c. 2000 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ Sergei Mitrofanov was vexed. He wanted to show a visitor how a restoration crew is applying small sheets of gold leaf to architectural details at St. Theodosius Orthodox Cathedral in this city’s Tremont neighborhood. But first he had to find a piece of gold leaf.

He ransacked a pile of small boxes shelved amid stacks of brushes and rags and bottles of varnish and cleaning solutions in a temporary storage area near the west wall of the cathedral. The first box he opened contained imitation gold leaf, an alloy of aluminum and copper. It was bright and shiny, but it lacked the subtle radiance of the real thing.

Finally, Mitrofanov opened a small, flat box containing a booklet made of sheets of peach-colored tissue. Between two of the pages, he found a single, crumpled sheet of gold leaf. Tenderly, he lifted it with his fingers. Light as a soap bubble, it rippled as if it were liquid, not solid.

“It flies all over the place,” he said. “You can’t control it. It’s like dust in the air.”

But controlling gold leaf _ and applying it to architectural surfaces with artistry and precision _ is precisely one of the tasks required of Mitrofanov and his three assistants. They have been working 10-hour days to complete a two-month, $120,000 interior restoration of St. Theodosius, the oldest Russian Orthodox cathedral in Ohio, in time for Christmas.

“No pressure, no pressure at all,” laughed Father John Zdinak, pastor of the cathedral, as he drank coffee and watched Mitrofanov work.

Between sips, Zdinak said he is “more than happy” with the restoration. “You can tell, it’s a labor of love,” he said.

This is truer than it might seem at first. Mitrofanov and his three-member restoration staff are natives of the former Soviet Union who immigrated to the United States over the past decade. Mitrofanov, who grew up in St. Petersburg, studied fine art, architectural restoration, sculpture and stage design in academies in Kiev and Minsk. But after an extensive education in the visual arts, he couldn’t find work in his homeland.

So when relatives in Detroit invited him for a visit, Mitrofanov jumped at the chance. Eventually, he succeeded in getting a green card, which enabled him to work in the United States. He established Vernissage Ltd., a company based in Livonia, Mich., which specializes in interior design and restoration.

Mitrofanov has restored commercial and residential buildings in the Detroit area, and has worked on churches from Michigan to Massachusetts. But for him, as a native of Russia, there is a special sense of historical continuity in working on a Russian Orthodox church in Cleveland.

“I’m very proud of it,” Mitrofanov said. “We’re trying to put everything on the line to make this church beautiful.”

To express his affection for the church, Mitrofanov said he will donate the labor and materials to apply gold leaf to capitals on the main columns in the nave, which is where the congregation assembles to worship.

The process involves applying a layer of varnish to the column capitals, waiting until the varnish is tacky, and then delicately daubing the gold leaf on with a soft, broad, flat brush.

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Built in 1911, St. Theodosius is a Cleveland landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It sits atop a bluff that overlooks the vast LTV Steel plant, which sprawls across 1,200 acres of land on the floor of the Cuyahoga Valley.

It would be hard to imagine a place that better embodies Cleveland’s history as a city that attracted immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe to work in the industries along the Cuyahoga River. Reportedly, the church received funds from Czar Nicholas II of Russia. It has been featured in films such as “The Deer Hunter” and “Major League.”

Today, the congregation has about 325 adult members.

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St. Theodosius was designed by Cleveland architect Frederick C. Baird in a style that strongly evokes the Byzantine church architecture of Russia and Eastern Europe. It is an exuberant concatenation of arched windows, pilasters and cupolas that seem to strain toward heaven.

Most distinctive are the church’s 13 copper-covered onion domes, representing Jesus and the 12 apostles. Their unmistakable shapes are visible on the skyline for miles to the east and south. Zdinak said that according to Orthodox tradition, the onion dome “is in the shape of the flame of a candle, which represents the light of Christ.”

Inside, the church is even more flamboyant. Every surface, from walls at eye level to the top of the highest dome over the center of the nave, is covered with murals that constitute a vast visual text encompassing the Old and New Testaments, along with key saints of the Russian Orthodox church.

The visual heart of this array is the icon screen, an ornate curving wall of painted wood columns, arches and pediments that includes images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the 12 apostles and St. Theodosius, the namesake of the cathedral.

The screen, which separates the nave from the sanctuary, “is not intended to be a barrier,” Zdinak said. “We view it as that which unites us with heaven.”

Before the restoration, the cathedral’s murals were darkened with smoky grime. The icon screen was sea-foam green. Now, the screen has been repainted a light cream, and its columns have been gilded with gold leaf. The effect is to make it a source of luminosity in the cathedral, a visual quality that neatly matches its symbolic importance.

Mitrofanov and his staff have also cleaned and repaired murals throughout the sanctuary, along with the cathedral’s impressive Czechoslovakian crystal chandeliers.

The cleaning has revealed details that have been obscured for years, such as a ring of cherubim at the base of the central dome over the nave.

“This dome was a black chimney,” Zdinak said. “When they took the scaffolding down, I was in awe.”

The interior restoration is part of a larger effort to maintain the cathedral. The entire project includes repairs to the copper roof and wheelchair-accessible entries. The church has received pledges of $425,000 and has $250,000 in hand, Zdinak said.

The restoration of St. Theodosius epitomizes the role churches can play in older city neighborhoods as islands of stability and continuity.

“The motivation for all of this is not for our own glory, but for the glory of God,” Zdinak said. “Hopefully, we will be the light in our neighborhood.”

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