Series Of Events Planned Over The Year Will Mark Occasion
Trinity Lutheran Church is celebrating the 150th year of its founding with a series of events spread over the coming year that commemorate its history and ministry to Middle Village and surrounding areas.
“Ministry is not great triumphs and hurricanes-it’s the steady work of helping people,” Pastor Leo Longan said of the church’s 150-year history .
The celebration begins this Sunday, Apr. 28 with a church service to be held at 10:30 a.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church located 63-70 Dry Harbor Road in Middle VIllage. Bishop Rev. Robert Rimbo will lead the worship. Around noon, there will be a banquet in Ascension Hall, located at the same address.
“This Sunday is one of the big days. The other things are for the community-ways to share our hap- piness with Middle Village,” said Longan, who has been ministering at the church for 17 years.
Longan said anyone can attend the events-the church will be asking for donations to help fund the complete renovation of its parish hall.
Dorothy Russo is a thrid-generation member of the church, and her son will be participating in the service by assisting Bishop Rimbo. Russo said the church has played an integral role in her life.
Pastor Longan performed her wedding, baptized her children and ministered to her ailing mother. She even remembers watching the church fire in 1977 from the stoop of her childhood home. But what really sticks out in her mind is the sense of community.
“There’s something about a Lutheran Church…” she mused, recalling youth retreats to bear mountain, the sense of unity after the church’s fire, and the support the congregation has given her family over the years.
When her brother was ill in the 1970s, she recalls sitting on her mother’s stoop at the age of 10. An ambulance drove by announcing that a young man from the neighborhood was sick and needed a blood transfusion. She said the congregation mobilized. Church members called in sick from work to donate blood; one man cancelled a buisness trip, and another delayed vacation plans in order to help her brother.
“Now we do these things more,” she said. “With Facebook and everything, it’s a lot easier. But this was in the ’70s, and for everyone to come together-that’s how amazing the church is.”
As the oldest Lutheran congregation on Long Island, Trinity Lutheran Church traces its roots to 1851, when a group of German farmers gathered for regular worship in the chapel of the Lutheran cemetery.
The church was formally incorporated 150 years ago in 1863. After the chapel was damaged in a fire, the congregation rebuilt on the same site. The church stood there-on one of the highest points in New York City-until 1977, when a fire consumed it on Easter Monday, Longan said.
Within two years, a new building had been dedicated-this time it was built outside the cemetary-at a site on Dry Harbor Road adjacent to Trinity’s parish hall.
Longan said the baptismal font in the current building was the only relic saved from the fire in 1977. It fell through the floor, escaping the inferno, and was rebuilt. Now it stands in the church’s lobby, where Longan uses it for rites of initiaion today.
Trinity Lutheran Church has been active in the community, offering programs for seniors, contributing weekly to local soup kitchens and housing a number of scoutsorganizations and civic groups.
“We are very much in the DNA of Middle Village. We’ve been around since before there was a Middle Village,” Longan said.
Through events planned for the coming year, the congregation aims to raise about $500,000 for the renovation.
Additional cost will be offset by the sale of Ascension Lutheran Church in Glendale, which merged with Trinity in 2011, Longan said. The church is planning to complete the renovated parish hall by next year, he added.
Events planned for the future include:
– A Broadway and pop music revue at 3:30 p.m. May 19 featuring soprano Candis Alex and bass Michael Allen Gray accompanied by pianist John Cook;
– A dinner theater performance entitled “A Seance in Middle Village,” to be held at 7:30, Sept. 21;
-An October Fest and German heritage celebration featuring Schuhplattler dancing from Original Enzian on the afternoon of Oct. 19;
– A community Thanksgiving service and reception on Nov. 24; and
-A concert of traditional music from the nation of Georgia presented by New York-based vocal ensemble SUPRULI on Dec. 8.
Tickets to Sunday’s banquet are $50, will be on sale through Apr. 25 and can be obtained by calling the church at 1-718-353-7300. Times and suggested donation amounts for future events will be announced as the dates draw near, said Erwin Markisch, the chair of the church’s publicity committee.
