Mr. VOSHININ. They are not only Russians there. Of course,
Russians--you said Russians--Yugoslav, Lebanese--but in addition to
that, there are those people--Estonians and Latvians. You see, there
are a lot of Latvians and Estonians who are Greek Orthodox. Well, you
see, there is a national differentiation now--yeah--in addition, I
can take another nationality. These are people--west Ukrainians and
Carpathian Russians. These people have former Austrian citizenship and
Polish citizenship. They come from that part which is known as Galicia.
So, nowdays, the people who are in St. Nicholas parish--we call that
"Bouhe's parish," in our usual usage of language. That's what we
usually call Bouhe's parish.
Mr. DAVIS. He's still the secretary of that parish?
Mr. VOSHININ. He's still the secretary of that parish--yeah.
These people are mostly those Baltic people there, with few Russians.
There are perhaps about 5 Russians there and about 15 to 20 Estonians
and Latvians. That is St. Nicholas though, whereas the St. Seraphim
Church has a much wider, of course, background because there are
Russians there, there are Yugoslavs--it's true that Bouhe's group has
some Yugoslavs but they never come to his church--not very often at
least--very rare; but they come to us, too--so I don't think they are
members any place--those to which I'm talking about.
But in our church there are a lot of--well, not too many Russians
there--not many people with Russian background in our city at all; but
we have those called Carpathian Russians and West Ukrainians and we
have some Serbians--people with Serbian backgrounds; we have some Greek
people even; we have all the Arabic people here--you know, Lebanese and
other Arabic countries which are Greek Orthodox; and we have American
people with just plain Anglo-American background who became members.
Mr. JENNER. Who became interested in the Greek Orthodox Church?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Uh, huh.
Mr. VOSHININ. Our pastor himself, was a former Baptist who, through
study of church history, became Orthodox.
Mr. JENNER. Is this group--and I'm going to call the group both Bouhe's
following as well as the group in which you move--are they, by and
large people who have enjoyed higher education either in this country
or in Europe, or Asia?
Mr. VOSHININ. No; in Bouhe's group there are only a few people with
higher education; whereas, in our group, I would say there is a lot of
people with higher education. We have doctors and engineers and----
Mr. JENNER. These people, I take it, are interested in the welfare of
others in the group--in the general sense of the word?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, did there move into this community or come into this
community that we have now described largely in terms of church, some
people by the name--or a man by the name--whose last name was De
Mohrenschildt?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes--except that he is an atheist and doesn't believe in
God.
Mr. JENNER. Yes, he is an atheist--but he did arrive on the scene or he
was on the scene----
Mr. VOSHININ. Oh, he was on the scene for a long time before we arrived
here.
Mr. JENNER. He was here?
Mr. VOSHININ. Yes; he was here.
Mr. JENNER. When you came here then, in September 1955, you found De
Mohrenschildt already here?
Mr. VOSHININ. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. And was he active among these people--even though, as you
say, he's an atheist?
Mr. VOSHININ. Oh, he was singing in the church choir.