Abstract

An interview with Reverend Doctor Remus Grama about the history of St. Mary Romanian Orthodox Cathedral, the oldest Romanian Orthodox parish in the United States.

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Interviewee

Grama, Remus (interviewee)

Interviewer

Raponi, Rich (interviewer)

Project

Sacred Landmarks

Date

7-6-2011

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

71 minutes

Transcript

Rich Raponi [00:00:15] My name is Richard Raponi. I’m joined by James Dubelko to conduct an interview for the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities to document the History of St. Mary Romanian Orthodox Cathedral. The interview is being held at St. Mary’s located at 3256 Warren Road, Cleveland, Ohio. Could you please state your name?

Remus Grama [00:00:34] Yes, my name is Father Remus Grama. I am the priest of St. Mary Romanian Orthodox Cathedral in Cleveland.

Rich Raponi [00:00:43] As a starting point, could you provide a little background on yourself, including how long you’ve been the parish priest?

Remus Grama [00:00:49] Yes, I am born in 1952 in Romania. I came to the United States in 1980 as a doctoral student at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. At that time I was a deacon ordained in Romania. And I was ordained a priest here in 1982 for Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church in Youngstown, Ohio. In 1989, I came to St. Mary. I was assigned by His Eminence Archbishop Nathaniel to be the parish priest of St. Mary. I served since then, so there are about 22 years.

Rich Raponi [00:01:39] Could you tell me a little about the history of St. Mary’s?

Remus Grama [00:01:40] St. Mary is the oldest Romanian Orthodox spirit parish in the United States of America. It was established in 1904, originally located on Detroit in the old area, in the old west side of Cleveland, where Romanian, Italians, Irish and Hungarians and other ethnic communities were located. The old church was built by 1907 by the first pioneers. The original Romanian pioneers to Cleveland came mostly from the western province of Romania, Transylvania, and also from other provinces such as Banat and Bukovina, a former Austrian occupied Romanian land. So they got together and they re established a home for themselves here on the west side of Cleveland. It is interesting to mention that before the church was even built, by 1900, a group of 12 men of Romanian origin were mentioned by a newspaper writer, by Theodor Andrika, whom you may remember. He was the nationalities editor for Cleveland Press for many years. And he recorded this oral history that 12 men went on Easter Sunday at sunrise on the shores of Lake Erie. And in the absence of a church there, they sang Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs, bestowing everlasting life. Of course, they sang it in Romanian. And not having a priest, not being able to receive Holy Communion, they just chewed some of the raw buds of the vine which was growing wild vine which was growing there. So this was the first Romanian Orthodox Easter celebrated in Cleveland. It is sort of a nostalgic imagery, but Theodore Andrika immortalized it. So by 1907 the church was built, and there was also. There is another Romanian church, the Greek Catholic church, a Byzantine church, which was established at the same time. The Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic grew together. They came together, they worked together. So the original meeting was a joint meeting. This is very interesting because these are two parishes which confess a slightly different faith, but they are twin sisters. They were born and they emerged from the same original meeting.

Rich Raponi [00:05:00] Could you possibly go a little into the internal conflict when the original church was built?

