A Sad Goodbye

At this Sunday's Mass at Transfiguration Church in Shamokin, the parish said farewell to Sisters Bernitta and Juliet SSMI for the final time.

The Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate order have been providing sisters of the religious education of students at Transfiguration Parochial School since the 1940's. Last year, the school closed at the end of the school year. This year the parish operated a pre-K and kindergarten. This coming fall, the pre-K and kindergarten will close.

At one time, Transfiguration, St. Stan's, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, St. Joe's, St. Stephen's, and St. Anthony's in Ranshaw operated parochial schools with help various orders of nuns in the greater Shamokin and Coal Township Areas. Now they are all gone.

St. Anthony's and St. Mary's were the first to go. St. Stephen's and St. Joe's were merged into West Catholic in the early 1970's. St. Stan's and St. Edwards schools merged along with West Catholic into Mother Cabrini. Mother Cabrini along with Holy Spirit of Mount Carmel formed Lourdes Regional Elementary where it currently operates today. As of this time this writer doesn't know the residence of the religious faithful at Lourdes Regional.

It is just sad to see the last of our neighborhood schools closing and a part of the history of past gone, maybe forever. Good luck to the Sister Servants!!!

Mnohaya Lita

Transfiguration Church Celebrates 125th

Transfiguration Greek Catholic Church celebrated their 125th Anniversary with the Divine Liturgy celebrated by the Metropolitan Archbishop, Most Reverend Stefan Soroka.

In what began as a celebration of the liturgy in the Ukrainian tradition back in 1884 in the basement of the Whitney School in Excelsior, PA, evolved into a thriving parish celebrating 125 years in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.

One of the great things of today's celebration was the fact that many parts of the Liturgy were said in "old Slavonic" like they were 125 years ago. With many mergers and closings being done in first the Harrisburg Diocese and now the Scranton Diocese of the Latin Rite, Transfiguration Church has been able to maintain it's cultural identity throughout it's history.

The first church was build on land at Pearl and Pine Street in Shamokin and eventually moved to land located at Clay and Shamokin Street where the current granite structure is today.

The best way to sum up 125 years of history from parishioner's perspective was done today by Joanna Wolfe. Wolfe said that our immigrant founders of the church chose not to establish their homes in their new land first, but chose to build their church before anything else.

Mnohaya Lita, Vladyko!!!!