Reviewers on the Facebook page of St.
George’s Russian Orthodox Church in Cincinnati, OH describe the atmosphere of
this parish as “friendly and welcoming,” “welcoming to all people,” “bringing
the community together” and the Rector Fr. Daniel Marshall as “kind, merciful,
and caring.” Since Fr. Daniel is a married man with three kids, it is probably
fair to say that at least some of the credit for his work and his efforts
should go to his supportive wife. Today, Matushka Anya Marshall speaks of the
expectations and the realities, the everyday struggles and the joys of the wife
of a parish priest.
On her
mother’s side, Matushka Anya Marshall is a third generation Russian-American.
Her grandfather was born in Blagoveshensk and as a one-year-old was carried
over the frozen river Amur by his mother Along with many others, she was
escaping from Soviet soldiers shooting at the people running away. After twelve
years in Harbin, the family went to San Francisco to join his father. For a few
years he had lived and worked all over the West coast of the US doing all kinds
of manual jobs earning money to bring his family from China. Matushka’s
grandmother was also born in Harbin and immigrated to San Francisco with her
family when she was three. When her grandparents got married, they decided not
to teach their children Russian, “because it was not a wonderful thing to be a
Russian in the US after WWII.” Yet, though their mother spoke no Russian and
their father was of Irish descent, both Matushka and her brother [Fr. Gregory
Joyce, Rector of the St. Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church, in Ann Arbor, MI –
Ed.] studied Russian in college. Matushka Anya also lived in Russia for two
years after college teaching English and perfecting her Russian.
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| Matushka Anna at home with the kids |
How did you meet Father Daniel?
We were
set up. Some friends thought we might like each other. But they didn’t tell me
I was going to be meeting someone, so when I saw him, I immediately understood
what was happening. And I was not happy that they’d done this to me. [Laughing]
They’d just thrown me into this situation where I was supposed to be meeting
someone and I was not prepared. So, I was not very friendly and after several
two to three word exchanges he just gave up on talking to me. Yet, somehow the
next day, when we saw each other again and started talking, and once we started
talking to each other, it all moved fairly quickly.
Did you know he wanted to become a priest?
It’s very
funny, one of our parishioners actually asked me this just this Sunday. I said,
“Yes, he was a seminarian [in Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY – Ed.],
I knew he wanted to be a priest.” And he said, “Did that make you want to marry
him more?” I said, “NO, that actually made me want to marry him LESS.”
A few
weeks after we started dating we were having a conversation at a party on
Bright Friday, and he says to me because he must already have been getting
serious, “You know, what do you think about being a Matushka?” And I said, “NO
WAY! That is the last thing that I want to do!” The reason being, because less
than a week before, on Holy Saturday, my nephew was born. Now, my brother’s a
priest. He served all of Holy Week and after the baby was born on Holy
Saturday, he said something along the lines of, “Oh, yay! We have a son! See
you after Liturgy on Bright Monday!” What are you going to do? The only priest
in his parish, it’s Pascha, he had to go. So, becoming a Matushka was
definitely not one of my plans for my life.
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| Wedding at St. John’s in Washington, DC |
Your brother is a priest. How well did you
understand what a priest’s life was like before your husband got ordained to
the priesthood?
Not
really that well. He lived in a different city, and, when I was single, I
visited him and his family fairly often, probably two or three times a year,
for a weekend or something like that. So, I did have some idea. But I didn’t
live right there, I didn’t participate in helping them with their kids when
they were busy. I was just a fly-in fly-out auntie.
Did you have your own idea of what a Matushka
is, of what she should do?
I guess I
must have. You see the Matushkas in parishes you attend. I attended the same
church for seven years [St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox church in
Washington, D.C. – Ed.] and over that time I kind of got to see what a Matushka
did. Both what she did standing in church, in the church hall, and elsewhere.
So, in that way I probably did have some thoughts about what they do, about
what their life is like.
But at
the same time, you don’t really understand because you’re just a parishioner. I
think if you don’t grow up with a priest as a father, you’re just a
parishioner. You see what you see when you’re present, but then there’s all
those things that no one knows about.