Remus Grama [00:05:11] The history which was written also by Father Vasile Hategan, one of my predecessors, who served the parish for 27 and a half years. He was the second longest in tenure of the clergy of the parish. The first one was Father John Truzza, who was a priest here for 28 years. And father Hategan wrote the history of the parish in 1979, compiling basically previous histories produced by the clergy of the parish, and mostly those notes of Father Truzza. And at the beginning, when the construction started, there were some tensions. Some parishioners wanted a certain project and others another project. The first priest, Father Moise Balea, who came in 1905 from Sibill, from Transylvania, he really wanted to build a cathedral imitating the cathedral in Transylvania, the Metropolitan Cathedral. Of course, the means of the immigrants were not as rosy as they appeared to the new immigrant priest, who still had the image of America perceived through an European lens. America, America. And it took a while to him until he was waken up by recession in 1907, when there were long food lines and Romanian immigrants, like others around them, lost their jobs. So anyway, the discussion, the debate between the two groups was in 1904 about this. And also there was some debate between the Orthodox and the Byzantine Catholic. So I don’t know all the details, but I understand that sometimes they were building at night, during the day, and at night others were dismantling things. This did not last. This situation did not last, however, and the church was completed. And the joy was great, because in this newly built church there were many, many wonderful events. 1907. We have pictures documenting the first Romanian theater. Theater play with costumes, with plays from Romania. You see, these people were hard workers. They worked in the steel mills, they worked for the railroads, they worked in the harbor. And they also needed some entertainment. They didn’t speak the language, so they had to produce their own entertainment. The boarding houses where they lived, they are crammed with people. There were very few women among the first immigrants to cook the meals, to wash, to do their laundry, and so on, so forth. So then they soon started to realize that they have to recreate their old society from home. So they rode for the metropolitans in Romania to receive, to ask for priests, for clergy. They established fraternal societies. So the fraternal society, in fact here in Cleveland, the Romanian fraternal society called Carpathina the Carpathian, was established in 1902, premerging the existence of the church. So then theater, then the other extraordinary events. They created a choir. By 1912, they had the Doina choir, which was subsequently followed by the current choir, which bears the name of composer Giorgio Enescu. The composer Giorgio Enescu. And I’m going to make a parenthesis here. Between 1928 and 19, he died in 1955. He came occasionally and conducted Cleveland Orchestra at the original location, and then later on at the Severance hall, because the Severance hall came into being only by 1930, as I understand. So George Enescu was very impressed with the choir of the parish and with the parish priest, with Father John Truzza, and gave them the permission for the choir to bear his name. So this way, this choir, as humble as it may be today, at that time it had about 80 voices. And it is the only institution in the world, in the musical world, which bears the name of composer Giorgio Enescu, with his personal signature and approval. Even the Conservatory from Bucharest, which bears his name, does not have his approval. So, speaking of all these events I was listing previously, there were great wonderful political, cultural, spiritual, of course, first of all, spiritual events, feasts, celebrations. But there was something extraordinary at that location. Between 1914 and 1918, during the First World War, President Wilson gave an extraordinary encouragement to all the Central and Eastern European nationalities by recognizing their right to emancipation. They were all captives to the Austro Hungarian Empire, which at the time was known to be the camp of the nations, of many nations. The Slovaks, the Slovenians, the Serbs, Romanians, Carpeto, Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, they were all part of this empire. And you know, it was a time of national emancipation. So it was here in Cleveland that the Romanian American consciousness was shaped. Why? Not only because of the church, but because also here there were newspapers, there was an extraordinary cultural, spiritual and political life. The societies which I mentioned, which as a matter of fact became the seed for the unification of all Romanian fraternal societies in the United States. By 1928, about 40, 50 such societies rallied together in the so called Union and League of the Romanian American Fraternal Societies. So the location of that organization was here in Cleveland. It was also at this place, at this location that the first Romanian newspaper in America was published. It was titled America. It was initiated by Father Moise Balea, who was the son of miners from Transylvania. He was very much preoccupied by gold mining because his family was in that business there. Transylvania is very rich in gold, and this is why it was occupied by the Romans in the old times. And Father Moise Balea was a great writer. So he established the America newspaper with the mention on the stationery, on the heading of the newspaper. It is published whenever I have good appetite, time and money […] in Romanian. So it was this newspaper which contributed enormously to the shaping of the Romanian consciousness here. So during the First World War, the