Name of Church St. Andrew Russian Greek Catholic Church
Address 538 Concord Street, El Segundo CA 90245
Phone number (310) 322-1892
Website www.standrewelsegundo.org
Divine Liturgy Sundays, 10 a.m. Feast days, 7:30 p.m. Liturgy is sung and mostly in English. Occasionally, you’ll hear parts in Slavonic (the liturgical language that is the ancestor of modern Russian). Liturgy lasts about an hour and a half; they have more litanies and prayers of intercession, their own version of a preface and Eucharistic prayer. Only the priest distributes Communion; he’ll say, “The servant [or handmaiden] of God, [your name], receive the precious Body and Blood of our Lord, God and Savor Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and unto life everlasting.” You don’t respond, just open your mouth, tilt your head back and he gives you Communion (Host dipped in the Precious Blood) with a spoon.
Confessions after Vespers or by appointment.
Names of priests Father Alexei Smith, pastor. Father Alexei was formerly a funeral director, who joined the parish as a layman in the 1970s. He entered the seminary the following decade, and was ordained a priest in 1987. He has served St. Andrew’s since his ordination. His focus as pastor has been the development of a full Byzantine liturgical life, education and Bible study. He’s currently doing an educational series on the liturgy.
Special activities Vespers on the last Saturday of the month and eves of feasts, 6:30 p.m.; coffee hour after Sunday liturgy; Father Alexei and parishioners sometimes go to Shakespeare in the park in the summer months; there’s also a Christmas time outing of some sort.
Fellow parishioners While at one time you would have met many Russians, there are only a few who attend today. Instead you’ll find people of all ethnicities, Most are over 60. It’s a commuter church; many people drivie in from miles away.
Parking There is no church parking lot. Park on the street; you’ll usually find a spot close by.
Additional observations St. Andrew’s is a Russian Greek Catholic Church located in the archdiocese of Los Angeles. Although its liturgy differs from the Latin rite, it is in union with Rome. The parish was founded in 1936 by Russians fleeing persecution in Stalin’s Soviet Union. It relocated to its present site in 1957 (a former Latin-rite church).
It sounds wonderful in so many ways. It must be hard for older people to attend a church with few younger people, knowing that somehow young people have not chosen to join their parents and grandparents in worshipping in the faith of their families. Many of my friends suffer the same sadness and feel that they have failed their own children somehow in not instilling the faith deeply enough for them to sustain faithfulness in their adult years. It must be hard to be a young person today too, with so much secular immorality and loss or lack of faith among their peers. We had it so much easier when virtually everybody believed in God and said so openly, and most people practiced their faith or risked concern, disdain or outright rejection by the larger community. Our faith helped us win wars and build families; it sustained us personally and as a nation.
When I attended the recent Catholic Media Coalition annual meeting, I had the joy of attending a Byzantine Parish in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
When I went to recieve Communion, the priest lovingly and gently told me not to stick our my tongue. Yes the Mass was approximately 1.5 hours of faith filled exhuberation and well worth it. That Sunday, they actually had a new Chalice on display that had just arrived from Russia and the Icons were out of this world.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
i spoke with a russian priest once and asked him WHY young people convert to his religion.
“the beauty of the liturgy,” he told me.
young people, like the rest of us, want liturgy that lifts the soul to GOD, with a sense of mystery, a sense of the holy, not some nonsense with video screens, mega-churches, gimmicks (like “clown masses”), and all that stuff.
if you’ve got inspiring ritual with good preaching, that’s the ticket.
max, attend a Tridentine Mass.
there IS one celebrated nearby each sunday, here in the archdiocese of san francisco.
i’ve been hesistant to go (go ahead & laugh!) because i feared i would stand out for not knowing exactly what to do — rather like when i first attended mass when i was younger and decided to become a catholic.
also, music is an important part of worship for me, and i wonder if the tridentine mass here has any music…i’ll look into it…