior Avenue in Cleveland - and the troops are spread thin.

As Virginia ties tablecloths to folding tables scattered across a patch of lawn, David readies a grill for burgers and Slovenian sausages. Their 9-year-old daughter, Izabele, answers greetings from dish-bearing parishioners in Lithuanian until her mother calls her to help.

"There's a lot to do," Virginia Rubinski says, taking in the scene.

St. George, founded in 1895, is the oldest active Lithuanian parish in America. It looks as if it is.

A near-century of soot covers the brown-brick colossus, which Lithuanian immigrants erected in 1921 as the parish moved from its original home on East 21st Street. The formal entrance is caged in a fence to keep out vandals. Parishioners who once paraded from nearby homes to pack Sunday services now trickle in from the suburbs and enter by a side door.

But the church where Virginia Rubinski's grandmother worshipped and where her parents were married is more oasis than fortress. St. George survived the changing decades by adapting, not hiding.

Each spring, the church's pastor, the Rev. Joseph Bacevice, blesses the motorcycles outside of the Hells Angels clubhouse at the end of East 67th Street. The bikers, in turn, bring toys to the Christmas party.

The tidy African-American church across the street, Faith Tabernacle Church, splits the cost of a Sunday security guard and contributes toward St. George's hunger center.

Home to prayer, service and heritage, St. George offers a rare experience, David and Virginia Rubinski believe.

They drive in from their home in Collinwood to attend Mass, to pull weeds, to plug leaks, to keep St. George going. David, who is not Lithuanian, said he likes the feeling of keeping a tradition alive.

Virginia, who helps run the hunger center and sings in the choir, says belonging to a small, struggling congregation pays rich rewards.

"We know everybody," she said. "It's like a big family. You really feel like you're needed."

A recent visit:

At the start of Mass, about 65 people sat scattered in a church built for 850. The few families with children stood out. There was no choir. The organ is broken and the pianist, a nurse, had to work. But at the close of a 45-minute service, Bacevice began the opening chords to "Marija, Marija."

Lithuanian-Americans young and old know the ode to Mary. They sang a cappella, and a chorus of voices softly rose and spilled out of the open doors and into the neighborhood, making an old church sound much like it must have 50 years ago.

Then everyone filed out into the sunshine and joined the picnic.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

rsmith@plaind.com, 216-999-4024


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