America newspaper had an important role in monopolizing the young people especially and inspiring them to go and fight on the Western Front in Europe for the freedom of their land. So it was due to President Wilson that about 2,000 Romanians, I’m sure there were many other Slovaks and Slovenians and all others arrived from Austria, Hungary. The hunkies, the so-called hunkies. This is why they were called hunkies, because they came with Hungarian passports. So about 2,000 Romanians were sworn in as citizens and sent to Camp Sheridan. And then they fought wherever they fought in France and wherever. So all this, especially the joy of the triumph in the war, the dismantling of the Austro Hungarian Empire and the creation of the Greater Romania at the time, was an extraordinary, but partially also the merit of this Romanian American communities, which had an influence, I’m sure, on President Wilson, to steer certain policies which were favorable to that. This could be compared to what we experienced in the 90s during my tenure, when, after the fall of Communism. It was also enormously important that the United States of America, that our government gave the signal that Eastern European countries and Central European countries could be accepted into NATO and then into Europe. So I was a part of that. And by extrapolating, I am kind of relating to what may have happened in the 1914–18 period. So this parish, in this respect, was the center of many, many extraordinary activities. So there were two realities in the life of the community, the church as an institution and the fraternal societies, under whatever name they may have been. Because there were several societies. We had Carpathina, which was the oldest, and then there was one called Dragalina, and there were many, many others, which some of them had a shorter life. Carpathina is still in existence today. The American newspaper unfortunately ceased to appear about three or four years back. After a hundred years of existence. What’s happening is most of the fraternal societies of the ethnic groups around are kind of fading for whatever reasons. I’m sure that you perhaps will dedicate a special study to that as historians. But this is all I basically wanted to say about that older time in the life of the parish. At the time, I should add, there was no bishop. It’s interesting. The churches, including St. Mary, was not established by a local bishop. The church was imported. It was brought in the soul of the immigrants, and they had their first religious needs met by visiting clergy. I was doing some research when I put this history together. In 2004, I went to Sibillo to Romania, and I found in the archives the original letters by which the colony, as they called it, the Romanian colony in Cleveland, requested the Metropolitan Johan Mezziano to send them a priest. So the first priest came in 1904, and the first Christmas was actually celebrated by him in a private home somewhere on the west side, maybe on West 64, or in the house of Nicolai Marginano, which is depicted in the history book here, where the first initial, the original meeting of the creation of the parish took place. Father Zahariye Opra was the first priest. Father Zahariye reported back to the Metropolitan that he officiated the liturgy in several places. He also visited other Romanian colonies in Northeast Ohio, such as Warren, Canton Alliance, Youngstown. There were no priests there, and yet there were many Romanians already in those areas. So he also married a few people who were living in adultery, and he was helping people to regularize their spiritual situation. And he also baptized a few children. So this is all recorded. Then, immediately after his return in Romania, which was by January 2005, a concourse was started and announced in the Telegraph Roman, the Romanian Telegraph newspaper in Transylvania for clergy who wanted to go to the New World as missionaries. So this is how Father Moise Balea came to Cleveland. And he arrived in the next spring. By 1905, he arrived here. Father Moise Balea, besides the fact that he came here, he established 14 other Romanian parishes. I mentioned already a few of the cities around. But he also traveled to Indianapolis and to Gary, Indiana, and St. Paul, Minnesota. He ended up establishing parishes in Detroit as well. And the end of his life was not as a priest. He ended his life basically by working for Ford Motor Company. He was a man of great, great greatly enterprising person. He wanted to establish a business to sell spices like Vlasik or nowadays. But he was not very successful at that. So these are a few, you know, almanac matters from that time, anyway. But Father Moise Balea was followed in 1907 by Father Trandafirskoro Bets from Youngstown, who later on returned to Romania and became a bishop. And he also then suffered after the 1945, some sort of persecution from the communist regimes, as did our first bishop later on. So I was mentioning the fact that the church was not established by a bishop. Well, it was established with the blessing of the metropolitans from the old country. So the Romanian parishes came to unite and establish a diocese locally here in the United states only by 1929. So since 1929, now we have the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, with headquarters in Jackson, Michigan, where Archbishop Nathaniel has his headquarters. It was just a little information about the diocese. The diocese acquired a property in Jackson, Michigan, in Grass Lake, Michigan, a former farm. And this happened in 1936. And it was by 1938 that more auxiliary institutions of the diocese were established. Anyway, today we have over 125 parishes in the United States of America. Coming back to the parish after Father