St. John's Episcopal Church has stood on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, since the closing years of the nineteenth century, and it remains one of the most recognizable buildings in the Mahoning Valley. The rough-cut stone sanctuary, dedicated in 1898 and consecrated in 1900, is a celebrated example of the Arts and Crafts Movement, filled with hand-forged metalwork, more than a dozen stained glass windows, and a pipe organ that fills the nave during the principal Sunday service. The parish is best known regionally for its annual Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival, a candlelit Epiphany procession that has drawn audiences for more than six decades, but its day-to-day life is shaped just as much by a free Sunday meal, a monthly food pantry, and a deep partnership with neighboring Youngstown State University.
A Parish Rooted in the 1850s
The history of St. John's, Youngstown begins in the home of an Episcopalian, Mrs. Jesse Thornton (Henrietta), in the early 1850s. Aided by her daughters, Henrietta Thornton, the sister of composer Stephen Foster, held Sunday School classes for young children in her home on West Federal Street every Sunday. As the population of Youngstown grew, so did the number of Episcopalians. In 1859 the parish was formally organized and given the name St. John's. The growing congregation consecrated a wood-frame, New England-style church in 1862, just a few blocks from the present location. That building stood until 1895, when it caught fire; once condemned, church leaders set about finding a new site, and chose Wick Avenue.
The Arts and Crafts Sanctuary on Wick Avenue
To design the new church, the vestry turned to William Halsey Wood of New Jersey, the architect of the first of many libraries commissioned by Andrew Carnegie. Wood accepted the St. John's project while he was still completing the Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh. The result, dedicated in 1898 and consecrated in 1900, is an outstanding example of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with a rough stone interior, arches throughout the nave, and a handcrafted communion rail of brass and iron whose ironsmithed composition is the kind of detailed metalwork the movement prized. An architect working in the style usually designed every component of a building, and St. John's is no exception: more than a dozen stained glass windows, a pipe organ, and the original furnishings all belong to the same coordinated vision.
The early stained glass showcases the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. The front Te Deum window, installed in 1901, portrays the fullest, richest palette of Tiffany glass colors with the whole celestial firmament praising Christ in glory. Another Tiffany window, the Resurrection Angel, graces the north transept, and a pair of Tiffany angel windows sits on the south side aisle. One window, saved from the original Wood Street church, is set in the east side of the south transept. Later windows in the chancel, transepts, and side aisles are from Connick Studios of Boston and Willet Stained Glass of Philadelphia and depict Old and New Testament themes. The Connick clerestory windows in the nave, designed and installed in the 1950s, show scenes of steel mill labor reinterpreted through biblical quotations. Cloth banners from local graphic designer Susan Russo hang in the nave and depict the six days of creation, while the chancel banners depict the Eucharist and Resurrection. In 2012, at the initiative of parishioner Rebecca Rogers, the sanctuary was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Ford Memorial Parish House and the Undercroft
Dedicated in 1929, the Ford Memorial Parish House is the work of Ralph Adams Cram, the nationally regarded Boston designer of Collegiate Gothic architecture. The wood-timbered building contains a Gothic dining hall with a commercial kitchen, church offices, a library, Sunday school rooms, a parlor, and a choir room. A one-bedroom apartment on the third floor, once home to the sexton, has been recently renovated. The Parish House is connected to the church by a half-timber and stucco bridge that crosses the driveway, and together with the apse end of the church, the brick-paved driveway, and tall retaining walls, the complex forms an informal court where students and Sunday lunchers gather. In 1954 the nave was modernized with new pews, replacement of the partial rood screen, a new floor, and an excavation of the basement that created six Sunday school classrooms and the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. The resulting undercroft is the site of the annual rummage sale in July and the November coat, blanket, and socks give-away.
