A Macedonian Orthodox Home on Onondaga Road

On Onondaga Road on the western edge of Syracuse, in the Fairmount neighborhood of Onondaga County, St. George Macedonian Orthodox Church has served as a gathering place for the Macedonian community of Central New York for more than six decades. The parish counts upward of two hundred families among those who have walked through its doors, and its Sunday mornings still fill the sanctuary with the chanting, incense, icons, and processions of the Byzantine rite.

The church's identity is rooted in the Macedonian Orthodox faith and in the customs brought from the old country by the founding families. Services follow the Macedonian Orthodox Church's liturgical calendar in two languages, and the building itself, a 1985 structure enriched over time with stained glass and full-wall frescoes, is treated as a visible expression of that inheritance. Newcomers and longtime members alike find a parish that takes seriously both the liturgical tradition of Orthodox Christianity and the Macedonian language and customs the first generation carried with them.

Twenty Immigrant Families on Gillespie Avenue

The congregation was founded in the early 1960s by twenty Macedonian immigrant families. The group incorporated the church in New York in 1964, choosing St. George as patron after the St. George Monastery in the village of Velusina in Macedonia, the homeland of most of the original parishioners. From the start the parish registered under the Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Holy Synod of Bishops in Skopje, and that canonical home has remained unchanged.

April of the following year, 1965, is remembered as the golden date in the church's history. A delegation led by Archbishop Dositej, the hierarch who had re-established the Ohrid Archbishopric, visited Syracuse and served the first Divine Liturgy in Macedonian. Within a year, in 1966, the small community purchased a Protestant church on Gillespie Avenue in Fairmount and prepared to make it their own. Metropolitan Kiril consecrated the building on July 1, 1968, and the parish's first priest, Fr. Ilija Kaninski, was appointed to serve it.

The Building on Onondaga Road

The Gillespie Avenue building was outgrown within a decade. The arrival in 1976 of Very Rev. Branko Pacemski as the second parish priest sharpened the desire for a larger home. In 1979 the parish resolved to build, and by Thanksgiving 1981 the new church hall was finished and in use. The old church and parish house were sold in 1983. On September 15, 1985, Metropolitan Kiril returned to Syracuse to consecrate the new church on Onondaga Road.

What stands on the road today is the product of four decades of care. The hall was expanded in 1994 to accommodate a growing parish. Stained glass windows were installed in 1997, casting colored light across the nave. Then, beginning in 2001, the parish undertook its most ambitious work: a full program of fresco iconography entrusted to Fr. Andrei of Holy Trinity Russian Monastery in Jordanville, New York, one of the most accomplished iconographers of Orthodox sacred art. The frescoes were completed over two years and now cover the interior in the traditional Macedonian Orthodox manner, joining the stained glass as the visual heart of the sanctuary.

Sunday Morning at Ten

Sunday is the center of the week at St. George. The Divine Liturgy is celebrated every Sunday at 10:00 AM, with additional services scheduled on major feast days of the Orthodox calendar. The Liturgy is served in Macedonian and English, and visitors will find the full Byzantine rite: vestments, icons, incense, the Little Entrance, the Gospel procession, the homily, and Holy Communion, offered in the manner common to Orthodox parishes across the Macedonian diaspora.

Holy Communion is distributed with a single spoon, in keeping with the Orthodox canons that recognize each believer's certainty of the sanctity of the Eucharist. First-time visitors are welcomed to stand, observe, and join the prayer of the people; Orthodox visitors who wish to receive should be mindful of the customary fast and be in good canonical standing with their own priest.

The Year from the Prodigal Son to All Saints

The journey to Pascha begins with the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, continues through Meat-fare Sunday and Cheese-fare (Forgiveness) Sunday, and opens Great Lent with the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, the Adoration of the Holy Cross, the Sunday of St. John Climacus, and the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt. Holy Week brings the Bridegroom services, the washing of feet, the Crucifixion, the Lamentations of Great and Holy Friday, and finally the bright feast of Pascha itself.

After Pascha the parish walks the Sundays of St. Thomas, the Myrrh-bearing Women, the Paralytic, the Samaritan Woman, and the Blind Man, and arrives at Pentecost, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, before honoring All Saints on the first Sunday after. Throughout the year the calendar also marks the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Elevation of the Life-giving Cross, St. Elias the Prophet, Ss. Clement of Ohrid and St. Panteleimon, the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Dormition of the Theotokos, and the gathering of the Archangels. The full monthly calendar is published in both English and Macedonian, so that families can plan around the feasts and fasts together.

