- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 27 September 2017 01:17
Eternal Memory!
The Holy Metropolis lost a dedicated and pious member of her parish
clergy on Monday, 22 August/4 September, the feast of Panagia
Prousiotissa and the Holy Martyr Agathonikos, when the Reverend
Presbyter Mark Gilstrap, who had served faithfully as a clergyman
in major orders for over 25 years in the Russian Church Abroad and the
Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians, reposed suddenly and quietly
in his home in Owasso, Oklahoma. He was sixty five years of age.
The Gilstrap family comes of the old pioneering stock that settled
the interior of the great North American continent in the 19th century.
Father Mark was born on October 26 ns, 1951, to the late Marvin Ray and
Mary Eunice Martin Gilstrap, of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
who reared him as a Protestant Christian. He and the future Matushka
Tatiana (nee Toni DiFalco) married on December 23, 1971, in Tulsa.
The Gilstraps received the Holy Baptism of the Orthodox Church on
Lazarus Saturday of 1984. On 14/27 September, the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Precious Cross, Archbishop Alypy of Chicago (Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad) tonsured the future Fr. Mark as
a reader for the mission parish of St. John Climacus in Bloomington,
Indiana, where he and his family lived while Reader Mark, a geochemist
by training, held a position managing the chemistry laboratory at the
University of Indiana. On 2/15 February, 1992,
the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, Archbishop Alypy ordained Fr. Mark
to the diaconate for service at St. John Chrysostom Church in House
Springs, Missouri, and St. George the Great Martyr Church in Blue Ash,
Ohio. On 18 November/1 December 1996, the Feast
of the Holy Martyrs Plato and Romanos, Archbishop Alypy ordained Fr.
Mark to the sacred presbyterate.
In 1997, Archbishop Alypy blessed Fr. Mark to found the parish of St.
James the Brother of the Lord, in Owasso, Oklahoma, an assignment in
which he remained faithful to the hour of his repose.
In the spring of 2007, in anticipation of the unlawful submission of
the greater portion of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia to the
ecumenist hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr. Mark obtained a
canonical release from Archbishop Alypy and
was received under the omophorion of His Eminence Metropolitan Pavlos of
America, of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece.
Fr. Mark thus continued an uninterrupted faithful witness to the
un-compromised Orthodox Faith, to which he had dedicated
his entire adult life, and in which he remained steadfast unto the hour
of his death.
Those active in the early days of Orthodox discourse and polemic on
the Internet, regardless of jurisdiction and outlook, fondly remember
Fr. Mark as a pioneer in this field, most notably as the founder and
webmaster of the extremely popular “Indiana List.”
Fr. Mark, in his own posts and ripostes, was always clear in his
Orthodox confession, but likewise he always set a a good example and
deftly enforced the rules of civil discourse among the often heated
participants.
His Eminence, Metropolitan Demetrius of America, prevented by health
concerns from conducting Fr. Mark's funeral, entrusted this sacred task
to the Presbyter Steven Allen, rector of St. Irene Church in Rochester
Hills, Michigan. Fr. Steven, assisted by Subdeacon
Peter Gilstrap and Reader Paul Sanchez, received the earthly remains of
Fr. Mark at St. James Church on Wednesday evening, 24 August/6
September. After a Memorial Service and Vespers, members of the reposed
clergyman's family and faithful spiritual children
alternated reading the Holy Gospel throughout the night, keeping vigil
with the sacred remains of their beloved father and pastor.
Following the Divine Liturgy on the morning of 25 August/7 September,
the Feast of the Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Titus, Fr. Steven
performed the solemn service for the Burial of a Priest, which lasted
for three hours. During the entire cycle of divine
services, in addition to Subdeacon Peter's expert liturgical assistance,
Fr. Mark's matushka and daughters constituted a valiant, indefatigable,
and highly professional church choir in the Russian tradition,
beautifully executing, in particular, a long and
exhausting service they had never chanted before, and under the most
trying circumstances. The “bright sorrow” of grace-filled Orthodoxy
filled the hearts of all present, and the Faith in the Resurrection, to
which our late father and brother dedicated his
life, was both experienced and proclaimed yet once more, for the
confirmation of the faithful, the consolation of the sorrowing, and the
eternal repose of the soul of God's priestly servant.
Following divine services at St. James Church in Owasso, Fr. Mark's
body was interred at Holy Apostles' cemetery in Bixby, Oklahoma.
Fr. Mark's survivors include Matushka Tatiana and their children and
grandchildren: Subdeacon Peter (wife Genevieve and son James), Mary
(husband Lawrence, sons Isaac and Jonah), Moses (wife Ashley, daughter
Ella), Galina, Kyranna, and Sophia; as well as
brothers Dennis (wife Sally) and Stanley (wife Lynna). Mr. Stanley
Gilstrap, in Holy Baptism Adrian, is also a convert to the Orthodox
Faith and a devoted parishioner of St. James Church.
His Eminence the Metropolitan requests that the pleroma of our Holy
Church – the sacred clergy, monastics, and the faithful – continue their
divine services, prayers, and sacrifices for the repose of God's
servant, the Presbyter Mark, which they commenced
upon His Eminence's instruction at the time of Fr. Mark's repose. The
services of the 40th Day will be conducted on 30 September/13 October at
St. James Church.
Orthodox Christians and all those who piously desire to help the
Gilstrap family with the unexpected financial burden of Father Mark's
burial may send their alms to
On behalf of the entirety of our Holy Metropolis, His Eminence
Metropolitan Demetrius extends his apostolic blessing and heartfelt
gratitude to Subdeacon Peter, Matushka Tatiana, and the entire Gilstrap
family, for their longtime sacrificial service to Holy
Orthodoxy, with fervent prayer for the continuation of Fr. Mark's
God-pleasing labors to proclaim the True Faith in the heart of
Protestant America.
May his memory be eternal
Now with Fr. Gregory gone AND Fr. Mark, who is left to denounce the atrocity of Etna? Fr. Mark was even more disturbed by Etna's atrocities than Fr. Gregory was....
ReplyDeleteWith Fr. Mark gone, we have lost a voice against the Harry Potter idiocy of John Granger.
Fr. Gregory's memorial is this Saturday (Sept. 28). I think it is significant that these memorials coincide. Both these priests were Orthodox giants in their contribution to the Church.
Memory Eternal dear good shepherd!