Sacred symbol transcends creeds Presque Isle Catholic church installs crucifix sculpted by Jewish leader

PRESQUE ISLE – Sculptor Raphael Gribetz didn’t know much about Jesus when St. Mary’s Catholic Church commissioned him to create a crucifix for its sanctuary.

The 50-year-old New York native was raised an Orthodox Jew and attended yeshivas, or religious schools, until he was a college sophomore. Now, Gribetz is the gabbai, or spiritual leader, of the Aroostook Hebrew Community.

The artist told St. Mary’s parishioners Saturday at the dedication of the 950-pound wooden crucifix that as the figure of Christ emerged from the native maple, “it emitted a feeling of sanctification.” He added that he prayed and meditated at regular intervals as he worked on the huge sculpture and treated the Christian sacred object as he would the Torah or other items sacred in his own religious tradition.

“I covered my head when I worked on it,” he told about 80 members of the congregation who attended the short ceremony on the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. “When the arms were detached so I could work on them, I never let them touch the ground. I felt I was being taught what was sacred.”

The Rev. Thomas Lequin, pastor of the church since 1994, said Saturday that he’s been thinking about adding a crucifix to the sanctuary for five or six years. The church has a traditional resurrected Christ, about one-third the size of the 10-by-5-foot sculpture created by Gribetz.

The newly installed crucifix at St. Mary’s is unlike any other in the state, Lequin said. Gribetz, who visited churches in Canada and studied crucifixes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, did not turn to European artists’ sanitized portrayal of Christ’s death on the cross. Instead, he looked to the Jewish traditions that Jesus followed and to accounts of torture and starvation reported by Holocaust survivors.

Gribetz’s Christ is more than 6 feet tall, and the suffering he endured as he dragged the cross to Calvary and slowly died of starvation, dehydration and shock is evident. The man’s body is emaciated, his rib cage prominent, his stomach sunken. The muscles of his arms are taut, as if they are straining against the nails. Darker areas in the wood look like bruises against his deep brown skin.

Blood trickles from the 6-inch nails hammered through flesh and bone to hold his body upon the wooden cross. It drips from the gash in his side and falls upon the sky blue robe that’s fallen off his shoulders and hangs behind his feet.

Yet, Christ’s bearded face is relaxed, his expression full of relief. Even though his eyes remain half open, a tear falling into his beard from one of them, Jesus appears to have realized that his suffering is nearly over.

“I’ve seen thousands of crucifixes,” said Lequin, 58, after the short dedication service, “But I’ve never seen one like this. The experience, the suffering shown in this crucifix is valid, it’s a part of life. People go through this.

“I saw it earlier this week,” he said, referring to the pain and suffering caused by a bus accident in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway that killed 14 men from Guatemala and Honduras.

“Graphic,” “powerful” and “disturbing” were some of the words parishioners used Saturday to describe the sculpture.

“I think it’s a wonderful crucifix,” said Louise Hamlin, 34, of Presque Isle, who grew up in the parish. “We see some of the suffering Jesus went through. It doesn’t make it look pretty and it brings tears to my eye, but I think it will give me something to reflect upon as I pray, especially on Good Friday.”

Much of the material used to create the sculpture was donated, according to Lequin. The logs, one for the figure of Christ, the other for the cross, were given to Gribetz by Columbia Forest Products. Members of the congregation donated the artist’s fee and the crucifix is dedicated to the memory of Joseph V. Barresi and all deceased church members.

Two parishioners, Paul Underwood of Presque Isle and Conrad McGraft of Mapleton, designed and built a metal frame, hidden by curtains, on which the resurrected and the crucified Christ are mounted. The frame can be turned so that depending on the liturgical season, one Christ can be seen by worshippers while the other is hidden.

Lequin said that similar devices allow a Star of David, cross or crucifix to be displayed in military chapels that are used for Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and other services.

Coincidentally, the Feast Day of the Holy Cross fell in the midst of the Jewish High Holy Days, between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Sunday night, Gribetz led his tiny congregation in singing the Kol Nidre, a prayer that seeks God’s forgiveness for transgressions.

“There was great support from parishioners for the work,” Gribetz said. “It went beyond our differences in terms of religion. … We must learn to teach one another what is sacred in our own spiritual paths, then take into our hearts with joy those teachings.”