Dean on the Roof

Thirty-five years ago, in uptown Manhattan, devout Russians built, with money donated by the late Tsar Nicholas II, a brick & sandstone Cathedral of St. Nicholas, archiepiscopal seat of the Russian Orthodox Church on the North American continent. Recently, many a passerby in the street gazed upward at the Cathedral's steeply-pitched roof. There, perched on a ladder, a stocky young man wielded tar buckets, rolls of tar paper. He was Very Rev. Michael Maslov, dean of the Cathedral. For months, rain had been leaking through the roof, damaging the murals and icons within. Prelates of the Cathedral had launched a campaign for $25,000 to refurbish it, but little money was forthcoming from the poor Russians of the congregation. So Dean Maslov scrambled to the roof, spread seven rolls of paper and three buckets of tar upon it. Total cost: $20.

Last Sunday, rain pelted Manhattan but in St. Nicholas Cathedral, for the first time in months, Russians stood snug and dry as Most Rev. Nicholas Kedroff, their Archbishop, officiated at a service celebrating the Cathedral's 35th birthday.* Pungent incense swirled, Russian prelates' vestments gleamed in the candlelight during the long service in which Archbishop Kedroff, whose 35th birthday it was also, preached to his flock in Russian and English.

* In stating last August that Archbishop Kedroff's church is "under the jurisdiction of the Soviet-dominated Metropolitan Sergius in Russia," TIME erred. Dominated by no one, Archbishop Kedroff is connected with the Synodical Church of Russia, headed by Metropolitan Vitalius. TIME likewise erred in declaring that prelates officiating with Archbishop Kedroff wore "vestments of gilt studded with imitation jewels." Although most Russian churches are too poor to afford real gems, Archbishop Kedroff declares that his Cathedral has some cultured pearls and cameos.

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