Created on 27 Jan. 2012 09:45:26 AM
Father Youssef Halim’s eyes light up when he envisions and talks about it.
A brand new Monolithic Dome youth center – the first of its kind in New Jersey, complete with a three-story, mandatory car parking garage, rooms for actvities, and a small chapel – to neighbor the current St. Mary & St. Mercurius Coptic Orthodox Church building on Academy Street. Initial plans have been submitted to the township, and a fourth meeting before the zoning board will take place Feb. 2 regarding the new center.
"With each meeting,” says Father Halim, “the number of negatives decrease. We are solving their (the neighborhoods’) problems.”
“We need all the support for our new youth center,” says Sabry Solomon, a Belleville resident for 29 years and one of the church's founders. “We ask the neighbors, family and friends to give us the same support as we had in the early stages.”
The early stages were in 2002, when the nearest Coptic Orthodox Church in Rutherford was getting to be too small for the throng of attendees. The current St. Mary & St. Mercurius Coptic Orthodox Church had been a synagogue. It proved perfect for the new congregation’s needs.
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