Skoro Bets, who was just basically a substitute, we had a very dynamic priest, Father Johan Podia. Father Ioann Podia became the dean for the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania dinnery. And he was a great activist. He was sort of a union leader. He was quite leftist and socialist in his views. We are talking certainly about the utopian socialism of that time, not about the communist socialism type of later, during the 20th century. So father Podia was- He militated very much for the rights of the workers. As a priest, he came to know firsthand the suffering, the problems, the work accidents, the needs of the workers. And when the war strikes, he would be among the first to go there and solicit, you know, and beg for money to be able to help. To help the people who are on strike or the people who are in accidents or in various needs. Father Moise Balea ended up being defrocked. He returned to Romania, and he was defrocked because he did not submit himself to the order of the bishops. Perhaps after his experience in America, he learned too much about freedom for his own good. But he was a very learned man. He wrote the first history of the Romanians in America, which was published in Romanian by 1929, which I reviewed myself for one of the books I published, not for this one. And Father Johan Podia, I’m sorry, became the director of a museum, history museum in Fagara and then Brasov in Romania. And he died here. His son Titus. Titus wrote a book on Transylvania In English. He was a doctor and he lived on the east coast of the United States. Father Podia was followed by Father Octavian Moreshan and Eliezer Pope. And these were very worthy clergy of the parish. It was during Father Podia that the parish hall was built at the old location. So, speaking about the structures, because I think you have some questions about that, right? The building was erected by Romanian handyman, and their names should be written on the beams of the steeple there. The bells, the original bells are still there. Unfortunately, as you know, in the late 1990s, early 2000, something like this, that church which the Romanian community sold in 1955, was alienated from its purpose of being a church. And so now the bells are there. I would really love to obtain at least one of those bells, for sentimental reasons, to bring here. But if you have access to that location, somebody could see the name of the workers who put the last bricks on top there. The social hall had two levels, and it was quite large. It was called Casa Romana, the Romanian House. And it was dedicated by 1932, during Father John Truzza’s pastorate. So it was there that many of the personalities of the Romanian cultural and political life came and visited. It was there that Giorgio Enescu came. It was there that King Michael came. Prince Nicholas, Queen Marie was expected in 1926 to come with her daughter, Princess Ileana. Very interesting story. But she interrupted her visit to the United States because her husband, King Ferdinand, became ill and then he died. It was at that time that beautiful portrait of the Queen, which we have in the museum, was printed here in the America Print Shop in order to greet her. I should mention also as a parenthesis, that Queen Marie, the poet queen, the last romantic, as Hannah Pakula calls her, into one of her books printed in the 1990s. She loved America tremendously. She was of English and Russian descent. She was the niece of Queen Victoria of England and of Tzar Nicholas II of England, Russia. So she was interconnected to all the dynasties, the major dynasties of Europe. That was the world of then. It was pretty much the world of, I would say, the 19th century, late 19th century and early 20th century. So she loved America. We have one of the brocades she brought with her in 1926 in our museum. She donated that brocade to Lady Nancy Astor. Lady Nancy Astor, you know, the famous Lady Nancy Astor, who told Winston Churchill that if she was, if he was her husband should have poured poison in his coffee. To which Churchill said, and I, dear Nancy, should I have been your husband? I would have drank it. So when the queen died, Lady Nancy Astor, upon hearing that Princess Ileana is a refugee and came to the United states in the 50s, she gave her this brocade from her mother. So, Princess Elena, forgive my parenthesis, but, you know, I think that these are juicy stories and you should record them. Princess Elena became Mother Alexandra, she became a nun, and she established the first Romanian Orthodox convent. In fact, it is the first Orthodox convent for women in the United States. She established it in 1970 in Elwood City, Pennsylvania. And the monastery is called the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, which is a very booming monastery located about two hours east of Cleveland. So where are we with the story I was telling you about Queen Marie in 1926? She didn’t make it to Cleveland, but there were other great personalities who came here also. Some of them were the leaders of the unification of the Romanian provinces. And I will not get into those details because it may be a little bit too much for you, but Vasile Goldis was one of them. And there were some other leaders who established societies here and who repatriated themselves when the Greater Romania was established. My own great grandfather and my own grandfather came to the United States through Ellis Island in 1913 together. So my great grandfather died in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1918, and he’s buried in Belmont Cemetery. And my grandfather returned to Romania and then died there in 1935. So basically, even while I was in Romania and when I grew with this accent, which I cannot change, I changed my