Elder Statements: Ken Kovach

Kovach has been the choirmaster at St. Theodosius Orthodox Cathedral for 45 years. Every Sunday, Kovach fills the grand church in Tremont — familiar to most as the church from The Deer Hunter — with song. Kovach also served as a city councilman in his home city of Shaker Heights for 21 years and has visited Russia 19 times. A self-professed participation junky, he’s all about bringing people together.

My mother spoke a dialect of Russian, and my father spoke Hungarian. So at home we spoke in English.

I went to a seminary in Northeastern Pennsylvania, near Scranton up in the Pocono Mountains. My mom later said that she cried when she left me there. 

It was Russian Orthodox. Everything was done in Russian, even the classes. My first year at the seminary, I had to go with my brothers there to translate what we learned in class. 

There were some scriptures from St. Augustine that says, “He who sings, prays twice.”

I’ve always loved all kinds of music, but in this Russian tradition, the music is so key to the service. We sing our theology. 

Growing up, that was the way I expressed myself in worship. 

It’s all about that sound of people in harmony. 

If you follow the notes and you follow the director — wow, you’ve got something that can really make you feel something very strong. 

I was often the person on City Council who would look at people who were having a little bit of discord going on there and help us regain that sense of harmony. 

We had a housing plan, because the realtors were not showing houses in certain neighborhoods, kind of the blockbusting and the red lining thing. 

We established a human relations commission looking at racial equality and diversity, and we had a school program about interracial understanding. 

I really resonated with those kinds of things that I really believed in. I don’t recall doing anything that I didn’t really believe in. 

Knowing who you are, where you come from, that might give you a new foundation to reach out to other people. 

We know our neighbors. We have parties with our neighbors. That’s the harmony, that’s the engagement, that’s civic involvement. 

What makes for a civil society, for harmony, is people have to really participate in that. You can’t expect people to do that for you.