Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, Santa Barbara, California
Saint Barbara's is one of my all-time favorite churches in Santa Barbara. For some reason, I was reflecting on the place tonight. The photo above was taken at (Orthodox) Easter, 2003. I visited this church for the first time back in November 1997 with Bill for an Environmental Symposium the church hosted for the visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. I was a greenhorn Catholic back then, and at the time, I'm not sure that I was able to fully appreciate the significance of the event, but I was glad I went. One unique feature of the church is that they have available for veneration a holy relic of St. Barbara given to them as a gift from Pope John Paul II back in 1987.
2 comments:
I'd gotten the tickets from Fr. Nicholas at the Antiochian Orthodox Church in Isla Vista. We had to stand outside (beautiful weather) for the talk ... but he passed within two feet of us going in.
I seem to remember seeing him stop on the way in to eat a goldfish cracker from a cup held by a young girl, surrounded by her family, parishioners at St. Athanasius in Isla Vista. An odd memory.
BTW, St. Athanasius is on their way to building their new church structure across the street from St. Raphael's in Goleta.
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