BERNE — A pastor who died a half-century ago will be celebrated next Sunday at the Lutheran church he once led here.

Rev. Russell B. Greene Sr. was a mentor to Robert Holt who currently leads the church, now called Helderberg Lutheran.

When he was 12 years old, Greene’s wife, Ruth, taught Holt and 11 classmates in a confirmation class at Bethany Lutheran Church in Central Bridge.

“The Greenes brought me up to see how important the church was,” Holt said, “and the inner workings of a church at higher levels.”

Holt recalls, in his youth, sitting on the Greenes’ porch and having conversations about religion and current events.

Holt was born a half-century after Greene and, although their lives intertwined over reverence for the church, their eras and careers are markedly different.

Greene was born in 1903 and his father and siblings died when he was a boy, leading his mother to work in a yarn mill to support her son. After graduating from Troy High School, Greene studied at  Hartwick Seminary and was ordained in 1931.

While at the seminary, he courted the cook’s daughter, Ruth Houghton; they married in 1935 in the depth of the Great Depression. According to Greene’s son, Russell Jr., as he told it in a 1956 service in Berne celebrating his father’s 25 years of ordination, his father gave the minister who married them his last 10 dollars.

The minister quietly returned the money to Ruth. As the couple left the church after their wedding, their car tire blew out. “Having no money in his possession, my father became somewhat embarrassed,” Russell Greene Jr. said. “But Mom came to his rescue as she so often has done over the period of years.”

Ruth took from her purse the money the minister had given her and bought a new tire.

Greene became the pastor of the Lutheran church in Berne in 1936.

At the time, the brick church in the hamlet, next to the school, was St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. In 2009, it merged with St. John’s Lutheran in East Berne and became Helderberg Lutheran.

Built in 1835 — with bricks fashioned from a clay bed on Peter Bassler’s farm — the church has a storied history because the first New York Anti-Rent War convention was held there in 1845 with 150 delegates from 11 counties.

Russell Greene Jr. described his father as “a good citizen,” being both a volunteer fireman and ambulance driver, and as “a good husband and a good father.”

“He has served the Almighty God with an undying zeal,” said Russell Greene Jr., who became a pastor himself.

In that 1956 sermon, the son named parishioners his father had baptized or married and who, along with their offspring, were still members of the church. It was a time when the church was central to life in the rural town.

“Cave man”

Although Holt has ended up, at nearly 70, leading the same church, his life followed a very different path.

Holt grew up in Central Bridge. His father’s family was in the automotive business and his mother’s family was in the restaurant business.

His mother’s parents were Russian Orthodox. His grandmother came to the United States from Poland and his grandfather, who was educated in Russia, joined the United States Army where he learned to cook.

Holt remembers, as a child, going to Russian Orthodox services that were three hours long and conducted “in high Russian.”

He said, “As I got older, I really appreciated the liturgy of the Orthodox Church — everything being chanted and sung.”

But he was raised in the Lutheran Church in Central Bridge, which is how he met the Greenes.

In that era, he said, pastor’s wives served alongside their husbands.

Pastor Greene had a dry sense of humor. “He liked a good joke,” Holt recalled. “He was a lot of fun.”

“Mrs. Greene was a little more staunch. You had to have respect for the church when you entered,” he said. “I can remember her seeing little kids going in and running up around the altar — and she says, ‘Listen, you don’t do that. This is God’s house.’ … And they listened.”

He added, “Some thought that maybe she was a little too tough.”

Although Holt is deeply religious, he did not pursue the ministry as a career.

“When I was 16 years old, I needed a job,” said Holt. “And four miles up the road from me was Howes Caverns.”

He started working there as a dish washer and also became a tour guide, sold tickets, ran the gift shop, did some maintenance, and ran the motel for several years.

In 2012, Holt became the general manager of Howes Caverns and, although now retired at age 69, he still has a hand in the business. And he calls himself “a cave man.”

