Part 5: Selections from Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia

Fr Nikolajs Vieglais finally makes it to America in our 5th installment of ‘Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia,” eventually settling at St John the Baptist Church in Berkeley, CA, by way of New York, NY and Lykens, PA!

Ministry in the United States

NV: When my luggage was taken out in New York, everyone was surprised! ‘What kind of person is he!’ But I didn’t know where to put it. It was in the cathedral basement for a while, and after that transferred to another church basement in New York, Christ the Savior Church.
At the cathedral there were already two or three priests. Of course they couldn’t appoint me there because it would be too many. And the parish that was supposed to be for me in Galveston, Texas was occupied before I came.
They made a suggestion. They had an agreement with the Tolstoy Farm (EDITOR’S NOTE: Charitable organization established and headed by Count Leo Tolstoy’s youngest daughter, Alexandra L’vovna Tolstaya. Tolstoy Farm hosted Eastern European refugees, helped them find residence and work, and offered them financial loans.) about 30 miles from New York. There was a church, and the priest there at the time was sick, so I performed services there for a while. We were only in New York one night, and the next day we arrived at Tolstoy Farm. They had one room for me and my wife, and room for the children in the children’s colony. We had four children then. The oldest two, Natalija and Marina, were in that camp. The camp was on the same property but in another building. And the youngest two, Alex and Olga, were with us in our room. We had one room in one building, then another family, and a third family in the same building. But we were there only about three and a half months. We were sent to the Tolstoy Farm in August.

Q: And that was a place where they helped new immigrants before they got settled?

NV: Oh, yes, very much. When I was there, the priest who was assigned there was sick for a while. I replaced him, but when he was okay, I was with the choir.

Q: What happened to Bishop John Garklavs after you came to the U.S. in 1949? Did he go straight to Chicago?

NV: No, he got a room. There was a choir loft at the cathedral in New York on Second Street. There was a balcony where the choir sang, and it went around [the inside of the church], not only in back but also on the sides. In one side of the balcony lived Archbishop John and in another balcony Bishop Dimitri, not the current bishop of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) in the south, but one who came from Poland. Later he was in Boston, but it was temporary; he was officially appointed as the bishop of Detroit, but there was no place for him to live. They had a place for the priest, but not for the bishop. To rent a place would have been too expensive. At those times the central organization had very little money. So he lived [at the cathedral on Second Street], but once in a while he went to Detroit and the surrounding parishes. And when Bishop Leonty who was in Chicago was elected archbishop of New York, Bishop John was transferred to Chicago.

Q: Were there a lot of Latvian Orthodox people here to serve?

NV: No, because Orthodox Latvian were few, but most of the Orthodox in Latvia, two-thirds, are Russian. Only one-third were Latvian. If there were, for example, 180,000 Orthodox in Latvia, only 60,000 were Latvian and 120,000 Russian.

Q: What happened to the priest John Legkij and his family?

NV: He went from Germany with the Synodal Church and was appointed a priest in Patterson, New Jersey. And he stayed there until he retired in 1987 or so. He lives with his children, two daughters, Irina and Galina, and now he even has great-grandchildren. But his wife passed away in 1986 or so.

Q: What happened to the Tikhvin icon once you came to New York?

NV: The icon went to Chicago with the bishop, and it is still there. They have services with the icon on very special occasions and they bring it to church. But because they want to get it in Russia, somebody keeps it. (EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tikhvin Mother of God icon returned to Russia in June 2004.)

Q: Was it in 1949 that you were assigned to Lykens, Pennsylvania?

NV: It was 1949, in November.

Q: What is the name of the church in Lykens?

NV: Ascension. It was established in 1913. I went [recently] for the 75th anniversary.

Q: What was your experience regarding the use of English and Slavonic languages? Were there times when that was an issue?

NV: When I was at the Tolstoy Farm, of course, everything was in Russian. When I went to Lykens, Pennsylvania, everything was in Slavonic, even Sunday school — there they had Saturday school for children. Of course the children didn’t understand Russian, but their parents wanted them to learn Russian. I had to speak Russian with them.

Q: What were you speaking up to that time in your family?