Memorials from Neighboring Parishes
When St. Rocco's Episcopal Church in Liberty, Ohio, closed its doors in 2007, that congregation entrusted an icon of the Virgin Mary and Child and another of Saint Rocco to its sister parish in Youngstown. Both icons reside in the north transept, which was made into a memorial chapel in honor of St. Rocco's, and the altar cross from the original St. John's building on Wood Street is also displayed there. Three years after that, in 2010, St. Andrew's parish in Canfield closed and entrusted its aumbry to St. John's, where it is now mounted next to the reredos in the chancel.
Sundays on Wick Avenue
Two Sunday services anchor the worship life of the parish. The 8:00 a.m. service is a said worship and Eucharist, and the 10:30 a.m. service is the principal Sunday gathering, also with Eucharist. The 10:30 a.m. service is livestreamed on Facebook Live and YouTube each week so that members and friends who cannot be present in person can join from home. A 9:30 a.m. family service has been suspended as a precaution. Following the late service, the parish hosts the Red Door Café, a free community meal that has been served every Sunday at noon for more than thirty years. A variety of churches and civic organizations from the community take turns preparing meals, serving, and cleaning up, and the entire parish is grateful for those partnerships.
On the second Thursday of each month at 12:05 p.m., a brief Healing Service is offered. Contemporary music is also part of worship on Thursdays during the fall, complementing the traditional organ and choral Anglican repertory that extends from ancient plainsong to some of the more innovative liturgical music of the present day.
Music at St. John's
Music is central to the life of the parish. Richard Konzen has served as organist and choirmaster since January 2003. A faculty member at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, where he teaches organ and composition, Konzen is a graduate of DePauw University and earned two master's degrees and a doctorate from Yale University. When he helped reorganize the Bach Society, a community choral group in Grove City, it grew from twenty singers to more than sixty. He is an active composer and recitalist. The church enjoys a close association with Youngstown State University, particularly with The Dana School of Music in The Cliffe College of Creative Arts, whose students and faculty participate in services throughout the year. Special concerts are offered throughout the year in addition to the regular program.
The Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival
The Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival is the parish's signature event and a beloved regional tradition. A tiny sprite bears a lighted candle into the darkened church, symbolizing the coming of the Light into the darkened world. Representing the Church, the Rector receives the light, and from this flame rise the lights of the altar and then the lights of the church itself. A brass fanfare announces the entrance of the Boar's Head company: next come King Wenceslas and his page, the woodsmen with the Yule Log ridden by a tiny sprite, the shepherds searching for the Christ, and finally the Three Wise Men, bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. When all have assembled, Christina Rosetti's In the Bleak Midwinter is sung by both cast and congregation, and to the music of the Eucharistic hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, all kneel in adoration. The church is darkened and the Epiphany star shines over the altar.
The festival traces its roots to the Roman Empire, where the boar was the first dish served at great feasts, and to Norman England, where the boar was the sovereign of the great forests and a symbol of evil. By the twelfth century the ceremony of serving the Boar's Head at Christmastide was fully developed. No one knows who planned the first procession, but its earliest origins have been traced to Oxford University, founded around 1167, and specifically to Queen's College, which recorded a Procession of the Boar's Head by the mid-fourteenth century. Within three or four centuries, other elements were gradually added: the plum pudding, the Yule Log, the shepherds, the waits, the Three Wise Men, King Wenceslas, the pipers, drummers, and the Beefeaters. The custom was eventually carried to colonial America, and in 1892 the Rev. Edward Dudley Tibbets instituted the Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival at the Hoosac School in Hoosick, New York, an Episcopal institution. That version is the main source of the festival as celebrated at St. John's. For more than four decades, the music for the format used here was selected, adapted, arranged, and composed by Dr. Ronald L. Gould, organist-choirmaster at St. John's from 1960 through 2002, and his successor, Dr. Richard Konzen, has carried on in those footsteps ever since.
