Sermon on Mount revisited Former TV actor to visit Presque Isle

PRESQUE ISLE – A soap opera star turned preacher will bring his ministry to northern Maine this weekend when he re-enacts the Sermon on the Mount at a local church.

Frank Runyeon, 51, will portray the disciple Matthew as he recounts Jesus’ best-known sermon at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church.

The text includes the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer.

After the sermon, Runyeon will talk about his experiences as a television actor in a presentation titled “Hollywood vs. Faith: The Struggle to Live as a Christian in the Age of Media Values.” He also will share his own struggle to make the right choices in a business dominated by sex, violence and commercial sponsorship.

While Runyeon’s name may not be recognized immediately, his dark, brooding eyes, wavy black hair and chiseled features are familiar to soap opera fans around the world. He was half of one of the most popular couples in the history of daytime drama as Steve Andropoulos opposite Meg Ryan as Betsy Montgomery on “As the World Turns.”

Ryan has gone on to become one of the industry’s most bankable female stars. By the late 1980s, Runyeon was on a parallel Hollywood track to success and stardom. He was living in Los Angeles, portraying a “Santa Barbara” priest by day and guest starring on nighttime TV.

He left the trappings of Hollywood behind and returned to the East Coast where he discovered a different kind of stage, and dedicated himself to bringing the Bible alive for people.

Runyeon believes that the Gospels were written not to be read but heard. He has translated five texts from Greek to English, including Mark, Luke, Matthew and James, and also created a holiday show, “The 31/2 Stories of Christmas.” He performed “Afraid! The Gospel of Mark” in Bangor during Lent 2000.

Baptized a Lutheran, his father’s denomination, and confirmed an Episcopalian, his mother’s tradition, Runyeon says he always has practiced his faith. He said in a 2000 interview with the Bangor Daily News that his current work was inspired by British actor Alex McGowan, whom Runyeon saw read the Gospel of Mark aloud in a New York City church when he still was in his 20s.

It was not the inspiration of other actors or his well-grounded beliefs that refocused Runyeon’s life work – it was nearly losing his youngest child.

“My son was delivered by emergency Caesarean section,” Runyeon said in a phone interview three years ago.

“The doctors told me not to go home because he wasn’t going to make it through the night. I sat alone in the neonatal intensive care unit really praying for the first time in my life, praying all night long the way any father would, that God would take my life instead of his.”

The actor said that as his newborn son struggled to survive, Runyeon experienced a depth of feeling more profoundly than any starring role he had in Hollywood or on the New York stage. In retrospect, he described what he felt as “a shadow of the pain God must have felt when he sacrificed his son for us.”

“Sermon on the Mount” will be presented at 7 p.m. Sunday, June 15, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Presque Isle, 6 Roberts St. The event is co-sponsored by Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Caribou. For information, call Maggie Smith, 764-0161.