Voices Ringing
Carroll High School Blog
Universal Faith: Meet the Fedorisin Family
The most common things make the biggest difference when you’re 4,800 miles from home.
“I was surprised by how big the roads and the cars are in America,” Noemi Fedorisinova ‘26 recalled – just one of many eye-opening experiences from when she and her family arrived in the United States from their native Slovakia. Unlike many families who left eastern Europe in 2022, Noemi, her sister Sofia ‘24, their parents, and their brothers were not fleeing the burgeoning war between Russia and Ukraine. Their father, Francis, is a Byzantine Catholic Priest who had been urged by a bishop in 2019 to relocate his family to the United States to help grow their ministry.
The family spent months in deliberation and prayer to make a decision. They ultimately decided to leave behind their comfortable lives in Slovakia to answer the bishop’s call to spread their faith. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans on hold, but the family arrived in Charlotte after a 24-hour journey from Budapest.
Dormition of Mother of God, Byzantine
Catholic Church in Cleveland.
“There was also sadness because I had made good friends and was in a good high school community,” Sofia said. “It’s important for our family to make decisions together and make sacrifices for the church and our faith. It’s important to be able to sacrifice even the great life that we had in Europe. Everything was perfect there, but we sacrificed it to help people here."
After adjusting to the weather, tweaking their English dialect from British to American, and bouncing from Charlotte to Cleveland to Dayton, the family settled into their new life.
“For my first three months of school, I was just sitting and doing nothing because I was so stressed. I tried to speak, but it was bad. When I went to high school, I started to talk and make friends and things got better. The teachers are always trying to help you, and I really appreciate that.”
Sofia and Noemi also learned about the differences between the Roman Catholic and Byzantine traditions while attending Catholic schools. Their father leads the St. Barbara the Great Byzantine Catholic Community and is the officiant for its services in St. John Bosco Chapel on the campus of Wright State University. For all the differences in rites, Sofia says the commonalities are much greater than what distinguishes the two ways of practicing faith.
“Everything that we do in the Byzantine church is based on the Roman Catholic Church. We are Catholic. We are united.”
Editor's Note: This story originally appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of Reflections. Click here to read the entire magazine.
Reflections on our Catholic faith
Martha Saurine, Campus Ministry Director and Worship Coordinator:
In light of so many challenges the Church is facing in recent years, we thought it would be nice to focus on the gratitude we feel for being Catholic. The Catholic Church has an amazing grasp on the beauty about what it means to be human.
The Church offers us the gifts of the sacraments, the liturgy, masterpieces of art, sacred music, thousands of years’ worth of stories of those have gone before us in holiness, its stand on the dignity of life and work for justice. One of the most beautiful things about being Catholic is encouraging the use of our intellect and conscience. A professor explained it as we are not called to “check our brains at the church doors,” but to use the gifts that God has given to pursue truth.
Melissa (Balsom) Fisher '83, Service Coordinator
The reason I am grateful for being Catholic is the nourishment I find in the Eucharist. During the consecration, there is a peacefulness that happens; knowing that God will help to take care of things. The Eucharist, with the community and reflections on the scripture, energizes us to live the life that God is asking. The Eucharist reminds us of the sacrifice that Jesus lived and died for all.
The Catholic faith guides and challenges us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be, and Pope Francis is an inspiration of that mission. One thing I'll always remember about traveling to see him in Philadelphia is 2015 is how many people who were filled with such joy in celebrating their faith. One quote of his that is a favorite of mine is, “Jesus is our hope. Nothing—not even evil or death—is able to separate us from the saving power of his love.”
Jim Murray, Retreats Coordinator
One particular aspect of my Catholic faith that I treasure is the Community of Saints. How wonderful it is that we celebrate the memories and models of our ancestors in faith and have their examples to follow; whether it be canonized saints or our very own loved ones. This enables us to more fully grasp and encounter the broader Church and the connection to Christians across time and place. We are able to see the activity of Christ’s presence in one another; to see and be a part of the living church.
It also boldly lays before us the responsibility to consider who God calls us to be in our present time and place. It can be daunting to consider, but we have hope and support in those who have shown us the way. As St. Oscar Romero says, "Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God.”