Also, a
Matushka’s job and her life evolve over time. When you’re a Matushka with young
children, you are, hopefully, able to just be a mother to your children and not
have a lot of other expectations and responsibilities in the parish. But as
your children get older, if you have the ability and the desire, there’s a lot
more that you can do.
I never
saw (at least in the parish I lived in before I got married) a Matushka doing
things she wished she wasn’t doing. If that was ever the case, she didn’t show
it.
Did you have a particular image of the life
of a priest?
I don’t
think I ever thought about it that much. I knew that a priest gives a lot of
his time, a lot of his energy to the parish, but what that would really mean to
me, to our family, I don’t think I really understood in the beginning. It’s
something you learn as you go. I’m sure it’s different from parish to parish,
from priest to priest. Whether you’re the only priest in a parish, the first
priest, the second priest, the third priest. But, no matter what, you give a
lot of your time to others. And sometimes your family doesn’t get your time
when they really would like to have it.
Was it easy for you to reconcile to this or
is it something you have struggle with?
I think
there have definitely been times when I’ve struggled with that – probably, when
I get overwhelmed. It’s not unusual by the end of Great Lent to be exhausted,
to feel like I’ve spent the last six weeks being a single parent, so there can
be moments when it just becomes overwhelming.
But I
don’t know if I’ve even reconciled with it. It’s part of being a clergy family.
It’s what you signed up for. When my husband got ordained, I had to agree to
it, I had to tell the Bishop. “Yes, I am for this. I will stand behind him. I
will support him.”
The
Bishop doesn’t ask you to agree, because it’s going to be an easy road. He
wants to know you are willing to do this. They [priests] are busy. They have
church services. They meet with people. People need their time, need their
advice. And, thank God, you have them, when you need their advice too. You may
have a spiritual father beyond your husband, but at the same time, he’s going
to give you spiritual advice when you need it as well. Being in the thick,
being a Matushka, you definitely need spiritual advice. And there are a lot of
attacks, a lot of temptations.
I guess,
one of the most eye-opening things of being a Matushka is seeing temptations
for what they are. Before my husband was a priest, even from the time we got
married, I started having temptations, feeling the attacks. After he became a
priest, I started to get better and better at recognizing them.
There was
one time, several years ago, he went to church for a panikhida or a moleben in
the evening, and he wasn’t coming home. The kids were fighting and things were
really unsettled in the house. It got really late and I started to worry. When
Fr. Daniel finally got home, he told me about what had happened. He and our
starosta [parish warden] were really worried about one woman who was struggling
to keep her life together. They were looking for her all over the city. In the
end, they managed to find her and got her the help she needed. So, when I told
him about how horrible my evening was, he says to me, “You know how Fr.
Seraphim [Abbot of the Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia – Ed.] always
says, ‘When there is good work going on, the demons attack…’” And so, the
husband is doing good work and the demons attack his family. Ever since then,
when the kids have moments like that and he’s not at home I understand what’s
happening.
What happened after Fr. Daniel’s ordination
to the priesthood?
We had
one year in Jordanville with Fr. Daniel finishing his studies and getting
experience serving as a deacon. The September after graduation he was ordained
a priest. He served his 40 days again and soon thereafter we moved to our first
parish [Holy Virgin Protection in Goshen, IN]. It was a lovely old parish.
There were some struggles, some challenges there. The people hadn’t had a truly
regular priest for many years. It was a matter of getting people who never had
Saturday evening services or regular Sunday services used to having services
every weekend. But it was a great place to start.
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| Fr. Gregory Joyce and his Matushka at Fr. Daniel’s ordination. M. Anna holding little Yasha |
Why did you decide to move to Cincinnati?
The main
thing that made us move to Cincinnati was that they needed someone to come here
and lead the building of the new church of St. George. Fr. Paul Bassett [St.
George’s previous Rector] was ailing and needed help.
The other
thing was that we run a publishing company, St. Innocent Press. When we lived
in Indiana it was our main source of income. The church paid, but not a whole
lot, though more and more as the time went, as we gathered more parishioners.
