Serbian Orthodox Christians will welcome a new...

Serbian Orthodox Christians will welcome a new bishop Sunday morning with enthronement ceremonies at the hilltop St. Steven Cathedral in Alhambra.

The Rt. Rev. Chrysostom Stolich, 49, was elected by the Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in May and consecrated by Patriarch German in July at the Belgrade Cathedral in Yugoslavia.

Bishop Chrysostom will preside over a five-state Western diocese of 16 parishes which has its headquarters on the Alhambra cathedral grounds. He fills a 3-year-old vacancy created by the death of Bishop Gregory Udicky.

Although he studied at an American Orthodox seminary and served for a time as a parish priest in the Chicago area, Bishop Chrysostom spent nearly 20 years in the ascetic monastic life on Mount Athos in Greece, the last two years as abbot of all the monasteries there.

Sunday’s rites begin with a Pontifical Divine Liturgy at 10 a.m. followed by enthronement by Bishop Sava, a representative of the mother church in Yugoslavia.

“The cathedral can hold only 900 people,” said Father Dennis Pavichevich, dean of St. Steven Cathedral, “so we will have additional seating, loudspeakers and video screens outside on the parking lot.”

SEMINARIES

The American Assn. of Lutheran Churches (AALC), formed last year as an alternative to the merger that created the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, voted at its first convention last week in Bloomington, Minn., to establish its own seminary. At the same time, delegates decided after a spirited discussion and a split vote to end the association’s formal ties with Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena for training some of its ministerial candidates. The Rev. Duane A. Lindberg, AALC presiding pastor, said that some believed that Fuller Seminary is not as committed to the inerrancy of Scripture as is the AALC. The splinter body now has 50 member congregations and 26 affiliated churches--those that are served by AALC pastors but have not joined the association.

DATE

Wilshire Boulevard Temple will host a Jewish community-wide “Kristallnacht Remembrance” on Wednesday night, observing the 50th anniversary of a night when Nazis shattered the glass of Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes throughout Germany. The 7 p.m. program will feature an eyewitness account by Angus Thuermer, an Associated Press reporter who was in Berlin at that time, and the premiere of a 30-minute cantata, “Stars in the Dust.”

PEOPLE

While encouraging further Roman Catholic-evangelical Protestant contacts and cooperation, Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony cautioned students and faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary’s Wednesday chapel service about the harmful effects of divided religious allegiances on Latino families, which usually have a Catholic heritage. “We must both be scrupulously careful” that Protestant and Catholic presentations of the Gospel do not “attack, ridicule or demean (each) other,” Mahony said in his first talk at Fuller. Religion should not “allow family separation in religious practice to destroy family unity.”

MEDIA

TV personality Geraldo Rivera’s NBC special, “Devil Worship, Exposing Satan’s Underground,” shown last week, was “irresponsible” and poorly researched, according to the humanist-oriented Committee for Scientific Examination of Religion. Claims of satanic crime are vastly exaggerated, said Berkeley physicist Shawn Carlson, the principal author of a two-year report expected to be released next year. “The worship of Satan does not appear to be a significant source of crime,” said report co-author Gerald Larue, a USC professor emeritus of religion.