c. 2008 Religion News Service

Town asks court to decide upkeep of church cemetery

PALMYRA, Pa. (RNS) With residents calling it “pathetic” that no one is caring for a cemetery, town officials have asked the Lebanon County Court to decide who should be responsible for its upkeep.

Two local churches that cared for the cemetery for 140 years have denied ownership. Officials of Palm Lutheran Church and Trinity United Church of Christ say the borough should maintain it.

“I think this is pathetic in a Christian town,” said Mark Leonard, 79, adding that a man had to mow a section in preparation for his wife’s burial.

Borough solicitor William Brandt said the borough had been waiting for the two churches to petition the court to review the issue, but that the churches have abandoned that effort.

He said he will file a petition, but that it will take time for the churches to respond and a hearing to be held before the court would issue an order.

“If it were up to us, they would’ve been cited 30 times,” Mayor Richard Mazzocca said. No one claims ownership, “so we don’t have anybody to cite.”

A youth group at First United Methodist Church mowed the cemetery for Memorial Day, Capello said, and Councilman Don Neiswender contributed $50 to the group.

About 1,000 people are buried there, including veterans of the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American and the Civil wars.

_ Barbara Miller

Russian Orthodox join U.S. Orthodox umbrella group

NEW YORK (RNS) For the first time in its 50-year history, an umbrella group of Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders now represents every American church in communion with the spiritual leader of world Orthodoxy.

At its June 12 meeting, the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), leaders of nine Orthodox churches welcomed Russian Orthodox Bishop Mercurius to join the group.

SCOBA includes the U.S. leaders of the the Orthodox Church of America and America’s Albanian, Antiochian, Bulgarian, Carpatho-Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian, and Ukranian Orthodox churches.

The Russian Orthodox Church originally belonged to SCOBA, but withdrew in 1970 as the Orthodox Church in America stepped in to represent its United States parishes. But, about three dozen parishes opted to remain under Moscow’s leadership, and will now be represented by Bishop Mercurius, explained the Rev. Mark Arey, SCOBA general secretary.

The bishop can also speak for about 100 parishes in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which recently reconciled with Moscow after splitting away during the Cold War. Arey predicted that ROCOR leaders will request their own conference seat next year.

“My prediction is they’ll be members of SCOBA,” he said. “As long as you’re a canonical, legitimate Orthodox church in America, you can be in SCOBA.”

With the addition of the Moscow Patriarchate’s parishes, the biannual conference now coordinates 10 Orthodox Christian denominations in their nonprofit endeavors in the United States, ranging from prison ministries to campus fellowships.

“The needs of our own parishioners are so demanding, it’s hard sometimes to get outside your own parochial world to talk to the guy down the street, even though he’s the same faith,” Arey explained. “This association provides an umbrella for cooperative work.”

The next SCOBA meeting will be held this fall, Arey said.

_ Nicole Neroulias

Walter elected new president of Evangelical Covenant Church

(RNS) Gary B. Walter was elected the ninth president of the Chicago-based Evangelical Covenant Church on Wednesday (June 25) at the denomination’s annual meeting in Green Lake, Wis.

A 27-member search committee had nominated Walter to succeed retiring President Glenn Palmberg. Walter will start his four-year term on Sept. 1.

Walter, 53, had previously served as the executive minister of the church’s church growth and evangelism department, where he oversaw a growth rate of about 56 percent through new church plants and other initiatives.

Walter quoted Palmberg at the meeting, saying, “We are a small denomination, but not too small to change the world.”

Walter outlined three priorities, including evangelism, compassion and justice ministries and church unity.

“From the very beginning, the Covenant’s commitment has been to join together, not principally to be talkers of the word, nor philosophers on the word, but at the core to be doers of the Word, to live out the promises of God,” Walter said, according to Covenant News Service.

Walter has also pastored Covenant churches in Washington state, California and Illinois. The moderate evangelical denomination counts about 115,000 U.S. members and was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1885.

_ Ashly McGlone

Quote of the Day: L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper

(RNS) “The Pope does not wear Prada, but Christ.”

_ The official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in an article by Spanish writer Juan Manuel de Prada, in an article entitled “Liturgical Vestments According to Ratzinger.”

KRE DS END RNS