NV: In my family, Russian. Only my brother and sister spoke Latvian because they were educated in Latvian schools. But in Latvia the grammar school I attended was in Russian. And then in the Institute of Agriculture it was in Latvian, but I kept the Russian language. Then I was in the seminary and again in Russian. And I was in a Russian parish, a mixed parish, but everyone used the Russian language mostly. But then here [in Berkeley, when my brother and sister visited,] again Latvian. But I kept my Russian all the time. They tried among themselves to speak Latvian and for them it was easier to speak Latvian than Russian. For me, Russian was easier than Latvian.

Q: You were saying that the people in Pennsylvania wanted only Russian?

NV: Those people came from Austria-Hungary. They were not Russian, and not Ukrainian, but Galician. Their language is different than Russian. Some of it sounds similar to Russian, but some words are different. And they used many English words, but exchanged them: Fixoty, to fix; cleanoty, to clean; boysici, boys. ‘Boysicki pleudi de placa,’ or ‘The boys play on the place,’ something like that, many such words. But the children of course spoke English. I said, ‘I don’t know your language.’ They said, ‘No, use real Russian.’ But there were different children there, even teenagers. I gave them one Latvian/English religious book to read, Bible stories, because they couldn’t understand Russian. I supposed it would be reasonable for them to hear in English what was being said in Russian. But their parents said, ‘No English, just Russian.’
There was one wedding where the bride was the daughter of the church warden, but the husband was an official worker in Harrisburg. I don’t remember if he was Orthodox or Catholic, but I couldn’t perform the marriage because they insisted that the wedding had to be in English, mostly because of the husband. And so they invited an English speaking priest from the neighboring parish. I started to work with the choir to prepare them for the wedding. Usually at a wedding the choir didn’t sing, just the psalm reader, only one singer. But I thought that it would be reasonable to have the choir sing. They agreed. Then everybody was ready a couple of weeks before the wedding to rehearse. I suggested that in the litany, we could sing the response, ‘Lord have mercy.’ They said, ‘No!No!’ I told them, ‘But the priest will be reading in English.’ They said, ‘Let him read. We will sing only in Russian!’ It was 1950, you know. When I came to Berkeley it was the same. And therefore my English is very poor. Other priests who came at the same time or even later speak fluently, but I cannot.

Q: You do very well.

NV: I cannot. I don’t even read the gospel. I give it to somebody to read in English because my pronunciation is different.

Q: Do you feel that was a healthy attitude on the part of the parishioners that they were so strong about wanting Russian?

NV: I understood that they lost their country. They spoke Russian in their families. They used Russian culture, books and different things. They didn’t want to change their nationality because everyone believed that sooner or later they would go back to Russia, that the communists would be overthrown. But little by little I had to use English. There were some mixed marriages and baptisms, but again mixed parents: one Russian, the other American. In Lykens we stayed until December 1951, and then came here to St. John the Baptist Church in Berkeley, California.

Q: You said that Fr. George Benigsen was here when you arrived in Berkeley?

NV: Fr. George came to the United States after me. I was in Pennsylvania and he was appointed here in Berkeley. In Berkeley there was a priest from France who was later appointed dean of Tikhon’s Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, Fr. Grigori Lomako. And then Fr. George was appointed here in Berkeley. He stayed here several months. At that time there was a priest in San Francisco, Fr. Jonah, who was ordained as auxiliary bishop to the metropolitan in New York. And Fr. George was transferred to the cathedral, and in those times Fr. Dimitri Egoroff was second priest. When Fr. George was transferred to San Francisco, I was transferred from Pennsylvania to Berkeley. It was 1951.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Fr. Lomako gained prominence as a member of the All-Russian Church Council in Moscow in 1917–18. He later served in Europe under Metropolitan Evlogi and was raised by him to the rank of protopresbyter in 1945. In spite of his brief time in America, Fr. Lomako, as perhaps the most prominent senior priest in attendance, was selected to present the archpastoral staff to Metropolitan Leonty at his installation as Metropolia Primate at the All-American Sobor in 1950. From 1948 to early 1951, he served at St. John the Baptist Church in Berkeley. He served as dean of St. Tikhon’s Seminary for about six months, and then returned to France to assume the position of dean of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris until his death in 1959.(Source: Archives of the Orthodox Church in America, courtesy of Mr. Alexis Liberovsky))

My first service here in this church was the last Sunday in December. The first place we lived was a very small apartment attached to the church. We lived there for two and a half years, and then I helped to buy this [rectory] because the house was for sale. I suggested to collect money for the down payment. I visited parishioners, and they gave money. I already had a car at that time. I had the addresses, and so on, and went around. ‘Please sign it.’ [People gave] five dollars, two dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars, and soon there was $4,900, but we needed $5,000 for the down payment! So I went to the man who was against buying the house. He gave $100 to complete the down payment. And then we cleaned some, and stayed a couple of months more in the apartment, and then moved next door to the rectory. And very soon it was 1953.