Feeding the Neighborhood
The parish's commitment to feeding its neighbors runs through nearly every program at St. John's. The Red Door Café, the long-running Sunday community meal, draws on the talents of volunteers from many churches and civic organizations, and everyone is welcome to come and eat. On the third Saturday of every month from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m., the Red Door Food Pantry distributes a bag of groceries per household, including canned and packaged items, some toiletries, and, in warmer months, fresh produce. The service area includes the zip codes 44501, 44502, 44503, 44504, 44505, 44506, 44507, 44509, 44510, and 44511. Most of the food is purchased from the Second Harvest Food Bank, which also donates the produce. Registration and identification are required from the head of household at the time of pickup, and a utility bill or similar document is accepted as proof of address. Volunteers from the church and the community help to distribute the food, and ongoing donations of toilet paper, cereal, cleaning supplies, and personal hygiene items are always needed.
Coffee and Conversation, held on the same third Saturday from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., invites neighborhood women to join for coffee, treats, and the sharing of stories. Everyone is welcome. The parish maintains ties with local elementary schools as well. At Williamson Elementary, the parish has held monthly lunches for students of the month, collected and filled backpacks, provided underwear and socks, helped organize the book room, and collected books so that every child could take home three books for the holidays. Hygiene items for Youngstown State University international students are also collected each August, including toothpaste and toothbrushes, shampoo, body wash, and tissues.
Youngstown State University and the Campus Ministry
St. John's campus ministry, Thinking Christians, reaches out to students at Youngstown State University. The parish has hosted regular pizza nights, occasional concerts and outreach activities, and Sunday worship together with students. It has also reached out to student veterans, providing a lunch during finals week, and has launched a cooking club for vets. On Saturdays throughout the school year the parish has served a free lunch to students participating in YSU's Upward Bound program, which prepares inner-city students for college, with the understanding that hunger is a barrier to learning. The Diocese of Ohio has generously supported this ministry.
Children and Youth
Children's Christian Formation meets on Sundays during the school year at 10:30 a.m. in the Sunday school wing of the Parish House. Children age three and under receive nursery care, and children from age four through grade five take part in Godly Play, a Montessori-based children's program rooted in the belief that children seek the same spiritual connection with God as adults. Middle school curriculum, grades six through eight, has been offered alongside the younger classes. Classes meet on the same floor as the church and church offices.
Weddings at St. John's
The sanctuary seats two hundred guests and offers a stone interior with arches throughout the nave, more than a dozen beautiful stained-glass windows, and a pipe organ to accompany a wedding procession. Dedicated in 1898 and consecrated in 1900, the building is a beloved example of the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800s, and the parish welcomes all couples who wish to celebrate the bond of love through marriage.
A Welcoming, Mixed Congregation
The parish describes itself as the daughters and sons of the immigrants who came to work in the steel mills, joined by folks who have just moved to the Youngstown area. Members work in assembly plants and at hospitals; they are YSU students and professors, teachers, medical professionals, software developers, and public servants. They are children and parents and grandparents, young and old, liberal and conservative, long-time parishioners and newcomers. Above all, the parish says, it is an excited, passionate, and talented group of people committed to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ in the community and in the world. The church takes seriously the command to love neighbors as ourselves, and all are welcome to participate in the worship and ministry of the community. The parish prays for the faithfulness to learn and grow in respecting all people as sisters and brothers in Christ.
Leadership and Stewardship
Dr. Richard Konzen is the organist and choirmaster. Christa Buckler is the Christian Education Coordinator. Karen Warchol is the financial secretary, Heather Seno is the administrative assistant, and Adam Sullivan is the sexton. The vestry includes members elected to three-year terms, with Tony Manhollan as senior warden, Martie Witt as junior warden, Joe DeNiro as treasurer, and Sarah Quaranta as clerk. Financial gifts can be made online through PayPal, and gifts to specific ministries can be designated by including a note on the final payment page. St. John's Episcopal Church in Youngstown, Ohio, is also a participating charity through Amazon Smile, and the parish supports the Bishop's Annual Appeal of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio.
Worship in the Wider Church
St. John's is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, part of The Episcopal Church in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Book of Common Prayer is the prayer book of the parish, and the sanctuary, the music program, and the rhythm of the liturgical year shape a worship life that is rooted in the Anglican tradition while reaching outward into the city of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.