passport, but I cannot change my accent, I grew in mind with America because in our drawers, my parents always had letters and postcards and greeting cards smelling very beautifully. I don’t know. There was a particular fragrance about the letters from America. Was it the paper or was it the ink? I don’t know what it was. I could perhaps distinguish it even with closed eyes and tell you if it’s from America or not. So by 19, let’s see, by 1955, Father John Truzza came to some clash with leadership of the city. And this is recorded in the Plain Dealer. Father John really thought he was in the City Council of Cleveland. And he fought to establish some area of recreation, a park for the children in Detroit in the old neighborhood and West 63rd, 64. So he didn’t meet the support of the leaders at the time. And then he threatened he’s going to take his community and move from there. Well, I don’t know if this was the only reason. There were other reasons. You know, there was A shift in the sociology of Cleveland, in the demographics. And in 1955, they decided. They found this property on the west side on Warren Road, and decided to acquire it. So they had a competition with the Greek parish of Saint Demetrius, who also wanted to acquire the same property. But due to two or three individuals in the parish. Attorney John Sibison, who was a county prosecutor, Savo Kundya, who was a banker, and Nick Moga, who was a restaurant owner, they put a $100,000 down payment and they secured the property. So the old church was sold to a Russian Orthodox community, and it was used as a church, as I said before, until quite recently. And then all of a sudden, it was sold to this. To an individual, to a businessman. I believe his name is Mr. Lavin. I met him once, and I tried to regain the. The bells, but I did not succeed. And now the church is used for other purposes. And I am very saddened about that, because for me, I think we should build churches, not tear down churches. And there are other places in Pittsburgh and other, you know, which were turned into restaurants. That cannot be the trend we should support. Build churches, and you’ll build characters, you’ll build communities around them. So I would really love to see that church become again a church, even though the land was sold to the theater. And we understand, I think there could be some ways to cooperate and not desecrate churches, but rather turn that into really a shrine. It is the oldest Romanian Orthodox church in the United States of America. People don’t tear down symbols, they build symbols. They cultivate them. So that’s my pain. Forgive me for this sentimental disclosure, and I do not mean to be impious to anybody’s action, because, you know, I do recognize that in the life of cities there are struggles. So now by 1955, therefore, the community moved. Father John Truzza was dynamic. He was also very recognized by the all Romanian communities in the United States of America. And I will tell you why. 1935, the first bishop came from Romania, Bishop Polikarp Moruszka. I wrote a book about him. He was our bishop from 1935 to 1957, 58. And in 1939, he returned to Romania for a brief holy synod meeting. The war started. He was. It was impossible for him to return to the United States because of the U boats and problems of the war. And then communism took over Romania, and he was basically placed into forced residence and not allowed to return until he died. I wrote a book, and I basically tried to put together his correspondence and to describe his plight. So it was in this period that Father John Truzza took the leadership of the diocese. And it was at that time that the diocese became independent of the Romanian church, the Church of Romania, for political reasons, because our now American Romanians, who started to be at their second generation, with young people educated, with college graduates and so on, who were veterans of the United States army, could not accept to be controlled by a church which was at its turn overseen by or controlled by the government. So that certainly created a rift in the local Romanian community, because now there were two parishes, some who wanted to be totally free and others who still maintain the ties with the Mother Church. So this rift lasted for as long as communism lasted. And our parish remained a bastion to defend freedom, to promote the faith. And it remained one of the most prominent parish in the country. By 1955, Father John Truzza suffered a massive heart attack. He was. Was about 59, about my age. And he was followed by Father Vasile Hategan. And it was under Father Vasile Hategan that the church you see now here on Warren Rood, was built. The project envisioned by Father Truzza, which resembled pretty much, let’s say, St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, without such a long, high tower. The first project was in a Romanesque style that was turned down by the community because they did not relate to- Was too somber and too huge. And it was not the Orthodox style. The Orthodox style is governed by domes. The transcendent descends. That is the symbolism of Orthodox architecture. The transcendent God descends on earth as a human and incarnate, as through God and through man. So. Well, so that did not materialize. The second project was the one you see presented by a Romanian architect, a refugee from Romania, Haralam Giorgescu, who was a professor in California and who presented this blueprint, which was built and approved and built with some slight changes and corrections. So it was Father Vasile Hategan. He came from New York. He came from New York. He was a priest in Manhattan, where we have a parish, Saint Demetrius. And he was a dynamo. He was very young, educated in Europe and