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PITTSTON — Jan Lokuta’s annual historic church tour of greater Pittston is much more than an opportunity to appreciate religious art.
It’s even more than the gathering of a community to commemorate a small town overlooking the Susquehanna river with architecture, old and new, that radiates hope.
Instead, it’s an unforgettable afternoon, shedding light on the nuances of church history reflected in everything from a carefully-placed icon, to a vintage stained glass window, to the significance of a Star of David on the front of a Catholic Church.
To many it has become an annual tradition.
This year’s 10th annual tour is a literal study of light, which Lokuta said religious artists have utilized in different ways throughout the ages, telling a story, inspiring, providing beauty.
The event will highlight differences between Western and Eastern presentations of spiritually-themed art.
Western churches tend to utilize stained glass to tell a gospel story or depict a religious figure. Stained glass is lit from outside with light pouring in, making the art come alive — a literal presentation.
Eastern religious artists eschew literal depictions, relying on icons, lit from within, to express through color what a sermon might proclaim with words.
Icons are not “painted” or “drawn,” but “written” according to rigorous specifications, reflecting on their purpose of sharing the gospel.
Participants will get a better understanding of these concepts as they make their way through two churches, different in aesthetics but identical in spiritual purpose: St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, William Street, and St. Michael’s Byzantine Catholic Church, North Main Street.
Quoting St. Augustine, he said the church “should express unity in what is essential, diversity in what is not essential and charity in all things.”
The tour will not only mark the 10th anniversary of the tour, but the 100th anniversary of St. Michael’s, historic in more than one way.
“My parents, Peter and Julia, were married at the church,” said Lokuta.
When the church was renovated in the 1980s, Lokuta, his mother, and brother Damian donated two icons in honor of his mother’s parents, George and Helen Golya.
Lokuta’s fascination with church architecture in general ,and Pittston church architecture specifically, came as somewhat of a revelation to him as he drove through the area on his way home.
“I was driving up River Street from Wilkes to Pittston at the intersection of Railroad Street and South Main Street,” he said, “I looked up and saw an array of seven church steeples shooting skyward out of the gritty urban landscape that was Pittston and was amazed by the beauty of the place and in awe of the people who decided to grace this mining town with the gift of beautiful churches.”
He said he believes church steeples are to this area what skyscrapers are to New York City and what adobe buildings are to Sante Fe, New Mexico. They define the area and reflect its past and define its future.”
The tour will also feature Pittston native and iconographer Father Tom Major, to provide attendees with an understanding of the nuances of icons of the Byzantine church.
Lokuta has been willing to “think outside the box” in regard to the tour, last year touring Jewish Cemeteries to the delight of many Jewish area residents who participated in the tour, quick to share a story, family tradition and the occasional recipe.
His attitude and commitment seem to ensure the historic tour will continue for years to come.