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MARBLEHEAD, Ohio — The majesty of Lake Erie and the beauty of the Marblehead Peninsula drew about 250 people to St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Parish Aug. 26.
The daylong event was one of three eparchial Marian pilgrimages to be held in the eparchy’s 12-state territory this year. The first was in Burton, Ohio, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch in August. Marblehead hosted the second, and St. Mary Parish in Whiting, Indiana, hosted the third (see page 3).
The three pilgrimages represent the effort of Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, of Parma to promote the importance of pilgrimage in the Christian life.
The events in Marblehead had been planned for the outdoor gazebo, but early morning rain, followed by high heat and humidity, moved the events indoors.
In the morning, Father Robert Kelly, the pastor, and cantor Helen Jean Cooley led a Marian prayer service. After lunch, they began the afternoon by leading the Akathist to the Theotokos.
The keynote speaker was Dilia Samadova, a young American college student, born and raised Muslim in the Middle East, who fled a life of abuse and found her peace in the Catholic Church. She shared her story of conversion to Catholicism with the pilgrims.
“There is no doubt, it is a very wicked culture,” she said bluntly about the way women are treated in her homeland.
“My parents forced me to get married. I never met the man until our wedding night. It was then I realized my sister had been beaten and abused by her husband. My father said, ‘I am sorry but you get married only once and you can’t come back (home).’ I realized that our parents were not going to protect her or me,” Samadova said. “Every woman in Islam goes through that just to prove they are honorable women.”
Samadova said her desperate situation brought her to the brink of suicide.
“I didn’t want to be like my sister, so I considered jumping off a bridge,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t do it. I still wanted to live even with all that pain.”
The blows delivered to her one morning led her to a decision.
“He (her husband) got so angry, he started hitting me double. His mom and dad came and they were all attacking me,” she recounted. “I said, ‘Enough.’”
“I’m tiny, only 95 pounds at that time,” she told the stunned group of pilgrims in St. Mary’s church. “I don’t know how, but God gave me so much power. I kicked the three of them away and ran.”
Her story continued with a harrowing journey through Europe before landing in the United States. She tried once to reconcile with her family, she said, but she was beaten into a coma. Despite all of the abuse she endured, “the most wonderful things happened in my life,” she assured her listeners.
“When I was in the coma, I thought I was burning in hell. I cried out, ‘God, please come help me. If there is something...if there is God, please come help me,’” she said.
“Short story: God kept putting the right people in my life at the right time to bring me here,” she said, as her arm made a sweeping gesture to indicate St. Mary church.
She said she felt guided and comforted along the way by a face that recurred in her dreams. Eventually, she came to Marblehead as summer help for the tourist industry. She found lodging in the home of a woman who regularly attended the local Roman Catholic church.
“One day I asked her, ‘Where do you go every Sunday?’ The woman responded, ‘Church. That’s where we go and we see all our friends and sing and (are) happy.’”
Samadova accepted the woman’s invitation to go to church the following Sunday and said she was stunned by her first Catholic experience, which was very different from her upbringing in her homeland.
“We were so serious and (almost) crying when praying back home. But here, people are rejoicing, happy, and there is so much peace. That’s what I felt,” she said.
“When I entered, the stained glass above the altar became so alive to me,” she said, her hands folded in prayer. “I just started crying because there was so much love. I looked to Nanny (her host) and I said, ‘That’s the man who came to my vision.’ She said, ‘That’s Jesus Christ.’”
Samadova was eventually baptized and now studies in college.
Bishop Lach celebrated the afternoon Hierarchical Divine Liturgy. Fathers Michael Hayduk, John S. Kachuba and Kelly concelebrated; Deacons Gregory Loya and Joseph Hnat were the celebrating deacons; Father Andrew Nagrant cantored.
For DVDs of the pilgrimage, call (419) 798-4283.
Caption 1: Pilgrims join in prayer in St. Mary church during the Aug. 26 Marian pilgrimage.
Caption 2: Dilia Samadova gives her testimony of faith and conversion to Catholicism at the Aug. 26 Marian pilgrimage at St. Mary Parish in Marblehead, Ohio. (Photos: Kim Kindinger)
As published in Horizons, Nov. 11, 2018.
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