Today is the Orthodox Easter Celebration if you are Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and so forth. Historically speaking this was my Grandmother’s biggest of the religious celebrations and part of the service was the proclamation of “”Khristos voskres! Voistinu voskres” which is translated to “Christ is Risen, Indeed He is Risen” (I am ancestrally part Russian but speak barely a sentence being a third generation piece of the familial puzzle). Nan used to attend services at a beautiful cathedral in Greenpoint/Williamsburg Brooklyn where she lived all of her life and it was called the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. It’s quite a bit to say but based on its wonderful structure and interior it works. Though I am not trying to be overly religious in this post, I wanted to use it to remember Nan on her holiday and to share images that I discovered were taken back in 2012 when I was last inside the place. I used a very small (but handy) Sony Cybershot and I didn’t have a lot of light to work with or time but I snapped away and intended to use the images much sooner than I did.

I was always interested in the fact that the cathedral had no statuary and instead only tapestries, paintings and wood etchings. Hopefully these images translate some of the overall beauty for you. My plan is to visit again sometime in the future with a better camera. I’ll not be chiming in much on these images and will instead let you browse in quiet. All photos were taken by me KP but I didn’t want to imprint them based on the context.

The altar up above you can see a pair of doors to go through.  When I was growing up the mass was held behind those doors and they were closed.  Those masses were also all singing and in Russian and close to three hours long.  Though I am a practicing Catholic, I would periodically go to the mass with my Grandmother.

Some of the names of the deceased members of the congregation are honored on this section and three of my Grandmother’s brothers are among them. The family name was Kosko which I am sure was spelled much differently before they came here and passed through Ellis Island. I knew John and Michael but not Anthony as he was killed at the end of World War II. I neglected to ask why two other brothers (Carl and Al) and her sister Anne were not listed but time was short when I did all of this as I mentioned. Perhaps they are there at this point in time.

I’d like to point out also that this candle holder where the congregation can light one for a loved one was donated to the cathedral by my Great-Grandmother who was always called “Baba” by the family. I believe this means “Grandmother” in Russian. She passed away when I was very, very young but I am told that I met her despite my not recalling this.

I hope that you enjoyed this little photographic presentation. Like I have said way up at the top, I do plan on visiting there again and getting higher quality images. These are nice but hardly do it justice. “Happy Easter” Nan, I miss ya. Should you be nearby and have additional interest in the cathedral you can read more on its official website which is linked below.

Official Website: http://www.roct.org/