Still it was not a living wage, so it got to the point where it was going to be
difficult to support ourselves there. This opportunity came up, the church
needed to be built, and they were willing to pay a much better wage. That was a
great opportunity, but for several years it took all of Fr. Daniel’s time and
energy to make it happen.
Yet
another reason is that there are a lot of kids in the parish. I can’t think of
Sunday when we’ve had less than thirty children go to Communion. It’s really
nice, it’s one of the great things for us having moved down here from our old
church. We didn’t have many kids coming to church every Sunday. So, for our
kids this is wonderful.
Can you say a few words about your parish
here?
Our
parish averages about a hundred and twenty people every Sunday. In summer, it
drops down to about a hundred on average. It is pretty typical for summer to be
lighter. We probably have a couple hundred families in the area. There is a core group of people who come
every week, another core group who probably come two-three times a month (and
of course plenty of people who come once a month) and another huge group who
come occasionally.
Most of
the Russians are from the new wave of Russian immigration, but we do have some
from the old emigration as well. There
is also a large number of converts. There are some who were married and
converted, but there are people who become interested as well. Since we’ve been
here, we’ve had a number of single people convert. I can think of one couple
for sure who joined the church together.
Are the services all in Church Slavonic or do
you have some English in your parish?
We do
about fifty-fifty Slavonic and English. Sometimes, if there are no
Russian-speakers present, we might do a service totally in English. Vigil can
be more than fifty-fifty, because the crowd is not as large. You can usually
see and understand who’s there and what the preference would be with those
people.
We have
some weekday services, not necessarily every week. Big feasts definitely, minor
feasts – some. A lot depends on who really is available and wants to help with
the services. We have a good choir, we have a number of people who can conduct,
but they only have so much time during the week throughout the year to do
services. It’s very unlikely there’d be more than one weekday service. That’s
of course different throughout Great Lent.
Does Fr. Daniel have regular talks with
people or does he meet up with people one on one?
During
the school year, he holds weekly talks after lunch for the children who attend
Sunday school. He also does a lot of one on one. Whenever possible he tries to
schedule most of his meetings during one day of the week, so he’s at church all
day one day. But that, of course, is not always possible. There are plenty of
people who would like to talk to him. There are people that he meets with
regularly, who have a set time and day. There are plenty of people who want to
talk to him about various things: people having trouble in their marriage who
want to meet up with him either separately or together. Older parishioners, who
have things to talk to him about. There’s a lot of that. Then there’s a lot of
émigré Russians who either were never baptized and would like to be, or were
baptized but were not catechised in any way, never had confession or communion.
There’s a lot of work with them.
Do you help out with anything in the parish?
I run the
parish bookstore. When we moved from our old small church to our new bigger
church I offered to take it over and was happily handed the job. I really enjoy
it. It doesn’t take a huge amount of my time. Once a month or so I’ll spend
three or four hours taking stock, organizing and cleaning, figuring out what we
need to order. And the rest of the time it’s just really taking care of the
bookstore on Sundays after Liturgy. It can be a struggle finding other people
to help out.
I
participate in the meals – we have lunch every Sunday after liturgy and we have
a team system. There are four women on my team and maybe once every six to
eight weeks we make lunch. I send out an email saying it’s our turn to make
lunch asking what they want to make. Then everyone can say what they can make
and I try to fill in the holes, rather than saying, “This is what I choose to
make and you can work around me.” These are the two main things I do in church.
Before I
got married, I loved singing and was a regular in the choir, but when we
arrived in our first parish, I had a 10-month old and was pregnant. I sang Vespers because I was the only person
familiar with that service, but could not participate in singing the Liturgy.
The service was too long for the baby. When our second child was born, I needed
to spend my forty days at home with the baby. Then everyone realized that I
could no longer sing Vespers with two little ones. Others in the parish volunteered to take over
and that was when I stopped regularly singing in church.
I still
enjoy singing here and there. When we have a summer weekday Liturgy and there
are only a few people singing, I might join them. Otherwise, I think it’s good
for me to be in the congregation as well. Sometimes, part of me worries, if I
was always up in the choir, there would be a lot of people who didn’t actually
know who I was. Not that’s it’s important to me to be known as Matushka, but
for them it’s important to know who Matushka is. “I see her talking to people.
