Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Choral Society


Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Choral Society









We know very little about those who recorded on the set, but the Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Choral Society was a part of the Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Church in Toledo, Ohio.  It was established in around 1938, after the congregation of Saint George Orthodox Church split over the question of who the next Archbishop of the North American Archdiocese would be. The Syrian and Lebanese American founders of Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Church favored Rev. Antony Bashir over Reverends Samuel David and Agapios Golam as North American Archbishop. After their break from Saint George, their new church building caught fire and they were forced to construct a new building. Hostility between to two congregations ran deeply. Families who were neighbors, once worshiped together, and whose children played together, stopped speaking and avoided one another when walking the neighborhood. The animosity continued for decades.
Perhaps in an effort to use recordings to attract younger people to Saint Elias over Saint George, the Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Choral Society recorded and released a three-disc, 78 rpm set. The only performers’ names to appear in the album or on a record in the set are Theodore Ziton and William G. Barrow.
Rev. Theodore Ziton
Source: http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/25632

Rev. Theodore E. Ziton was born a twin to Elias K. and Julia Ziton in Toledo, Ohio, on 7 August 1929. Elias Ziton worked as a carpenter and came to the US in 1912. He and Julia had four children total, the last of which were twins, Tom and Theodore or Ted. The family attended Saint George Orthodox Church in Toledo, Ohio, but when the disagreement over the next archbishop divided Toledo, the Zitons were among those families moved to Saint Elias. After graduating from high school, Theodore Ziton married Vivian Zahka and studied at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York from 1951 to 1954.  He and Vivian eventually had four children.
After ordination in 1954, Ziton traveled and served in a number of parishes from Montreal to Vicksburg, Mississippi, Indianapolis to Wichita, Kansas. With a Master of Divinity degree, Ziton sought to address the spiritual and intellectual needs of his parishioners and he regularly published articles in The Word, the official magazine of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He remained at Saint George Cathedral in Kansas until from 1963 to 1966, and then at Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church on Cherry Avenue in Canton, Ohio from 1975 to 1996. Retirement in 1996 should have slowed Ziton down, but it did not. For another seven years, he pastored Holy Cross Orthodox Church in Canton. He died in April 2011.
William G. Barrow was born to Rev. James Gabriel Barrow and Bedow Beatrice Meniha-Barrow in Houston, Texas, on 12 January 1923. Gabriel (the name James went by) immigrated from Tripoli, Greater Syria (now Lebanon) in May 1911 arriving in New York City as seventeen-year-old. He moved to Houston in the early 1920s, where he met Beatrice Meniha and the two married and had their first child, William, in 1923. The family moved around quite frequently and relocated in around 1926 to Brooklyn, New York, where for a number of years, Gabriel served as rector of the Syrian Orthodox Trinity Cathedral. Gabriel was trilingual and could conduct services in Greek, Arabic, and English. His travels throughout New England and Canada, led him to Boston, Massachusetts by 1930, where he and his family took up residence during Gabriel’s tenure at Saint John Damascus Church. Beatrice gave birth to a second son, Ronald Gabriel Barrow, around February 1932. By 1940, the family finally settled in Toledo, where the split over who would succeed Archbishop Victor Aboassaly in the Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America in 1936 led to the existence of two Syrian Orthodox churches in Toledo: Saint George and Saint Elias.  Saint Elias aligned with newly selected Rev. Antony Bashir who they recognized Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America and Saint George organized behind Rev. Samuel David, born John David Husson, Archbishop of Toledo and Metropolitan of North America. Rev. Gabriel Barrow served at Saint Elias.
After moving from city to city and school to school, William graduated from Woodward High School in Toledo. Here he took classes in oral expression, was cast in the student production “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and was a member of the Glee Club. He also regularly participated in a host of other plays and programs his senior year.
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, some 15,000 Arab American served in the US military during the course of the war. William G. Barrow enlisted in the US Navy, serving from January 1943 to April 1946.  He returned to take a few classes at University of Toledo, but he does not appear to have graduated with a degree.
William married Syrian American Violet May Farran on 12 February 1950 in Toledo. The couple went on to have seven children. As William and Violet raised their children, William’s younger brother, Ronald, served in the Army from 1953 to 1956.
The circumstances that led William G. Barrow to record with Rev. Theodore Ziton remain unclear, but likely his affinity for oration and performance continued past his years in school. This was coupled by the elder Barrow’s position as pastor of Saint Elias. William G. Barrow passed 30 January 1987. Although we communicated with family members we were unable to get additional information about his later life. This three-disc set includes:
1)    The Cherubimic Hymn (77-78-79) Part I & II – Theodore Ziton & William G. Barrow
https://soundcloud.com/profbro/cherubic-hymn-theodore-ziton-william-g-barrow-st-elias-syrian-orhtodox-choral-society
2)    The People’s Communion Hymn (105) and The Trinity Response
4)    The Eisodikon “Liturgy: Little Entrance” and Trisagion (72)
5)    The Otokion Megalynarion (99) and Koinonikon (104)
 


By Richard M. Breaux

© Midwest Mahjar 

Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA La Crosse, WI, USA

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