Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko has died of cancer near the western
Pennsylvania city where he served as spiritual leader of the American
Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the U.S.A.
He was 75.
Metropolitan Nicholas died Sunday at the Windber
Hospice, a few miles from Johnstown where he headed the diocese that
includes about 10,000 members in 80 congregations nationwide.
Metropolitan Nicholas was known for quiet acts of
charity and for his efforts to repair the nearly 1,000-year-old schism
between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as other
divisions among Christian churches.
He was known for co-sponsoring
ecumenical services with Bishop Joseph Adamec, head of the Roman
Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, and Bishop Gregory Pile of the
Allegheny Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American. He
attended such a service at St. John Gualbert Cathedral in Johnstown as
recently as Feb. 13.
"Metropolitan Nicholas made it a point to be there
despite being very sick," said Tony DeGol, a spokesman for the
Altoona-Johnstown diocese. "I think that speaks volumes about his
commitment to ecumenism and unity."
Metropolitan Nicholas received a standing ovation when
he spoke about church unity at a 2005 memorial Mass for the late Roman
Catholic Pope John Paul II.
"John Paul reminded us we are a church of two lungs:
East and West. Someday, we will end our division and become one,"
Metropolitan Nicholas said at that time.
The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches split during a
dispute at Constantinople in 1054, and the diocese Metropolitan
Nicholas headed also grew out of a smaller schism nearly nine centuries
later.
He was born Feb. 23, 1936 in Perth Amboy, N.J. to
immigrants from the Carpathian mountains of Eastern Europe.
His family
had been Eastern Catholic, a branch of the church loyal to the Roman
Catholic pope that nonetheless followed some Orthodox practices,
including allowing its priests to marry.
When the Roman Catholic Church
forbade that in 1929, some Catholics left what had been the Byzantine
Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh to form the American Carpatho-Russian
Orthodox Diocese that Metropolitan Nicholas would eventually head.
Metropolitan Nicholas graduated from Perth Amboy High
School before entering Christ the Savior Seminary in Johnstown.
He
pastored churches in the Johnstown area and New York City before
becoming bishop in 1983.
Two years later, he became the ruling bishop in
Johnstown and in 1997 was elevated to metropolitan as head of the
church's American branch based in this city 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Metropolitan Nicholas' body will lie in state Wednesday
and Thursday at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Johnstown, where his
funeral will be celebrated Friday at 10 a.m.
Metropolitan Nicholas will
be buried in Perth Amboy, but only after viewing and services at St.
John's Orthodox Church there on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.