Comments on: New York OCA Cathedral’s fight for religious freedom http://orthodoxhistory.org/2011/08/18/new-york-oca-cathedrals-fight-for-religious-freedom/ The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas Wed, 08 May 2013 13:30:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Fr. Oliver Herbel http://orthodoxhistory.org/2011/08/18/new-york-oca-cathedrals-fight-for-religious-freedom/comment-page-1/#comment-1513 Fr. Oliver Herbel Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:22:10 +0000 http://orthodoxhistory.org/?p=4739#comment-1513 Valerie! It’s great to hear from you! i truly appreciate you weighing in on this matter. People just don’t always realize what Orthodoxy’s liturgically-influenced architecture truly is all about. Then again, how many Americans even know there is Orthodox Christianity, right?

Thank you for your words of support and for your efforts in the past. The church is indebted to all sorts of people like you willing to remind others kindly that sometimes good intentions (historic preservation) comes at too high a cost (regulatory interference with Orthodox Christianity).

]]> By: Valerie http://orthodoxhistory.org/2011/08/18/new-york-oca-cathedrals-fight-for-religious-freedom/comment-page-1/#comment-1512 Valerie Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:42:32 +0000 http://orthodoxhistory.org/?p=4739#comment-1512 I actually experienced this same situation about ten or twelve years ago in my home parish in St. Louis (St. Nicholas, GOA). I was a theology professor at Saint Louis University at the time. I attended the meeting of the city’s landmark commission, armed with a slide show presentation of traditional Orthodox architecture and iconography, and made it clear that landmark status would inhibit the parish’s ability to alter either the architecture or the interior iconography to make it more traditional (the exterior is a not-very-good Romanesque basilica and the interior is decorated with primarily Western European-style iconography). We also had a letter from our diocesan bishop in Chicago objecting to the landmark designation on the same grounds (I had written him about it ahead of time). The commission voted against landmark designation for the church.

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