He works part-time as the executive director of the National Caves Association, a trade group for show caves across the country.

The association was founded in 1965 when First Lady Ladybird Johnson had her beautification campaign and billboards were to be banned.

“To have them taken down would be very detrimental since a lot of caves were off the beaten path,” said Holt. “So we lobbied and went to Washington … and were grandfathered in with the billboards.”

Holt also has a deep love of singing and has always sung in his church choir. He also sang in the Schoharie High School chorus. When music teacher Francis Tripp retired, the Schoharie chorus members surprised her by singing at her retirement party.

That was the start of the Schoharie Valley Singers of which Holt is president.

Prophetic

Recalling the conversations he had in his youth on the Greenes’ porch, Holt said this week that a frequent topic was the new Mormon church forming in Central Bridge. The Mormons worshiped in an old house next to the property where their church complex now stands.

“The Greenes were a bit concerned about where the mainline churches were going,” he said. “They had this fear that the mainline churches would suffer because all these other little non-denominational churches were springing up here and there.”

He went on, “Mrs. Greene didn’t call them non-denominational … She called them ‘ite’s and ‘ism’s.”

Her husband died unexpectedly on Sept.  15, 1975, just after officiating at a wedding, at the age of 72.

“Mrs. Greene moved out of the parsonage into an apartment,” said Holt. “And where does she move? She moves into the house where the Mormons used to worship. She thought that was a little ironic.”

Mrs. Greene died in 2000, in her 90s.

Holt believes Mrs. Greene’s views were prophetic.

“She knew it was going to be tough for mainline churches — and take a look today,” said Holt. “It’s 25 years since she passed away but just look around — the mainline churches are dying. The number of people attending are just not there anymore. There are no kids in Sunday school … Helderberg does not have a Sunday school. We don’t have any toddlers.”

Holt went on, “It’s hard to find pastors. Helderberg has not had what we call a ‘called’ pastor. The baby boomer pastors are retiring,” he said, and new pastors are not filling the ranks.

Hence, people like Holt, who are not ordained, are stepping up, appointed by the synod.

“I can serve the sacraments,” said Holt. “I can marry people in my congregation. Because of state law, I cannot marry people outside the congregation since I’m not ordained. I baptize and I conduct funerals.”

He also delivers weekly sermons, helped by artificial intelligence.

“There’s a lot of talk that AI is evil … If you use it right, it could be very helpful,” Holt said.

Holt started his fourth year leading Helderberg Lutheran on Aug. 1.

“On a good Sunday, we could have 30,” Holt said when asked the size of his congregation, which he said he loves.

He is hoping more people from the community will come to the Sept. 14 service to honor Rev. Greene.

Two of his congregants, Steve and Bob Conklin, are grandchildren of the Greenes. And other grandchildren, from as far as Connecticut and South Carolina, are expected to be there. Holt hopes that former parishioners and members of the wider community will come, too.

The service will follow the traditional Lutheran liturgy — readings with responses from the congregation — used during Pastor Greene’s time.

“It’s from the hymn book that we used back from 1958 to 1979, which Russell used,” Holt said. “That was what I call the old language with ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s” as in the King James version of the Bible.

Holt has been practicing with Stacey Wright, the church’s music director.

“It’s maybe 50 years since I last used it, but for some reason it all comes back, all the tunes and everything comes back to you …,” Holt said. “A lot of the older folks in our congregation, it will come back to them.” 

Chanting the liturgy brings Holt back to his childhood attending Russian Orthodox services with his grandparents.

“It makes me appreciate the liturgy of the Lutheran Church even more. It just has so much meaning to me, it’s hard to describe. It’s part of praising God, praising Jesus. I’m lost for words to describe it.”

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The Remembrance Service on Sunday, Sept. 14, begins at 10 a.m. at Helderberg Lutheran Church, which is located at 1728 Helderberg Trail Berne. People are invited to bring a covered dish to share while enjoying fellowship and sharing memories in the Friendship Hall following the service.