I see her struggling with her child in church, like I struggle with my child in
church.” In that way, I think it’s good for me to be down in the congregation.
On the
whole, I try not to get too involved in too many of the things that are going
on, because there are a lot of people who could do those things and ideally
should be doing a lot of things. Because if you start doing too many things as
a Matushka people start thinking they should just let you do it. They’ll do
that with anybody, not just with a Matushka. If somebody cleans the church,
it’s, “Great! Somebody cleans the church, now I don’t have to do that!” Somebody
cuts the grass, “Great! Now I don’t have to do that!”
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| The Marshall Family on Pascha 2017 |
Do your kids want to go to church or do you
have to encourage them?
As the
older kids Alla [Alexandra, eleven] and Yasha [James, twelve and a half] have
gotten older, I think they’ve pretty much gotten to the point where they want
to go church, especially because of the choir. They both sing in the choir.
They are valued members of the choir and they love being there. They come to
church, venerate the icons, and head straight upstairs. Leo [the youngest,
seven and a half] still complains, as the other children did at his age.
Normally,
we try to go at least three out of four Saturday nights for Vespers. I don’t
usually stay past Vespers unless it’s a big feast. Mostly because Leo gets
tired in the evening and has trouble staying longer. He does love khlebtsy [blessed bread] and
will do his best to get to stay for anointing and khlebtsy for a feast. And so,
we’ll go and be on time and stay till the Six Psalms. But then on Sunday
morning he sometimes tries to convince me that its’ not Sunday and we’ve
already been to church on Sunday. But he knows it’s not negotiable. Even though
he’ll say those things, he’ll usually give in and get ready for church with my
assistance without making us late or really dragging his feet. He would
sometimes rather be doing something else, but he does enjoy serving in the
altar at times and loves Holy Communion!
Is there anything you would like your
parishioners to know about your daily life?
The main
thing is that a lot of people don’t realize that when they are only asking for
an hour of the priest’s time a couple of times a year, it may seem to them
there’s no problem with the priest having plenty of time for his family. But
there’s sometimes a great struggle for him to say, “This is my day off. This is
the day I’m spending with my family.” And so, in that way, it may not seem to
individual people that priests spend that much time doing their job. But in
reality, it all really adds up to a lot of time between the church services
that they serve and then all of the extra services for individuals, the
meetings they have with parishioners, the counselling sessions, the weddings,
the phone calls, the emails, etc. etc. etc. There is a real struggle to find
time to spend with your family… I remember in our first year of living in
Cincinnati, when we were building the church, I actually had to tell Fr. Daniel
that he needed to add time with his family to his calendar.
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| Matushka and the kids on Pascha 2017 |
What is the hardest thing about being a
Matushka?
As a
Matushka, I really struggle with how I might offend people. Sometimes you know
you’ve offended somebody and when that happens you can try to fix it, ask for
forgiveness, try to find out how you can do something different. Still, there
are plenty of times when it seems you have offended somebody, but you’re not really
sure how. They won’t tell you, and yet their body language or something else
makes you feel like you probably have. There have been situations when I’ve
gone up to people asking for forgiveness, and they say, “Don’t worry, you
haven’t offended me,” and you wonder if it’s really true, or they’re just
saying that…
Another
thing that I find sometimes difficult… It’s really hard to ever get away on a
weekend. If we do want to get away, there’s only a couple of Sundays a year
when my husbands won’t be in his home parish, and where we would be somewhere
together. The rest of the time, when we want to go somewhere, during the school
year, the kids are in school and we can’t just go in the middle of the week, so
we have to go without him …
Also,
people outside of church (kids’ friends, coaches of teams) being totally
clueless about the fact that we are not available on Saturday nights and Sunday
mornings, we just can’t do it… People just don’t understand it… Those are some
of the harder things…
And what would be the best thing about being
a Matushka?
I think
the best thing is knowing there’s somebody at the altar praying for you every
time there is a Liturgy.
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/good-work-going-demons-aattack/
CONVERSATION