Q: Did you always drive?

NV: In Pennsylvania one parishioner took me from house to house. But here some of the parishioners took turns driving me, one day one, another day another. And very soon I was able to buy a car, a used car, of course. It was a 1946. I bought it in 1952, but it was six years old. It was not expensive, and I could pay part of it. And then I started to go by myself.

Q: Did your wife work here in Berkeley?

NV: She was a psalm reader. When the choir director couldn’t be here, she was in the choir. She sang in the choir too. But then, little by little, she got a job in the People’s Recreation Center in Oakland. The work was in the kitchen making food and preparing tables. But it was okay because she earned social security. And the work was not too hard for her, and not every day. Some days were flexible. But the children were always baby-sitters. They got 25 cents per hour, later 50 cents per hour. It was their own money, not mine. Of course the printing did not give much money, but because money would come and go, I could somehow use it more freely. My salary was$100.00 per month, and I don’t know how much I got from printing, but somehow it helped me.

Q: This parish has been here a long time, right?

NV: Most parishes were organized in the last years of last century, and maybe before the First World War in 1914. Most of the Orthodox were those who came from Austro-Hungary. Austria is one country, mainly a part of Serbia, with a mixed population. There were Slavic people who were forced to be in the Uniate Church, which is Catholic. They didn’t want to be, and besides they couldn’t get good jobs. But the most important thing was that they didn’t want to be in the army against Russia. And they went to the United States and started working in factories, as farmers, and in other jobs. And they changed from the Uniate Church and joined Orthodoxy.
The first priest was Fr. Alexis Toft from Minneapolis who later was priest in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The first parish that joined Orthodoxy was in Minneapolis. And then little by little more and more joined, so that almost all of the Uniate Church joined Orthodoxy. Lykens was such a church. But Berkeley was different. Here the people came from Russia, but most of them after the revolution. Most of them came through China and Japan to San Francisco. Some of them were students who studied here, and their parents came afterward.
And the parish started to do something in 1923, but it was not a parish, maybe just five or six families. And they organized evening prayers, Vespers. They paid a priest who came from San Francisco once a month or so in the beginning, then later, twice a month. They had no bridge at that time, so they came by road. And so the parish organized only in 1938. In those times one of the priests who was somewhere in Siberia came here through China. He was appointed priest here. And they rented. The first church service in Berkeley was on Bancroft Way at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, not at the church but in a chapel. Then they rented one apartment for a church and made an iconostas. Then they bought a house on Dwight Way in front of the hospital. And in 1950 they bought this property. When they were on Dwight Way, at that time a priest was appointed, Fr. Prisadtsky, who was sympathetic to the Soviet Union. And he wanted the church to be under the Moscow Patriarch. And then the church was split. Forty-two members voted to stay in the American jurisdiction, and 40 voted to go to the Moscow jurisdiction. The American group decided to sell that property [on Dwight Way] and bought this one. And the Moscow Patriarchal group was on Milvia Street. But now there is no longer a church there.

Q: Did St. John the Baptist Church belong to another church before [the parish bought it]?

NV: It was Protestant. A branch of Lutheran Church, Swedenborgian. They had another church in El Cerrito, and therefore they decided that it was too much to have two churches. They sold it [to us] for $20,000.

Q: What year did they sell it?

NV: In 1950. In 1951 an iconostas was already built, not the one we have now, but a temporary iconostas. And little by little during my stay here it was rebuilt several times. An entrance was made at the end. The entrance had been on the left side, and the back was for a social hall. In my time they built this social hall, bought this house, bought those two houses, bought this four-unit apartment house, the green one. Now this property is very big. But when they started in 1923 there were only five or six families. Before the parish split there were some 80 members. And the official membership in our church now is around 70 or 80, but we have had many deaths, up to 600 or so.

