By Andrea Palatnik
Leaking from the roof caused water damage in the south wall. | Photo by Andrea Palatnick.
The 100-year-old Russian Orthodox Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, has its environmental challenges, both from within and from without. Inside, the soot from thousands of candles has accumulated on everything: the walls, the domed ceiling, the icons and the chandeliers. From the outside, the church is buffeted by pollution and dust from industrial Brooklyn and nearby Manhattan.
For the pastor, the Very Reverend Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk, maintaining the church is a huge headache. “I’ve been to a monastery in Poland that hadn’t been cleaned in more than a hundred years, but because it was in the middle of the woods it looks better than our church. There’s too much dust here,” said Krawczuk.
The church, built between 1916 and 1921 (even though the parish started in a different building in 1908) with a project inspired by the Cathedral of the Assumption, in Moscow, hasn’t had a major renovation since 1978.
Transfiguration, a historic landmark, is showing its age. The beautiful frescos that cover almost every inch of the cathedral’s walls and ceiling are covered with a sticky layer of solidified fumes, which adhered to the paint throughout the years. Some of them, like the solemn depiction of the Virgin Mary holding her protecting veil from heaven, on the north wall, also show spots of peeling paint.
Krawczuk recalled the day in 1992 when he celebrated mass in the church for the first time. Standing alone in the aisle, he looked up to the central chandelier, hanging majestically from the big cupola above the main altar. Its crystal pendants were remarkably dirty and opaque. He summoned the altar boys and discretely asked them to think of another place for the four large candle stands located right beneath the chandelier, surrounding an icon of Jesus Christ.
“The crystals were very dark because of the candles, so I told them to take the candles away,” said Krawczuc. That was two decades ago and the chandeliers still haven’t been cleaned.
Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, on Driggs Avenue | Photo by Andrea Palatnick.
In 1996, Krawczuc started a broad fundraising campaign among the Russian Orthodox community in Williamsburg and Greenpoint to restore the centenary temple to its original splendor. The five byzantine cupolas and the windows were the first to be repaired. The cost of the project, estimated in $1.4 million in 1999, came to a total of $2.1 million in 2004, when the contract was finally signed. The church struggled for government grants, but all it managed to receive were $350,000 from the New York Parks Department.
“You know, in Poland the government takes care of the historic sites of the country, it pays for half of the restorations. But here even the parks get more money than we do,” said Krawczuc.
The church council is about to sign a contract for the second phase of the restoration project, which will clean and repair the interior of the building. The planning has been going on for four years, and the estimated costs now surpass the $2 million bar.
The cathedral was listed in 1969 as a New York City Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and as a historical and architectural milestone in the National Registry of Historic Places compiled by the Department of Interior.
According to Krawczuc, the church council wants to hire an artist from Connecticut who uses natural glue made from honey wax to fix the peeling.
“Because the frescos were painted over a canvas and glued to the walls it makes it more difficult to clean. But he says this glue is more durable and won’t dry after 10 of 15 years like regular glue,” explained the priest.
On the south wall, the upper part of the frescos of Archangels Michael and Gabriel has been ruined by the water that leaked from the roof before the 2004 restoration. To stop the leak, even the copper shell of the five onion domes had to be replaced.
The western wall, where the main entrance and the choir balcony are located, is awfully stained with dozens of white hands over the dark brown paint – a result from the regular maintenance of the four air-conditioners installed there.
The iconostas that hides the main altar of the Transfiguration and the two smaller sanctuaries – one dedicated to Saint Vladimir, one to the Virgin Mary – will also be cleaned and repaired.
Krawczuc said that three companies will be hired by the church to perform the repairs, but he chose not to reveal their names because the contracts are yet to be signed. But, he assured, all the decisions were made and they are ready to begin.
“We should have started this cleaning two years ago, but we got stuck because we focused on the elevator [that would be used in the reform]. The company made some wrong calculations, and in the end it said that the church floor wasn’t strong enough to support the structure of the elevator, and that because our doors are too small they would have to assemble everything inside and that alone would take months,” said the reverend.
Now, he added, they decided to do everything with scaffolds. The trickiest part will be the cleaning and repainting of the blue sky with golden stars that decorates the ceiling of the main cupola, which stands 90 feet above the floor. The chandelier will finally be cleaned and rewired, and the missing pendants will be replaced.
“I think that someone used the wrong chemicals to clean these chandeliers the last time, because the metal links are oxidized and many parts fell down over the years. But now we’ll do it the right way,” said Krawczuk.
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