Halo Kiddies: Meet the ‘Angels’ of St. Sophia’s

They are the iconic trappings one expects to find in a Greek Orthodox cathedral: paintings of archangels Michael and Gabriel to guard the altar; a gargantuan mosaic of Christ; and an exquisite Virgin Mary in the apse gesturing toward the sweet, angelic face of . . . USC med school publicist Diane Sakellaris Lapa as an infant.

OK, so this last is unique to St. Sophia Cathedral, the sumptuous Greek Orthodox church that’s dominated the corner of Pico Boulevard and Normandie Avenue since 1952. In an unabashed bit of fundraising, the church’s board of trustees offered big donors the opportunity to have their first-borns immortalized as angels painted above the altar by Italian artist John Tartaglia. The infant Lapa enjoys the eternal company of nine other angels, including Tartaglia’s daughter.

The curly-headed vision of her 8-month-old self looked down on Lapa when she took her marriage vows in 1970 and when her sons were baptized in the cathedral’s copper font. “It’s very emotional for me,” Lapa says. “Though as a child, my mother would always say, ‘You have to behave because you’re up there.’ ”