EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Disappearing Church

July 6, 2016

Daniel Seamans,

ST. HELENA, NC (WWAY) — The Cape Fear is rich with history. There are beautiful people from yesteryear who we read and talk about and beautiful structures galore that we can explore. Some of it is right in front of us, some of it you stumble upon and that’s just what happened to our Extraordinary Person of the Week.

“A friend of mine told me about a short cut that will take you around and bring you out further down 117 and avoid traffic in town, so I did that,” Mike Raab told Daniel Seamans.

It was there that the filmmaker found history fading fast.

“The problem with the church, though,” Raab explained, “is that each generation, people left.”

Once a thriving part of the St Helena community, Mike Raab would document a congregation of 3 in the disappearing church.

Raab says the last live mass was held in 1998. Now, a recording, from a 1975 service, plays once a week.

“After 1998,” Raab said, “they took that recording and every Sunday, around 1000(Sundays) we calculated, every Sunday at 10 they have liturgy on a boom box, on the alter, and there are just 3 people left.”

Raab hopes his documentary brings new life to this piece of history and to be honest, it is well on its way of doing so.

Recently, Raab was contacted by a priest in Florida and read us the email. “He said ‘I am a Russian Orthodox priest currently restoring the parish life at St. Gregory the theologian Russian Orthodox church in Tampa, Florida. I saw the video, spoke with my bishop and received a blessing to come and meet with people and see what the situation is’.”

The documentary was featured at the Longleaf Film Festival in Raleigh in May. In July, Raab will show it at the Big River Film Festival in Savannah, GA.