Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church, San Francisco

 If you came up to me and said, “Hey, do you want to go see a one act play?” I’d immediately say, “Sure, what’s it about.”

If you then responded with the following:

The building by the Church

Okay, we go to the little building by a church. You knock on the heavy, wooden door, and a one eyed guy is going to answer. He’s tall, with a beard and wearing a black cassock, and he’ll let you in and send you down this short hallway into a 12’ by 20’ room, with a small stage on one end with part of a curtain. There’s a lot more building around you, all probably over a hundred years old, lot’s of marble and stone-I think it used to be convent, so you get some of that ‘old nun’ vibe, but you don’t go that way. There’ll be chairs around the outside wall of the room, and maybe a half dozen people with you. A lectern will be in the middle

The Hallway

facing the small stage. The walls will be painted with those flat perspective Russian-type folk paintings, and every surface will be brightly colored. There’s some stained glass windows, and some phrases written on the walls in some sort of gothic font, too.

The show starts when a guy in a robe comes out and starts reading at the lectern. He won’t acknowledge the crowd, he just goes. It’s in English, but he doesn’t pause at sentences or anything-he just keeps reading, facing away from you and you have to keep up. The one eyed guy comes out and swings around some incense, and occasionally answers the first guy.

Some singing’s going to be happening offstage at different points. Again, it’s in English but hard to understand. A third guy comes out and opens the curtain. He speaks English, too, it’s all in English, but there’s no punctuation. There’s some marching about the room from the actors, and more incense and operatic singing.

There’s lots of repetition of lines and phrases, and occasionally you’ll have to answer. After about an hour and a half, they’ll be serving some fancy bread and wine, and one of the guys is going to fork it into your mouth. You have to hold still, though, or you might lose an eye.

The whole thing goes about two hours, and they serve lunch after.

I’d be like, “Sure, I’m in. Lunch too? What’s it going to cost?”

And you’d go, “That’s the great part-you don’t have to pay anything, but you can leave a donation.”

That’s probably not the description that the congregation for Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church would use, but that’s what it felt like.

I was alone in San Francisco on a Sunday morning, waiting for my daughter to wake up and summon me, and thought I’d go to Mass. San Francisco has more Catholic Churches than any place I’ve ever been, and a few were in walking distance of my motel. I picked a distance of about 1.5 to 2 miles, and had a few options. I’d been to St. Ignatius, the church affiliated with the University of San Francisco (which is beautiful), and wanted to try a different place. Google maps pointed out two other churches, and I picked Our Lady of Fatima-there was a coffee place on the way there.

I’ve been to several Roman Catholic masses in my life, including Mass deep in Baja California, Hiroshima, and the Vatican. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found churches to be peaceful, and the Mass that I attended twice weekly in Catholic school is burned in so deeply that I can listen to the Roman Catholic Mass in another language and pretty much still know where its at-a fact that I found especially fascinating while listening to Mass in Japanese. Though there are subtle differences from church to church and diocese to diocese (the accent in the hymn Ave Maria come to mind-is it Áve or Avé?), Roman Catholic Masses are all pretty much the same.

Though Our Lady of Fatima is part of the San Francisco Arch-Diocese, it is a Russian Byzantine Mass, and that’s much different. It’s longer, to start with, and the changes of Vatican II, back in the 60s, don’t seem to apply, beyond the Mass wasn’t in Latin. Most of the Mass was done facing the alter, and there was little participation from those in attendance. There was a reading and a Homily, in which the priest explained a few of the differences, but everything else seemed out of order to me.

It should be noted that Russian Byzantine has nothing to do with the Russian government, and was not pro-Russia in any way. It is part of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and though it falls under Pope Francis, the head of the Church (the Ordinary) Joseph Werth is based in Novosibirsk, Siberia. There are very few Russian Byzantine parishes in the US (seven from what I can gather). It’s actually supposed to be very similar to Russian Orthodox, except that Russian Byzantine fall under the direction of the Pope, while Russian Orthodox does not.

Of the other half dozen people who attended with me, one appeared to be a regular attendee, two had been congregates from years past, one lived nearby and was just trying something different and the other two were tourists like me. The lunch after word was okay, a crock pot hearty soup, some bread and a green salad, which was served in what was most likely the nun’s dining hall, and I spoke some to the lady who lived nearby but had never been and to the very friendly deacon (Deacon Bruce?), who answered my questions, of which I had many.

I’d talk about “Faith Journey” or “Spiritual Growth” at this point, but that really wasn’t what this was. I wanted to see something different, something that I wouldn’t see elsewhere that was positive, and the Mass at Our Lady of Fatima was that.