------------------------------------------------------------------------
| THE TELETEXT GOPHER SERVICE |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2026
Liturgy returns to Saint Paraskevi chapel in Elgin Quebec after years of
silence
(GIF) article photo
By Sylvia Petridis
Beneath the old trees of a farm in Elgin, a small white chapel with a
stone porch and four turquoise columns sent Byzantine chant across a
sunlit lawn, carried by a loudspeaker set in its tiny belfry.
Worshippers seated on folding chairs followed the divine liturgy
through the open doors as an icon draped in red and gold brocade and
crowned with flowers waited at the head of the stone path. The service
marked the return of worship to a sanctuary that had stood silent for
years, and it drew together a promise kept to a departed Cretan
couple, a caretaker of Armenian heritage who has watched over their
chapel ever since, and families intent on handing faith, language and
custom to the generations that follow.
The Chapel of Saint Paraskevi, known to Greek speakers as Agia
Paraskevi, stands at 2458 chemin de la 1re Concession, near Huntingdon
and close to the border with New York State. Evangelia and Dimitrios
Saridakis built it on their farm, and the inscription above its entrance
dates it to 1995. The couple are buried on the grounds. The liturgy
celebrated on July 26, the feast day of the saint, was the first held
there since their deaths roughly eight years ago.
The revival began with Pavlos Flikas, whose native village in Greece
also honours the saint with a church of its own. For seven years, he
said, the obstacle had been finding a priest to serve the chapel. He
raised the matter with Laval city councillor Aglaia Revelakis, who keeps
a country home in the area. "I told her, 'Aglaia, I have a problem. We
cannot open Saint Paraskevi,'" Flikas recalled. "She told me, 'Tomorrow
we will find a priest.' And her dream came true, and of course mine,
because I wanted very much for us to open the church and worship as
everyone has now come to do."
Revelakis said the gathering came together in a single week. The first
priest she called was bound to memorial services that Sunday, and within
minutes Father Antonios telephoned to say he would come. He had
consecrated the chapel at its founding. "When I brought him here, he was
stunned," Flikas said. "He told me, 'I opened this church.'"
Inside, icons cover nearly every wall beneath a brass chandelier ringed
with candles. Father Antonios, in white vestments embroidered in blue,
raised his arms before an iconostasis bearing the Virgin and Child and
Christ Pantocrator, while chanter Athanasios Zoitakis, who has served at
Holy Cross parish for 15 to 20 years, sang the responses from a lectern.
"I see God every day," Zoitakis said. "Sleep is death, and when I rise
in the morning, it is a resurrection."
Tradition holds that Saint Paraskevi was born in Rome in the second
century to devout Christian parents and named for Friday, the day of the
Crucifixion. Arrested under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, she was cast
into a cauldron of boiling oil and pitch and emerged unharmed, and when
the emperor was blinded leaning over the vessel, her prayers restored
his sight. The church venerates her as protector of the eyes. "Let us
call upon Saint Paraskevi to save us and to open not only the eyes of
our body but the eyes of our soul, so that we may see the truth and walk
the road of salvation," Father Antonios said after the service.
The chapel's survival owes much to a caretaker known to worshippers
as Jack, who is of Armenian heritage and who promised Evangelia
Saridakis that he would keep it open each year. "They were very, very
good people," he said of the couple. "Here there is a piece of
Greece, of Crete, in Canada." He spoke of visitors who credit the
saint with answered prayers, among them a woman told by doctors she
would never have children who is now a mother, and a man whose
failing sight was restored.
Longtime visitors recalled the couple's hospitality. Zoe Batsis, a
familiar figure in the community's Greek schools, said she had come for
years while Evangelia was alive. "It was very moving to see her after
the liturgy handing out food and welcoming everyone," she said. "I still
get goosebumps." Evangelia Tsoumpanaki, who knew the family for half a
century, was moved to tears. "They were full of philotimo, hospitable,
the best," she said. "Among the finest of Crete."
In earlier years the feast drew a full panigyri, with buses arriving
from Laval and parishes across the region, stalls serving sandwiches and
souvlaki, and religious goods from a monastery. Flikas intends to
restore that scale next year and plans to invite Abbess Thekla and her
monastery to assist. Kostas Milonopoulos, a former president of the
Hellenic Community of Laval and Revelakis's husband, pledged his
support. "I told Pavlos that he needs help," he said. "Every year, if he
wishes, I will come here with him to help however I can." Tina Flikas,
who attended with her husband, voiced a broader concern. "Let us not
leave our churches to become deserted," she said. "It would be a shame."
Continuity across generations ran through every conversation on the
lawn. Revelakis urged young people to join their elders at liturgies and
feast days as readily as they attend festivals. "When you marry and have
children, the first thing you will do is start bringing your children to
church so they take the path of God," she said. "We must teach our
children to continue what our parents taught us, because we learned it
from our parents," Milonopoulos said, adding that language, faith and
customs must be preserved together. Batsis, born in Canada to an
immigrant father, said her children speak beautiful Greek and her
grandchildren are working at it. Her granddaughter Marie has begun
lessons on her own and writes to her in Greek, and her grandson
Christakis applied for and received Greek citizenship. Young Anastasia,
among the smallest worshippers, offered her own testimony. "I go to
Socrates school," she said. "I'm learning Greek."
After the service, Michalis Hatzichristos distributed the antidoron
from the artoklasia offered in the saint's honour. Asked what Saint
Paraskevi would tell young people today, he answered simply: "To
forgive and to have love."
A closed bridge on the access route delayed many worshippers, who
continued to arrive at the farm well after the liturgy had ended.
Revelakis said the chapel would remain open to receive them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(DIR) [Back to Headlines]
(DIR) [Article Archive]
(DIR) [Home]