OC plans church tour

Instead of the typical flowers and candy bit, the Student Union and the Office of the Chaplains have devised a different way to honor St. Valentine Saturday.

The two offices are sponsoring a "Holy Cleveland" tour of the city's major sites of religious worship.

Assistant Director of the Student Union Chris Baymiller said the idea came from a documentary that he viewed last semester on WBIZ, a public television station. "The show covered the major religious sites in the greater Cleveland area and showed them in this amazing combination," he said.

Baymiller said Cleveland is known to have some of the richest architectural religious worship sites in the Midwest. "Hopefully, if there is enough interest, we can sponsor another trip like this in the future," he said.

"My job was to contact churches, mosques and synagogues in the Cleveland area to get permission to visit. We also wanted to have someone present at the sites who would be able to direct our tour," Chaplain Manfred Lassen said. "I got very excited when Baymiller presented the idea to us. There are many wonderful communities of different faiths that are active centers of change."

"We wanted to visit all these sites to make it one nice neat tour," Baymiller said. "We had to work our tour around the schedules of the churches and the temples. Because of the Saturday tour, the Temple was edgy, but understanding. Also the Roman Catholic church has mass on Saturday evening. We had to really work with both the Priest and the Rabbi."

The tour will include St. Stevens Roman Catholic Church, St. Theodosius Orthodox Cathedral, Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Antioch Baptist Church and a Temple in Beachwood.

"We tried to schedule a visit to the Islamic center, but were unable to. Hopefully next time we'll get to visit," Baymiller said.

Lassen added that the two offices will also be looking to take another trip to visit churches and worship sites in the Lorain and Elyria area in the near future.