educated in America at Columbia University. And he was able to catalyze the community like nobody else before. So the church was built very quickly, and by 1960, it was consecrated by His Eminence, Archbishop Valerian. At the time, the church was blessed to build also a school, the catechetical school, with 12 rooms and the offices. And for the time being, they used as a whole, the former Regnac Hall. The Regnac Hall Was known in the west park because it was a restaurant before it was a nightclub, basically known as the Showboat. The Showboat. As a matter of fact, right now, south of the parish house, which you will see outside, there still is an old building formerly built by the Markward family. They were a family of developers, very large family, very well known family. They built a lot of homes in this area and they had many children. So as the family grew, they kept adding. So There were about 19 apartments when we acquired the building about three, four years ago, I bought that building. It’s quite dilapidated and we hope to restore it. And I would like to see a museum of Romanian immigration there. I’m just trying to stir up support for this at this time. You see, we have- My problem is, my handicap is that the recession. And the second handicap is that we already have a museum of art and ethnicity. And our people may not feel very inclined to establish another museum because all this takes money. So it’s hard enough to keep the church. But anyway, somebody has to dream. And I keep telling them, you are paying me to dream for you. And, you know, this is what it is, you know, we have first dream, then we pray, and then we put our action together, and then the dream comes true, you see. So Father Vasile Hategan established the church, therefore. And the church was not only the building, the church. First of all, the church is not a building. You may have all the temples in the world, if you don’t have the people, you don’t have the hearts of the people and the faith of the people. You don’t have a community, you don’t have a church. But Father built a church of hearts of flesh and spirit and with auxiliaries for the women, with the parents’ PTA, the Parents Club with, you know, a good strong choir conducted by his wife, Briotessa Cornelia. And he encouraged. He was a writer, a good writer himself. He published books. He was the editor for the Solih, the Herald newspaper of the diocese. He wrote for the American newspaper. He maintained good relations with clergy around. And he was a community leader and a community builder. He was certainly the model of a priest I like to see, and I imitated him in many ways. I learned a great deal from him. I came to America in 1980. So it was. I was in Chicago and I used to come to Cleveland because I had relatives here. So I came to know Father Hategan and I served the first Christmas in 1980. I served the liturgy as a deacon with him, and I was a student and I was penniless. And a little bit later in the afternoon, he showed up to my relatives and when he left, gave me an envelope with 50 bucks. Boy, to me it looked like a thousand dollars. It was just an enormous joy I had. So Father Hategan inspired me a great deal. I forgot to mention he established the museum in 1960. Now, when I say he and I refer to a clergy, when I refer to the clergy, I mean basically the whole community, you know. But we have to speak in symbols for the sake of simplicity. So Father Hategan established also the museum. The museum was based on artifacts which were brought by and items which were brought from the World’s Fair in New York. You see, in 1938–39, the World’s Fair took place. Then it was closed. And again, you know, a parenthesis. The World’s Fair in New York was done for, was held in order to help America, and especially New York and the State of New York, to come out of the 1929–33 economic crisis. It was ’38, and they were still in crisis. So with this, they dynamized some cultural and economic factors there. They brought pavilions from the whole world. And imagine, all businesses boomed. So the Romanian pavilion was beautiful. Romania, what happened was this. It was Greater Romania after 1918, 20 years after the war, the country was already pretty well-established and economically. And Romania was an oil producer. It was one of the, I don’t know, four fifth countries in the world at the time, like Venezuela today or whatever. Even though a small country, but it produces great deal of oil, or like Libya or other names which you may not like to hear. But the Romanian currency was stronger than the dollar. So they were able to put up this beautiful pavilion. It was all dressed in marble brought from Romania, some of it carved marble, some of it is still here, you can see it. And some of it was destroyed and some perished in the fire, because we had a fire in 1974. And therefore the pavilion brought all kind of statues, paintings and artifacts. Father Hategan and Father Truzza salvaged some of the items which were. Which couldn’t be sent back to Romania because of the war. Now, in order to shelter them in New York, they had to pay storage. So this parish was, at the time the strongest Romanian community in the country, the only one which was able to afford such luxury. So the items stayed in storage until the 1950s in New York. The parish spent about $25,000 for that and for the purpose of eventually bringing those items to Cleveland. So they were brought here in 1955 for the purpose of building the cathedral. And especially they were counting on the marble and the other items. There were some beautiful raw iron, wrought iron grills, grillages. And finally the church was built. And so Father Hategan, with those items, opened the muse, which you’ll see in a little bit.

