Mr. VOSHININ. Father Alexander.
Mr. JENNER. And the Father of the other parish is Dimitri?
Mr. VOSHININ. Father Dimitri Royster.
Mr. JENNER. Royster?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. VOSHININ. And the St. Nicholas Parish secretary-treasurer is Mr.
Bouhe.
Mr. JENNER. Yes. He's the motivating force, is he?
Mr. VOSHININ. He's the motivating force there--and everything
[laughter].
Our sympathies switched very quickly to St. Seraphim Church and I
became a member of the church council there at St. Seraphim and--uh--I
didn't like to be a member of St. Nicholas any more.
Mr. JENNER. Is that largely because of the aggressiveness of Mr. Bouhe?
Mr. VOSHININ. And because of the irregularity of the church meeting
once in 5 weeks--and many other things--and because I believe that
the church in this country should be in the language of the country.
I think it's natural--it's what it should be in order that our
denomination can exist at all--because in two, three generations, the
people lose their national language, and then there is no church.
Besides that, uh--I--what did I want to say? Besides that, I don't
think that's a good idea to divide Christians by their language in
thousand and one churches. We have people of six or seven national
backgrounds and is--it's absolutely senseless in serving the service
in some other language than the language in which everybody can
understand. And, therefore, we switched to the St. Seraphim Church--of
which we have remained members up to now.
Mr. JENNER. Were these two parishes and the church itself--that is,
the Greek Orthodox Church consisting of the two parishes--is that the
medium through which in large part the emigre group, let me say--from
Russia, from Yugoslavia, from----
Mr. VOSHININ. Lebanon; yeah.
Mr. JENNER. Became acquainted?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes; yes. Everybody knows everybody.
Mr. JENNER. Everybody knew everybody?
Mr. VOSHININ. That's right.
Mr. JENNER. And all rumors and everything else passed back and forth
through this group?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes; that's right.
Mr. JENNER. And is it true that arising out of this common interest in
the Greek Orthodox Church and the two parishes that a measure of social
intercourse, apart from the church, was also generated?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes; that is true.
Mr. JENNER. And you people generally became acquainted, one with
the other, in not only your church activity but your general social
activity as well?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yeah--well, I wouldn't say "general" social activity,
because, in addition to the church, I meet people through my office and
my wife met them too, so--but partially, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Yes. At least, through that medium, whether you wanted to
or not you sort of kept track of everybody?
Mr. VOSHININ. That's right.
Mr. JENNER. Everybody knew something about what the other fellow was
doing or would like to?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yeah--and as far as I know Mr. Bouhe even kept files and
still keeps files on everybody--when anybody was born, baptized, or
whatever happened to everybody.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. VOSHININ. He even showed me a file and he said, "Say, you came
here, I immediately opened a file on you."