Published by Erie Times-News, May 10, 2003
'Seriously Orthodox'
Bishop leads church dedicated to age-old rituals
By Robin Cuneo
The Right Rev. Bishop Daniel of Erie, the world's only ROCOR bishop for the Old Believers, is also a master iconographer. He created the icons in his home chapel.
May 10, 2003 (Erie Times-News) -- Step into the private chapel, just off the living room, and the religious icons lining the walls transport you back to 17th century Russia.
Clearly, an intriguing person lives here. The modest bayfront house is the home of Bishop Daniel, one of only 21 bishops worldwide of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, ROCOR. (Bishops in the denomination use only their first names.)
"I do not need publicity," the bishop said firmly. "Concentrate on the church."
He looks quite stern with his required long hair and beard, wearing a long, belted cassock over his clothing. But the bishop is smiling as he sits in his well-worn easy chair just outside the chapel, where he says morning and evening prayers.
Bishop Daniel, 72, is unique even among the select group of 21 bishops.
A native of Odessa, Russia, he speaks a dozen languages fluently. He's a master icon painter and church architect. But what truly sets him apart is that he is the world's only ROCOR bishop for Old Believers.
The Old Believers, also called Old Rite Russian Orthodox, worship at the Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ, 251 E. Front St. The bishop describes them as "seriously Orthodox."
Bishop Daniel, born Dimitry Alexandrow, grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church. After post-Russian-Revolution politics forced them to move several times, Alexandrow and his mother, a violinist, fled Russia in 1944. He was 14.
They escaped just one day before the arrival of the Soviets, who would have detained and perhaps killed them because of family ties to the White Russians, an opposition group.
After four years of struggle in Austria and Switzerland, mother and son moved to the United States in 1949. His older brother and sister, who were already married, stayed behind and still live in Romania and Russia. The bishop's father, he learned 50 years later, was executed for fighting against the Soviets.
Bishop Daniel's face still lights up with a mixture of pride and relief as he explains that he and his mother settled in New York City as legal immigrants instead of refugees. That's because his seafaring grandfather was already living there.
Young Alexandrow graduated from Russian Orthodox seminary in the United States, but did not begin to immediately serve as a priest. His mother painted icons to help support them during their flight, and he assisted her. Fascinated by the process, he soon became an icon painter himself.
"Then my mother was helping me," the bishop said with fondness.
Before beginning his career as a master iconographer, Alexandrow considered serving as a priest in Alaska. "I had relatives buried there, and also was interested in different languages," he said.
"Bishop Daniel is such a modest man," said the Rev. Steven (Pimen) Simon, rector of the Church of the Nativity. "His great-grandfather on his mother's side was the last Russian Governor General of Alaska. ... He knows the Gospel so well, he taught himself Spanish and Cantonese by reading the gospel in those languages."
Bishop Daniel called Simon's statement an exaggeration. He does not claim fluency in Cantonese, only in Russian, Slavonic, Ukrainian, Romanian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, English and church forms of Greek and a dialect of Hebrew.
The form of Slavonic used in church is the most familiar to him, he said. Although he has no trouble with English in everyday conversation, he claims to stammer if delivering a sermon in English. "But Father Pimen, his words just flow in the sermon," he said.
In 1949, just when he was considering a move to Alaska, the Russian Orthodox Church there affiliated with the Orthodox Church in America. "It did not go along with my grain, so to say," Bishop Daniel said.
The OCA encompasses many national-based Orthodox churches, such as those founded in Greece and eastern European nations. Bishop Daniel, who stayed with ROCOR, started his priesthood in Hartford, Conn.
When it came time to build a new church in Hartford, he became an architect - "just by necessity. I liked it even better than iconography," he said.
Bishop Daniel learned masonry to help with the arches and pillars required in Orthodox churches, but which are generally unfamiliar to American bricklayers. He also put his architectural and masonry skills to use at a ROCOR cathedral church in Washington, D.C.
Hanging above the television in his living room are photographs of the interior and exterior of the golden-domed ornate brick cathedral in Washington. Coincidentally, the icons there were painted by the Rev. Theodore Jurewicz, now an assistant priest at the Erie church. "He is very accomplished," the bishop said.
Bishop Daniel became a ROCOR bishop in 1988, but not without much soul-searching on his part, he said. He is part of the celibate priesthood and therefore qualified to become a bishop.
"I told them (existing bishops) when they wanted me to be a bishop, if there is a need just for another bishop, may I please be excused. But for the Old Rite, I would do it."
Bishop Daniel, who has long been sympathetic with the Old Rite practices, said he met Simon in 1982, the year before the Old Rite Front Street church voted to rejoin ROCOR.
His consecration as an Old Rite bishop of the ROCOR took place in August 1988, exactly 1,000 years after what many scholars believe was the founding of Russian Orthodoxy.
Bishop Daniel made many trips to Erie from Connecticut, and moved here for good in 1998. The move may have been good for his soul, but the coincidental timing has been a battle for his body.
The day after the move, he had triple-bypass heart surgery. Not long after his recovery, he suffered a series of strokes that left him weakened.
Standing and walking are difficult. It was a difficult adjustment for a previously robust man, but the worst part was how it affected his priesthood and service as a bishop, he said. Old Believers stand during services. Bishop Daniel must sit.
"If they had no priests, maybe I would feel compelled to try, but they have two priests," Bishop Daniel said. "I have thought that it would be the right thing for me to retire, but they tell me it's better to have a sick bishop than no bishop," he said.
He and Simon are working with a church with thousands of members in Latvia that might be interested in rejoining ROCOR. But so far, the Erie church is the only one.
"I do not feel bad about not seeing others yet," Bishop Daniel said. "They have been taught 300 years of no compromise. But the doors are open. I think the people who are seriously Orthodox will finally prevail."