Two Languages, One Parish

English and Macedonian are used together at every level of parish life. The Sunday Gospel reflections that Father Branko prepares and posts online are written in both languages, with the Macedonian and English texts set side by side so readers can follow the passage in whichever language they prefer. The monthly Saint George Voice newsletter appears in two parallel editions: the English issue and the Macedonian issue (Глас на Свети Георги), and both are archived online, going back several years.

Announcements, pastoral letters, and feast-day greetings are routinely issued in both languages, and the liturgy itself is prayed in Macedonian with English readings and instructions woven through. This bilingual rhythm is one of the church's quiet gifts to the Macedonian-American community of Central New York: a place where children can hear the language of their grandparents used in prayer, and where newcomers can follow along in English as they grow into the Orthodox tradition.

The Priests and Their Reflections

Protopresbyter Father Branko Postolovski has served as parish priest since his appointment in 1988. His Sunday Gospel reflections and pastoral messages, published online in English and Macedonian, draw on the Church Fathers and speak to the lived experience of the parish. Father Branko's homilies return often to themes drawn from St. Theophan the Recluse, St. John Chrysostom, and Fr. Alexander Schmemann: the forgiveness of neighbors, the honest confession of sin, the bearing of one's cross, and the love revealed in the wounds of the Risen Christ.

Father Aleksandar Bozhinoski serves alongside Father Branko and is the day-to-day contact for parish business. It was Father Aleksandar who celebrated the Liturgy of St. Basil on the Sunday of Orthodoxy in March 2025. The pastoral letters that travel out to the parish in both languages carry the blessing of the metropolitan, His Eminence Metodij, and the prayers of the parish committee, the Uprava.

The Macedonian Festival

For more than two decades the parish has opened its grounds for the Syracuse Macedonian Festival, a multi-day summer gathering that has become one of the most visible expressions of Macedonian life in Central New York. The festival features traditional Macedonian food and drink, baked goods, outdoor seating, live ethnic music, and church tours of the frescoed sanctuary. Admission and parking are free, and all are welcome.

The festival is also a quiet ministry: a chance for the wider Syracuse community to walk through the doors of an Orthodox church, see its frescoes up close, and meet the families that fill its pews each Sunday. Wine, dance, music, and food do the welcome that words alone cannot, and visitors often leave with an invitation to return on a quiet Sunday morning for the Liturgy itself.

The Hall, the Newsletter, and the Livestream

The parish hall, expanded in 1994, is available for community events. The 4,500-square-foot space accommodates up to three hundred seated guests and includes a newly renovated kitchen, a furnished foyer well suited to cocktail receptions, banquet tables and chairs, and basic cleaning. Outside catering is welcome, and rentals are arranged through the parish office.

The Saint George Voice newsletter keeps members and friends connected month by month, with back issues archived online in both English and Macedonian. The parish maintains an active Facebook page and a YouTube channel where services such as the Lamentations of Great and Holy Friday and the Paschal Divine Liturgy have been livestreamed and archived. Pastoral messages during times of restricted gathering are also posted online, accompanied by English-and-Macedonian Gospel readings and reflections from the Church Fathers. A mailing-list subscription at the foot of the contact page makes it easy for friends near and far to receive the monthly newsletter as it goes out.

Faith Rooted in the Church Fathers

The Macedonian Orthodox faith is anchored in the teaching of the first seven ecumenical councils, the seven sacraments, the veneration of icons, the intercession of the saints, and the regular reception of Holy Communion and Confession. The parish celebrates the Sunday of Orthodoxy each year as the feast that restored the use of icons after the iconoclast controversy, and the homilies posted online return often to themes of repentance, the forgiveness of neighbors, the healing of the paralytic, and the love of Christ revealed in His wounds.

St. Theophan the Recluse is quoted on the communion of saints. St. John Chrysostom is quoted on the simple deeds by which the King will judge the nations. Fr. Alexander Schmemann is quoted on forgiveness as the first breakthrough of the Kingdom into a fallen world. The parish's preaching invites the faithful to a faith lived in humility, service, prayer, and sacramental participation, the same faith that has shaped Macedonian Orthodox communities for centuries.

A Working Parish in the Macedonian Orthodox Church

More than sixty years after twenty immigrant families first gathered on Gillespie Avenue, St. George Macedonian Orthodox Church remains a working parish in the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Each Sunday at 10:00 AM the Divine Liturgy fills the frescoed sanctuary on Onondaga Road. The feasts of the Orthodox year move through the calendar in two languages. Once a summer the gates open for the Macedonian Festival and the wider community comes in. The rest of the year, the doors stay open for the Sunday worship, the monthly newsletter, the hall rentals, the online reflections, and the steady prayer of a people who have kept their Macedonian Orthodox faith alive in Central New York for three generations.