Q: How many were here when you came in 1951?

NV: There were 40.

Q: And you said that many of the parishioners are Russians who came through China?

NV: Through China, and through Japan also. Afterward they came from Europe. In the 1950s they came from Europe mostly, and from China too, of course, and even from Brazil. Those who were from China and couldn’t get here went to Brazil or Argentina, and so they also came here little by little and joined our parish. But some of them again went to different places, got jobs even in Hawaii, Chicago, near Los Angeles and New York. So some came here, but moved away, and of course, some died during these 38 years. Almost 600 people have died. The parish was originally 40, 600 have died, and now there are 80. [laughs] Special mathematics!

There was one lady from Russia from the nobility. She came here early during the First World War. Her husband was in the Russian consulate, but he passed away and then she came here to this area and lived in Berkeley. She spoke English fluently from childhood. In Russian high society they knew many languages. First was French, then English, and even German. And she helped me to read and pronounce English. So little by little I started to perform weddings and baptism services.

Q: What was the name of the lady who helped you?

NV: Maria Dubasov. And there was one parishioner who came here through Siberia. He was a Navy officer. In the Philippines he was a French teacher. Then he came here, and little by little worked in a factory or somewhere, and then he was a teacher in the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. His wife was here in Berkeley as an apartment house manager. He came here to sing and read in the church cliros. I suggested to him to be a deacon here. He agreed with that, and so the bishop ordained him, and then we started to use English in the Liturgy. Because he could speak English, he said the litany after the Cherubic hymn, ‘Let us complete our prayer,’ in English. Then, little by little, one of the altar boys started to read the Creed in English after the choir sang it, and the Lord’s Prayer.

Q: What was the name of the deacon?

NV: Roman Sturmer. After that he was ordained a priest in Kodiak, Alaska, for seven years. After that he was a priest in the cathedral in San Francisco. And when he retired he worked for a while as a priest in Santa Barbara, and passed away in Pleasanton in his son’s home. And his wife, Ksenia, when she was managing the apartments, was like a psalm reader. And after they moved to Alaska my wife became psalm reader here.

Q: Were there any other clergy members who stayed for any length of time at the Berkeley parish?

NV: There was one Episcopal priest who was a chaplain in the army, an American. He was fine, but something was not very good with his general condition, and so he retired as an Episcopal priest and started to come to our church, just sitting back near the candle stand. And his wife was a teacher or principal in Martinez. And little by little he became Orthodox. I received both of them by chrismation. And the bishop made him a deacon. He was deacon here for a while. After Fr. Sturmer went to Alaska, he was here a couple of years or so.

Q: What was his name?

NV: John Birch. His wife is still alive.

Q: How old was he when he became a deacon?

NV: He was around 50, I suppose. And then he joined the Antiochian jurisdiction and the metropolitan ordained him a priest, and he was a missionary priest in Walnut Creek. Because he knew our parishioners since he was a deacon here, he tried to get those who lived in that area in his parish. And so he organized a parish from our parishioners plus some Syrians maybe, but mostly our parishioners. He started in Concord in a Catholic high school chapel. It was close to Treat Blvd. and Oak. There is a Catholic school, and he started to serve there. Then the bishop sent him to Portland, because the priest died or was sick, I don’t know. He went there for a while. And another priest from the Antiochian church here was appointed for a while.

Q: What years did he go out there roughly?

NV: I suppose it was the end of the 1950s. And then, little by little, because that priest, Fr. John, passed away, that other priest got another job in Palo Alto somewhere, maybe Los Altos. He was appointed there, and in the meantime Fr. Michael Prokurat came. Bishop John appointed him as a reserve priest and assigned him to three or four parishes: our parish, Menlo Park, San Anselmo, and I suppose the church on Anza Street in San Francisco. And he served once a month in each of those parishes. He also worked with the Sunday school. In the meantime for couple of weeks there was no priest in Concord. And the bishop suggested that Fr. Michael go there. And the parish accepted him, and somehow they made an agreement with the Syrian church. The Syrian church got their savings; they had some$3,000 or so, but everything else was for the OCA. So that mission became an American mission. And the Antiochians organized in Orinda. And in the meantime the priests were changed there, after Fr. Michael Prokurat was some other, I can’t remember, and then Fr. Michael Regan. And they moved from Concord for a while to Walnut Creek, and were able to use the Methodist church. They had services in the basement. And then they bought a property in Danville.

