Some of us at Axia recently had a conversation with a priest friend in Germany, who was musing that his mission parish was flourishing as increasing numbers of people were joining–but that it was struggling at the same time because it lacked an older woman who had grown up in the services and knew how everything in the front of the church needed to be done. Last week, our Senior Advisor, Nadieszda Kizenko, lost a friend who was that–and much more–to her own parish. May she rest with the saints!
“Friday, January 10 was the funeral of Taisia Fedorov, one of the founding mothers of one of ROCOR’s most thriving parishes. Our mothers met in the same DP (Displaced Persons) camp #514 (Fischbeck), and, together with others from Albany and Trenton and Toronto and Germany, they were all part of the greater Fischbeck clan.
Tasia and I first got to know each other when Boston's Holy Epiphany did a summer church music seminar. Tasia mentioned that her (German) mother, a convert to Orthodoxy from Catholicism, wished she had a transliterated version of the Church Slavonic liturgy ROCOR then used exclusively. This was before the internet and before the likes of us had any contact with the OCA and our mothers were friends, so I attempted a transliteration and typed it out; Tasia knitted me a blanket-sized afghan with diagonal stripes in my favorite colors.
When I got a job in Albany, Tasia and her mother put me up while I looked for a flat, she gave me tips about cars and neighborhoods (still before the internet), but above all, she told me about the parish. How Albany and Schenectady had merged, how Albany had a hall but so far no church, how it was a parish of Marthas rather than Marys, how it was struggling financially (hence the building of the new hall before the new church)… “But,” she added with a smile, “we *are* rich in one thing: children! We have so many children.”
She paused, and added proudly, “And I am already a godmother to a lot of them!”
"Being rich in children turned out to be the best wealth of all. A lot of those children are still there—in church, in that parish. So are their children. The Albany parish is one of most thriving in the Northeast. And it thrives in large measure because Tasia (and her sisters Maria and Christina) grew up in it, and built it, and put all their lives and energies into it. It was Tasia (and her sisters) who was there singing at every single service (those cold winter mornings when it was a female trio alone); it was Tasia (and her sisters) who made the meal afterward. It was Tasia (and her sisters) who always had a friendly smile; it was Tasia (and her sisters) who were the heart and the soul and the glue. And it was thanks to Tasia (and her sisters) that the parish now has a life with countless members besides the great Fedorov-Nikiforov clan. But it was Tasia who made it possible.”
“In the obituary Tasia wrote for herself—and she is one of the few people who could do that without cringe—she referred to her immigrant grandparents with whom her family lived, and who established the roots of her “stern” belief in the Orthodox Church. There’s something very apt about her calling it that. That’s exactly the kind it was: old school, rock-bottom, no shilly-shallying or mollycoddling. Absolutely and endlessly kind to others, but absolutely rigorous to herself (and regarding the faith in general). She was like someone from another time while living fully in her own day.
Many Orthodox believe that it is a special blessing to die on Easter. Taisia died on Christmas (Old Calendar--I suspect she wanted to make sure everyone in the parish would be in church). And that is somehow right, because she gave everyone so many gifts her whole life, and was so focused on making everyone else's celebration more festive. With her, it always somehow felt like Christmas.
Now the whole Capital District feels emptier and hungrier. But, if they pray and feast and smile in Heaven, something tells me they're already rejoicing that Tasia is coming up to put on her apron.”
Dr. Nadieszda Kizenko is Axia’s Senior Advisor and professor of history and director of the religious studies program at the State Univerity of New York, Albany.