A Grand Cathedral Shrinks

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 7-Bishop Nicholas says that hte story telegraphed from Chicago that the Holy Synod has directed him to build a $500,000 cathedral at Chicago is incorrect. He has authorized the priests in Chicago to build a church there, but the price will be nearer $5,000 than $500,000.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D0CE2DD1E3DE433A2575BC0A9649D94649ED7CFhttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0CE2DD1E3DE433A2575BC0A9649D94649ED7CF&scp=3208&sq=Russian+Church&st=p
That’s $150,000 versus $15,350,000 in 2010 $$$

Unfortunately I won’t have the opportunity to go myself to the alma mater, but I know some parisioners in the area.

For one thing, it could be the school’s Protestant connections: the Old University of Chicago had been founded as a Baptist College by Stephan A. Douglas. He had offered its facilities to the Presbyterian Church, but the Baptist were the ones who managed to raise the funds, and its board’s rules required a Baptist majority. Rockfeller, a Baptist, incorporated the new (present) University as a secular school, but the co-founder, William Rainey Harper, was another Baptist whose field was OT, in particular Hebrew studies. In 1895 the University was less than 4 years old, and had the Old University had failed less than a decade before. Given the prior failure and the Protestant connections, and how Fr. Bjerring ended, it could have been more of a gamble than Bishop Nicolai was willing to tolerate.