Rich Raponi [00:51:37] Could you go a little into the role of the church and the community following communism takeover?

Remus Grama [00:51:45] You mean in Romania or here in Romania?

Rich Raponi [00:51:48] Or here in Romania. But the role of the parish here?

Remus Grama [00:51:55] Yes, I will touch briefly on that. As I said, the church here served as a beacon of hope and sustenance for the Romanian people when communism took over and the separation between east and west fell like an iron curtain, as it was described, I think Roosevelt used that term. And our people there suffered. They are isolated by their relatives in America and the people in America, the communities in America, continue to give hope to the people back in Romania. And like all other ethnic groups around of the captive nations, through the means of Voice of America, Free Europe and other radio programs and other actions. The Romanian National Council established in Vienna, kept the connection between, or made the connection between the Romanian resistance in the mountains, because there was a strong Romanian resistance which was decimated in time. And I remember that as a child. And they kept the connection with the Western governments and in Romania during my childhood. So therefore, in the 50s and 60s, the people were still saying the. The Americans are coming. They are still hoping that the Americans are coming. They never came while freedom came in 1989. But now there are extraordinary. There is an extraordinary love and appreciation for America in Romania. So the church here became very vocal, the church itself. Not that the church missed its role or twisted its role, because the church always was a church. Its first objective was to save souls, to marry, to bury, to baptize, to teach, preach, to evangelize, and so on and so forth. But, you know, the churches, our churches, and this is the nature of America. Our churches are hearts of ethnicity, hearts of culture. It was the church, especially the immigrant churches, served as the home away from home. So it was here that, let’s say, refugees, DPs, escapees of whatever nature, you know, they found home here, they found a shelter. So the church first continued to support, in whatever ways, morally and through prayer and spiritually. And I remember even now, fondly, how in the ‘60s, before we would go to the church in Romania, with my father and my mother and my brothers, I have two brothers, we’d wake up at 5 o’ clock in the morning, let’s say on Epiphany or on Christmas or Easter, it was always early in the morning, the service and first thing would turn on Voice of America. And many times I heard Father Hategan and the George Ionescu choir. I never knew that I would one day come to meet him and take his place and sit on his seat, but just to see how God works. And so, yes, the church provided tremendous support. Now, locally here, what happened was this. After the war, in this parish, we had many veterans, many veterans, Romanian Americans served their land with dedication. We have plaques for the veterans. We have even here outside, there is a plaque for all the Romanians who fought in all American wars from the Mexican War. I brought From Romania about 10 years ago a statue of General George Pomutz, who should be in the memorial monument downtown because he fought in the Civil War with General Fremont and Grant and he became a brigade general. He fought in the fight of Shiloh in Savannah, Georgia. You know, for us, he is a hero in the South. He may be still misappreciated because I think that, you know, they put fire on Atlanta, you know. So I brought his statue because he is one of the first Romanian co-Founding fathers of the United States of America. He fought in the Civil War with a group of Transylvanian volunteers who were formerly fighters in the 1848 Revolution in either in the Hungarian or in the. But mostly in the Hungarian revolution because they were part of Hungary at that time in Transylvania. So General George Pomutz. It’s a very fascinating story and a brilliant story of success. He had drama. His wife abandoned him, and in order to regain his honor, he migrated to America. He was sort of a romantic. This was Lord Byron’s period, you know. So he came here and he lived a brilliant page of history. After he became a brigade general, he was sent by the government of the United States to. To be the ambassador of America to St. Petersburg. And he was there until 1888, and I hope I’m not wrong with the date. He was then assassinated in St. Petersburg and buried there. He had quite a wealth. He bought land in Iowa. And I don’t know what happened of all that he owned. But in 2003 or 2004 or 5, 2005, I believe, the president of Romania, Traian Basescu came to Washington, DC, invited by George W. Bush. And it was one of those official visits where he stayed at the Blair House. And he wanted- He expressed the desire to visit the oldest Romanian community in America. So our government asked us to possibly receive this delegation. So here came an airplane with 60 government people from Romania. For us, this was quite emotional and a little bit peculiar. After all, the period of the Cold War when there were no ties with the government, all of a sudden, you know, this shift. But it was a shift in the policy and politics of the United States. So the President of Romania comes in. Oh, I had the FBI here for week, you know, preparing, you know, this was an official visit. They had to safeguard him and so instructed what to do, where to walk, to avoid, you know, the snipers or whatever. So quite frightening. I’ll never repeat that. And the delegation came in, it was right after the service on Sunday. We were directed by our authorities here to move all the people in the social hall. And then when everything is clear, the delegation would come and, you know, just so they could securitize the place. So they came in the church. I welcomed them. They were very generous. They brought us books and some icon. And so I gave them some books like this. And I told Mr. Basescu, I invited him to sit. And only when he sat, it dawned on to me that it is the president and the government of the whole country which sits in front of me. I never could even think of this. I couldn’t zoom so deeply into this scenario. So then, you know, I