The Rev. Ross Syracuse is an expert in all types of services: baptisms, marriages, funerals. But on Saturday, Syracuse will be delivering a different type of service -- of the postal variety.
As part of the observance of the 100th anniversary of St. Casimir Roman Catholic Church, Syracuse, its pastor, will wear a postal cap as honorary postmaster while the Canton church serves as a postal station.
A commemorative postmark -- bearing the image of St. Casimir, patron saint of Poland -- was created for the centennial occasion. It will be used that day to cancel mail at the church at O'Donnell Street and Kenwood Avenue.
Peter Arend, 52, a church member and a former postal worker, got the ball rolling.
"We were planning a number of ideas to commemorate the anniversary," Arend said. "One of the things we thought would be appropriate would be to initiate a commemorative postmark event. The post office has these throughout the year at special times."
According to local postal officials, the practice of creating commemorative postmarks has been going on for about 20 years. Locally, such postmarks are given out about 20 times a year. Some events and celebrations that have had their own postmarks include the Towson Town Festival, Dundalk Heritage Fair and Atlantic Rarities Coin Show.
On Saturday at St. Casimir, an anniversary Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Afterward, Baltimore Postmaster Kelvin Mack will install Syracuse, who has been the pastor at St. Casimir since 1997, as postmaster. Then the postal station will accept stamped letters and postcards, imprinting them with the commemorative St. Casimir postmark, between noon and 2 p.m. The first 50 envelopes will be canceled for free. After that, each will cost 5 cents. The church will also sell a limited number of regular postage stamps.
"It's a tribute to the spirit of all the people who were a part of the church in the past hundred years," said Syracuse, 52, who has been a priest for 24 years.
In time for the anniversary, the church recently completed a three-month, $400,000 restoration project, another sign of the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood.
Amid Canton's revival, St. Casimir is experiencing a resurgence in membership.
Until a few years ago, the parish rolls dropped 15 percent a year for 20 years, Syracuse said. Older parishioners moved away or died. But the parish office says that St. Casimir now has 700 members, an increase of more than 30 percent from four years ago.
In addition to being a postal station for a day, the church is planning 12 events over the next year, including a Thanksgiving Day Mass, a youth breakfast and bazaar and an Oplatek dinner-dance, each with an anniversary theme.