Byzantine Structure Rises at San Marcos : Faith, and Bingo, Help Build New Serbian Orthodox Church

There’s something of an architectural--not to mention functional--contrast in the two buildings that sit side by side on the San Marcos hillside.

In one--a quintessential California multipurpose auditorium with a stage at one end, a kitchen at the other and 800 chairs and folding tables in between--bingo players gather weekly to try their luck.

That very activity is helping to meet the construction costs of the dramatically more distinguished building next door--a classic Byzantine church that one day will serve as the majestic, copper-domed home for the St. Petka’s Serbian Orthodox Church.

No Completion Date

Construction of the church began 1 1/2 years ago, and there is no scheduled completion date. Although regular services will begin early next year in the unfinished church, it is not expected to be completed for at least two or three years, church leaders said.

The uncertainty exists because the congregation is paying for the church’s construction with cash; so far more than $200,000 has been raised and spent. The final bill is expected to top $1 million. “But it might end up like a nuclear plant, starting at $1 million and ending at $10 million,” said Cedomir Dobrilovich, president of the 250-family congregation.

But it’s worth it, he said; the church will serve not only as a house of worship but also as a touchstone of sorts to motherland Yugoslavia, its classic, domed orthodox churches and the faith they represent.

Why in Southern California--land of stucco and red tile and glass and steel--is a small congregation ambitiously building a church with copper domes, marble exterior and fresco interior?

Why do you think, asked Milan Andjelkovich, who donated the 8 1/2-acre church site on Knobb Hill Drive.

“Tradition!”

Indeed, virtually none of the church’s members are more than one generation removed from their homeland in eastern Yugoslavia, where their Serbian Orthodox faith originated in the 11th Century after breaking away from the Roman Catholic faith in a dispute over dogma. The Serbian Orthodox Church survived 500 years of oppression under Turkish rule, then thrived before being subjected to the oppressive Communist rule of Marshal Josip Broz Tito starting in 1946.

Today, more than 7 million Orthodox Serbians still live in Yugoslavia, making up the largest religious group in that country--compared to about 5 million Roman Catholics and 2 million Muslims.

About half a million Serbs have immigrated to the United States since the 1940s, Dobrilovich said. In Southern California, the community is served by St. Steven Cathedral in Alhambra and St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in San Gabriel, as well St. George Serbian Orthodox church in San Diego.

St. Petka’s was established in 1974 as the first and only Serbian Orthodox church in North San Diego County. Currently, its members meet in a small chapel under the multipurpose hall that was the first structure built on the site.

Andjelkovich said he donated the property 14 years ago because it was more fit for God than himself.

Andjelkovich left Yugoslavia in 1940 virtually penniless, moving to Detroit, where he learned the baking trade. He moved in 1963 to Escondido, where he first opened a bakery and coffee shop and later a successful steak house. Today he is retired.

Originally, Andjelkovich hoped that his donated land would become the site of an Orthodox Serbian monastery, attracting Orthodox monks--and financial support--from throughout the United States. Church leaders dissuaded him from such a dream, and plans turned instead to developing the church building to serve the local Serbian community.

His Patron Saint

He did succeed in having the church named after his patron saint, St. Petka, who was born of a wealthy and religious Serbian family in the 10th Century. She devoted her life to religious study, spending most of it in the Holy Land before returning as an old woman to her home village, where she was unrecognized and treated as an outsider. She was buried outside the village cemetery, and years later her casket was mistakenly opened, allowing the discovery of her virtually intact remains, which reportedly showed no signs of decomposition. Today her body is interred in a Romanian church in Jassy.

Buoyed by Andjelkovich’s sizable land donation, the fledgling community of Orthodox Serbians arranged for financing construction of its original, 13,000-square-foot church hall. That $160,000 construction loan is half repaid, and church members decided to pay for the new church with cash.

“We are old-timers, and decided we don’t want to fly now and pay later,” Dobrilovich said.

The $200,000 raised so far has allowed the pouring of the slab, erection of steel girders and a cinder-block shell, and the framing of the two classic domes, each topped by a cross 65 feet above the ground, making the church as tall as it is wide. The process of applying copper to the roof is now under way and is expected to cost $75,000.

Next to come will be the application of the marble exterior and other outside finishing work before attention turns inside to the choir loft, pews, altar, stained-glass windows and carved wooden icons.

The final touch will be the hiring of a Yugoslav artist to complete the interior walls with frescoes depicting Old World religious scenes.

Pastor of the church is the Rev. Milan Vukovic, whose predecessor retired because of ill health. Vukovic arrived in San Marcos two months ago and is taking a crash course in English. A priest for 17 years in Yugoslavia, he served most recently as the secretary to a bishop. Before that, he was pastor of a 400-year-old church.

The St. Petka’s congregation held its first Mass inside the unfinished church last month, in honor of St. Petka’s feast day. That day’s donations raise more than $10,000, and the service gave the congregation a taste of things to come, Dobrilovich said.

“It was a chance for them to pray and think of what is still ahead of us. As we see the progress, we become much more interested,” he said.

Andjelkovich is unabashedly proud of the church he has helped build.

“My friend, I came from the old country without a penny in my pocket, and now look at this,” he said. “This is the nicest piece of property in San Marcos. And now it is God’s property.”