Q: How did the autocephaly in 1970 affect this parish?

NV: Here there was no problem. Just two or three parishioners joined the Synodal church in San Francisco: Moshkin and some others. Two or three left, not too many. Most of them agreed.

Q: And there was no difficulty between the Patriarchal church and this church?

NV: The Patriarchal church was on Milvia Street. But we were friendly. We didn’t fight. Sometimes they came to our church. Sometimes some of our parishioners even went to that church.

Q: You mentioned Bishop Mark Shavykin from San Francisco. Did he ever visit this church?

NV: He was at our church when one lady who knew him passed away. She might have known him for a while in Finland, I’m not sure, but that lady knew him when he was just a monk. And when she passed away, he came to participate in the funeral service, but he couldn’t find our church! He came by BART. He came the wrong way, and came too late. We had to start the funeral, but when he came, he just stood on the side.

Q: What do you remember about Fr. Dimitri Egoroff? You’ve been here a long time and he’s also been here in this area.

NV: I suppose he was from Russia and was in a working camp somewhere, but he fled. I don’t know how it happened. Even dogs were sent after him but didn’t bite him. And he went to Finland. And so, little by little to Valamo Monastery, and from Valamo to the Theological Institute in Paris. Then, I don’t know how, but he got an invitation to Santa Rosa, California. How long he was in Santa Rosa, I don’t know, but when I came here, he was the second priest in the cathedral [in San Francisco]. Fr. George Benigsen was first and he was second. Then a will gave the St. Eugene’s property in Pt. Reyes, California to the church, and he was the caretaker and abbot, with no monks. And he started to do something. People helped him. He built some buildings, not big buildings, and a church for himself and guests, and he served there. Of course when he had free time he visited parishioners in other areas. Once I was in Vallejo visiting one parishioner. They said, ‘Oh, a couple of weeks ago there was another priest here.’ Of course they were happy to have both of us visit. And little by little, he got some money and bought a property in Santa Rosa.

Q: Who else was here?

NV: There was a deacon from Paris, France, Michael Koshlakov, who came here. He was a singer in Paris, even on the radio. But because his daughter had come here earlier, she wanted him to be here too. And he had distant relatives, not first or second, but maybe third cousins. He was church warden here, and he started to come to our church as a singer. I suggested to him to become a deacon. He agreed, and he was some twenty years as a deacon. And then for a while, when he retired, we had a deacon, Alexander Golitzin. He used to just pray in church, and I suggested to him to become a deacon. He was ordained a deacon and stayed a couple of years. Then he was ordained a priest and became a missionary. So we had several deacons here, and once in a while we had certain priests who lived in San Francisco, visiting priests.

Q: How do you feel that the people changed, or how did the faith compare here in California to the faith which you saw in Latvia?

NV: There was no difference here, but in Pennsylvania there was some difference. For example, they didn’t perform Saturday night Vigil, just Vespers. Matins was in the morning, followed by the Liturgy. And at Christmas they had Matins at night and Liturgy in the morning. We have Vigil in the evening and Liturgy in the morning; the same at Easter: Matins at night and Liturgy in the morning. Then also, they held some special candles during the reading of the gospel and during the Cherubic hymn, thick candles, with three candles in the middle. And each of several men holds one, maybe five, six, or seven of them. This was not in our tradition. Then the priests would visit homes on Great Saturday morning to bless the feast day food, those individual homes that would request it, but most of them brought Easter food to the church hall to be blessed the evening before, maybe 8:00 or so. And the priest would bless their food before the service.

Q: After Easter do you make visits to as many of the parishioners as you can?

NV: Yes. It was the same in Latvia and also in Russia, and here also in Berkeley. But in Pennsylvania the blessing of homes was done after Epiphany. Not only then, but at other times too. Russian people especially are very devout. They like to bless as often as possible.

Q: Do you also bless homes after Epiphany?

NV: Yes, we start after Easter, then at Christmas time and continuing to Epiphany, not to the same people [both times], but different people, though some ask for their house to be blessed both after Easter and at Christmas time. I have in my suitcase a bottle of holy water for such requests.

Click for the other parts in the series:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8