said, this is my time. So I told him, I say, Mr. Basescu , I think that should you have come 10 years before here, you wouldn’t have been received here. But now we are honored to welcome this delegation. I think it is time to mend some relations. And I would like to enroll your to enlist your help for some actions of reconciliation. First of all, if you could ask your government to give us back our homes which were confiscated in the old times. Secondly, help us bring the relics of Bishop Polycarp, who was detained. And thirdly, I’d like to ask you a favor. You know, of course, I talk very respectfully and so on, but you cannot do any other way. But I said you studied in Moscow because he was colleague to Gorbachev. And I say he speaks fluent Russian. I learned Russian too. I had to learn Russian when I was there, but. So I said, please intervene with the Russian government and help us to bring the remains of General Pomutz. I wasn’t able to get that because that cemetery in Smolensk was the Communist name of the St. Petersburg was moved by the Soviets. But I brought the statue of George Pomutz, so you may see it here. Here. I don’t know how he got here. I told you a lot of details. Forgive me if it was too much. Yes, you asked me about the Romanian community and the impact here. So Besides helping Romania, St. Mary became a presence in the local community here. And Father Hategan was deeply involved, like Father Truzza, with the city, with the city council. Our parish hall, which, by the way, burnt in 1973, and lots of the artifacts from the World’s Fair were in the basement. And you should see the pictures. You cry when you see it. Beams, the metal beams, which are just as strong as maybe railroad beams, you know, they are just totally bent and twisted and melted and stuff like that. So some stuff was lost. A lot of stuff. Lots of documents of immigration were lost at that time. But our parish became known for town hall meetings, for PTA meetings. We hosted many times the voting polls here. And so St. Mary became now a third generation. The fourth generation became a more Americanized church. However, after the 1990s, the church received a huge wave of Romanian immigrants. So it was under my tenure that I had to balance out the integration and the pains, the sociological pains of demographic pains, of integrating these people and not alienating the American born. So it is a struggle. But our parish remained united and still strong, and very strong, as a matter of fact. So I steered up cultural actions. We supported as a community the integration of Romania into NATO. And right there I have some pictures from the White House and the Capitol Hill when I was there with the Honorary Council of Romania, George Dobria, and many wonderful events during the Clintons and the Bushes and George Bush senior. We had American ambassadors to Romania coming and visit here, Jim, Rosa Pepe and some others. And then, you know, I continued the work of the. Of the museum. So this was also, you could say it’s a service to the Romanian community, but it’s a service to the American community also, because it’s. It’s really an institution which benefits, you know, culturally, the country. We get lots of groups, organizations who come to visit. Then I supervised and I led the community into the mural painting of the parish, because the church is left by Father Hategan and Father Grabowski, Richard Grabowski, he was my immediate predecessor from 1982 to 1989. So the church was not painted inside. So when I told our parishioners that this church is not finished, they were ready to send me back to Youngstown. But, you know, they soon learned that in a church, everything, every inch should speak about God. The pews are made from a fruit bearing fruit, fruit bearing tree. Forgive me. Then every inch of iconography reveals the Mystery of God. So our people finally learned it and accepted, and it was their will to do this project. And it was about $300,000 worth of iconography. But now the church became what I call hold yourself, the Sistine Chapel of the west side of Cleveland. So we have many visitors, and they all appreciate this. You know, I have all these trivia cliches, you know, and the people kind of buy into them, you know, Know. So. But it’s true. It’s true. It is. The mural painting basically depicts all the feasts, the major feasts in the life of the Lord, and they are the feasts of the church. They are surrounded by. Guarded by prophets who prophesy those events in the Old Testament. And then there is a register of medallions with saints from the oldest of times to our times. So the iconostasis of the parish was there. The iconostasis is the icon screen, or the separation wall between the altar and the nave. That was the only area of the church which was painted before. So then, besides this, the iconography, we placed a plaque on the church stating that this is the oldest Romanian church in America. And then we established this centennial park in front of the church, which is marked by a fountain with the names of all the clergy, the parish council presidents, and then the pavers have the names of parishioners who wanted to sponsor the park. Then six years ago, I initiated the Romanian festival, which became an institution by itself. It is very acclaimed and very welcomed by the councilmen and the local community in our world here, because there was no festival in the area. So it really enhances the month of August With lots of culture and good food and music. So our neighbors really, truly, truly enjoy it. We have dreams for the future. But I think that you are specialized in history. As one of the metropolitans of Transylvania used to say, when you speak to me, speak in the past tense, not about what you plan to do, but what you have done.

Rich Raponi [01:10:30] Great, Thank you so much.

Remus Grama [01:10:32] Well, this was- I kind of spoke like this because I read your questions, and I kind of knew where you are going, but I don’t know if- But maybe I did a disservice by-

Rich Raponi [01:10:43] Oh, not at all.

Remus Grama [01:10:44] By speaking. 

Rich Raponi [01:10:45] [inaudible; crosstalk]

Remus Grama [01:10:47] All right, so what’s next?

Rich Raponi [01:10:55] We’ll get this- We’ll get this-

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