07/29/2026
Feeding the hungry. Healing the sick. Reducing crime and rebuilding from trauma. By the grace of God, the ministry of the Neighborhood Resilience Project and St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church has transformed the people of Pittsburgh’s Hill District. His Eminence Metropolitan Saba made his first visit to the community on Sunday, July 26, 2026.
Fr. Paul Abernathy serves as the project’s CEO and the church’s pastor. He and the center’s leadership – including the spiritual advisor, His Grace Bishop Thomas – presented an overview and tour to Sayidna Saba and His Eminence Metropolitan Yacoub of the Iglesia Ortodoxa en Argentina - Patriarcado de Antioquia.
The Neighborhood Resilience Project acts as the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ, opening its food pantry to an ever-increasing population who needs assistance, especially children whose only meals usually come from school. The center also offers rent and bill relief.
The project’s trauma response team goes into the community and ministers to survivors of violence. Their neighborhood interventions have reduced crime and shootings. Thanks be to God, no murders have been committed in the neighborhood in five years.
The Neighborhood Resilience Project is open to service retreats, welcoming people to come and help. More importantly, St. Moses the Black Church welcomes everyone for daily worship, centering its trauma response on the Gospel and the teachings and the sacramental life of the Orthodox Church.
Both the pastor and the local bishop have invested their lives in this ministry and the people it serves. Fr. Paul lives in the neighborhood, and Bishop Thomas relocated to Pittsburgh to be closer to the outreach.
Metropolitan Saba brought with him dozens of food kits prepared by campers at the Antiochian Village for the community.
Before the tour, at the invitation of Sayidna Saba, Sayidna Yacoub celebrated the Hierarchal Divine Liturgy. He called Sunday’s gospel lesson – in which Jesus miraculously fed the multitudes with just five loaves of bread and two fish (Matt. 14:14-22) – highly relevant to the community’s mission.
“The logic of the mind can only reach a certain point, to the point of what is impossible from a human perspective,” Sayidna Yacoub preached. “The logic of faith continues after that point. Difficulties and obstacles may seem impossible to overcome, even chronic illnesses. But when the logic of the mind ceases, we have faith that continues to work after that point.
“However far your hand can reach, God’s hand can reach farther. Jesus raised His hands to heaven, blessed the food, and everyone had food to eat. They raised 12 baskets of leftovers to ensure that the 12 apostles would each have a basket, showing them that they actually had enough food.”
To conclude the day, the hierarchs held a question-answer session with the community.
(For more photos by Kristopher Samuel and to learn more about the Neighborhood Resilience Project, visit https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2887.)
