Magyar News, 2004. szeptember-2005. augusztus (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2005-01-01 / 5. szám
In Faith holding hands with Hungarians Strange how things come together in ways one would never think off. A couple of months ago scanning through the Connecticut Post I came across a front page article about a church in our neighborhood. It was about a famous Polish artist and restorer, Henryk Krzeminski, working on murals created over a half century ago in a small church. Naturally I was pleased to leam about it as I would with any other things that we should cherish. Then I really got exited when Rev. Peter Paproski, pastor of the church , came forward with the name of the original artist. He was Louis (Lajos) Jámbor. I immediately went to a big painting hanging in our dining room to double check the signature on it. Well it read Jámbor. There is no mistake. Our picture depicts two Hungarian women, up to their knees in the Tisza river, each holding a basket with their laundry in it, and a water jug. This painting didn’t come from Stratford. It came from Budapest, from the National Gallery. The person responsible to get it to America was Mr. Langner, the founder of the Shakespeare Theater in Stratford. His widow in Wilton had a big fund raiser on her property for the theater. She also donated items. One was this painting. When I told my wife, Claudia, that it is a Hungarian painting she questioned how could I see it when it was heavily covered The left wall. Christ s agony in the Garden of Gethsemene with smoke. After some arm twisting we purchased it. This is my side of the story. Now I will ask Attorney Orestos Mihály, son of Rev. Father Mihály, who was present at the scene when these paintings were made. (Joseph F. Balogh) This is what he told me: “The Hungarian artist Louis Jámbor has long been acclaimed as an outstanding American artist. His many works were predominately religious in subject matter. An example of his artistry can be found in the small Carpatho Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist in Stratford, Ct. His murals in this church have recently been restored to their pristine beauty by another European artisan five decades after Louis Jámbor painted these magnificent renderings of the Crucifiction, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and Mary the Queen of Heaven. The Hungarian-American painter Louis (Lajos) Jámbor, bom August 1, 1884 in Nagyv’rad, Hungary, was a prolific artist with a career marked by versatility in subject matter, technical exactitude, and generous humanism. Known for religious paintings, public murals and book illustrations, his work had been viewed by millions of people outside of the walls of museums. His work in portraiture, genre scenes, and still life is less well known, but equally as masterful and moving. The founders of this church trace their roots to Rusyn emigrants from villages in northeastern Austria- Hungary at the end of the 19th century. Many of their priests were graduates of seminaries in Eperjes and Munkács (now in Slovakia and Ukraine) and spoke the Hungarian and Rusyn. Languages. In Europe the Rusyn people were "Greek Catholic" ministered to by a married priesthood. In America the Roman Catholic priests were celibate and ordinations of married priests were not permitted. As a result, many thousands of the Rusyn people eventually became Orthodox Christians. Turmoil and divisiveness in the Rusyn parishes over the celibacy issue continued for some time. This church in Stratford is now one of many churches throughout the United States which are now Orthodox Greek Catholic Churches with a married priesthood. The original pastors of this church on Broadbridge Avenue in Stratford Ct. were schooled in the Greek Catholic Seminary in Presov (Eperjes). Rev. Orestes Chomock (Csomyák) was graduated from the Presov Seminary (now in Slovakia) in the first decade of the twentieth century when it was located then in Austria Hungary. He spoke Hungarian fluently and later was consecrated as the Bishop of the American Carpatho Russian Orthodox Diocese by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The co-founder of the church V. Rev. Joseph Mihály graduated from the same Seminary in 1931. He could not be ordained in America because he was married. Eventually he was ordained as a priest by the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of New York, Athenagoras, who later became a Patriarch of Constantinople. These two church leaders were deter-The church in Stratford The ikonostasis at the church in Stratford
