By Jon Huang
On Oct. 10, the line for lunch wrapped around the room, out the door and along the outside of the building. Some people came from Colorado Springs and Denver, while others traveled from the surrounding Calhan and Peyton areas.
For 24 years, St. Mary’s Holy Dormition Orthodox Church has hosted the Slavic Fest in Calhan to celebrate its roots and welcome the community.
Outside, tables displayed homemade traditional pastries, chokecherry and peach jams, homemade noodles and spiral-bound recipe books.
The menu this year featured traditional dishes such as hand-wrapped cabbage rolls, potato noodles and pierogies with various fillings.
The weekend event draws nearly 1,000 visitors from across the state. While the congregation includes younger families with children, Ernie and Jean Mikita are great-grandparents. Ernie Mikita’s grandparents came from Czechoslovakia and were among the church’s founding families. A lifelong member of St. Mary’s, Mikita recalled the church’s early days.
“At first, the community was all farmers and ranchers. Nobody made a lot of money. It was hard to have enough money to pay a priest,” Mikita said. “We used to have dances here all the time to make money. As time went on, it got way too expensive to hire bands.”
Since the church began hosting the Slavic Fest, the event has become a multigenerational occasion for members to gather and work together. Several weeks before the festival, members began gathering after church to wrap as many as 1,000 pierogies at a time, with several thousand made each year. About 200 pounds of cabbage are used to make the cabbage rolls and sauerkraut.
Since the church began hosting the Slavic Fest, the event has become a multigenerational occasion for members to gather and work together. Several weeks before the festival, members began gathering after church to wrap as many as 1,000 pierogies at a time, with several thousand made each year. About 200 pounds of cabbage are used to make the cabbage rolls and sauerkraut.
“It’s a lot of work, but everybody talks and visits, and it’s fun,” Jean Mikita said.
In addition, the Priest Tikhon Krueger, St. Mary’s rector, led afternoon tours of the church.
Krueger said the original building was constructed in 1904 by Slavic immigrants who came to the area under the Homestead Act of 1862. It was consecrated in 1905 by Archbishop Saint Tikhon, a Russian missionary of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Today, about half of the congregation members still farm. During the summer, they pray for rain. This year, Krueger said, rain fell shortly after they prayed.
St. Mary’s is part of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It has endured fires, rebuilding efforts and even a family feud that resulted in the church’s two buildings today. Over the years, the growth of the Orthodox community led to the establishment of Holy Theophany Orthodox Church in Colorado Springs. That congregation’s growth, in turn, led to the founding of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church east of Colorado Springs, near Falcon. More recently, some people have returned from those churches in search of a smaller community.
Krueger also took time to discuss the church’s Christian faith.
“Christianity is not about a set of rules and a code of morality to follow. It’s really about a different way of living and a sacramental way of seeing the world,” he said. “For us, we have to live relationally and always be constantly reorienting towards Christ. That’s what repentance is really about. Reorienting to God and recognizing that our very being comes from him.”
In contrast to viewing life only through the lens of the hard sciences, such as chemistry and biology, Krueger said, “We see that matter and spirit are not separate things. They are united … and so everything has meaning in life.”
For more information, visit
Slavic Fest (https://slavicfest.net)
Orthodox Church in America (https://www.oca.org/history-archives/oca-history-intro)
St. Mary’s Holy Dormition Orthodox Church (https://holydormition.net)
