Balaban & Cash

To most of his parishioners of Holy Trinity Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church, in a down-at-heel section of St. Louis, Rev. Sophrony Balaban, with his neat black beard, his hefty frame, his genial smile, seemed a fine figure of a man. Twirling a big walking stick, Father Balaban made a point of circulating in his parish to collect contributions for the church, often turned up at night in Serbian haunts, where he smoked and drank as heartily as anyone. A onetime coal miner in Indiana, ordained a priest after attending a Russian seminary in Pennsylvania, Father Balaban had gone to St. Louis in 1918, remained for ten years, returned at the congregation's begging in 1934, after a sojourn in Manhattan. Holy Trinity paid its priest $100 a month, which seemed to be enough since, save for his drinks of an evening, he was a man of modest habits. Last week Holy Trinity learned differently when Father Balaban got in trouble with the Law. It was not for the sort of offense--rape, shooting, embezzlement et al.--which lawbreaking parsons commonly commit. On the word of a U. S. Secret Service agent, Father Balaban was a counterfeiter, head of a ring which operatives had been watching for a year.

Arrested with five other men, Father Balaban was haled before a U. S. commissioner in St. Louis, charged with having possessed apparatus for making the "queer," having given a homemade $20 bill to a parishioner of 15 years' standing. Father Balaban's bond was set at $40,000. He went to jail, since his congregation not only declined to raise the bond but ousted him as pastor. The U. S. head of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church, Bishop Zivoin Ristanovich, suspended Father Balaban, advised his onetime flock to "keep faith, remain quiet, and pray for a just ending of this shocking occurrence."

According to Leo Smugai, St. Louis chief of the Secret Service, in 1936 Father Balaban fell in with two Croats from his native Yugoslavia, Michael Markalj, who later began turning out spurious money in Pittsburgh, and Pete Klickovich, who supervised passing it. Other Croats bought printing supplies and shipped them to Pittsburgh, where last week Secret Service men seized 1,500 "queer" $20 bills. According to Secret Service men, who said they had taken motion pictures of some of the Croat conferences, the ring planned to pass 5,000 notes in the U. S., then move with 5,000 more to unsuspecting Yugoslavia.

After eight days of close questioning, Father Balaban made a partial confession, said he had hoped to raise money to return to Yugoslavia.

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