The Feast Day of St Markella (July 22/August 4) as celebrated at the then Parish of St Markella in 1962. This Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archimandrite Petros Astyfides, Fr Eleutherios Moschos, Hieromonk Akakios Mouskos, and Deacon Nikodemos Kalantis. Heard reading the Creed of Faith is Gerontissa Siglitiki. This is the earliest known recording of Divine Services celebrated at the Parish (later Cathedral) of St Markella. The parish was established by Arch. Petros in 1954, eight years before this recording was made, and ten years after he escaped persecution in Greece and came to America. Less than four months after this Divine Liturgy was served (Nov29/Dec12) Archimandrite Petros was ordained to the Episcopacy as Bishop of Astoria. He would later be elevated to the rank of Metropolitan of Astoria. At the time of this recording Arch. Petros was under the omophorion of Bishop Dositheos of New York, who was a Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Fr. Eleutherios, one of the Chian Six, served the Church of St Spyridon in Detroit for many years, and eventually left America and lived on the Holy Mountain until he reposed on April 21, 2020, aged 97. The Deacon Nikodemos Kalantis is now an Archimandrite serving the Church of St Mark of Ephesus in Montreal. Gerontissa Siglitiki resides at the Cathedral to this day, with her Sisterhood around her there.
We have left the glitches in the recording intact. What is heard is the distortion of the sound at the point when the old Wollensak reel-to-reel recorder is turned off. This was done periodically to save tape. Unlike digital recording magnetic tape reels were very limited in their available recording time.
