Frank Panchak, born August 28, 1946, passed away on December 30, 2022.

Both he and his father were named “Ted” but also went by “Frank.”  The son was ordained as an Orthodox priest in 1983 and officially became Father Theodore Panchak, Jr.

(The Orthodox Church of America contains individuals from numerous ethnic and cultural backgrounds, having originated from immigrants from lands such as Greece, Russia, the Middle East, and the Balkans.  Frank was a Russian major at Oberlin.)

On August 29, 2025, Stephen Wagner posted this message on Frank's Classmate Profile.

I will try to attach something I sent to Oberlin this May:

To Whom It May Concern at Oberlin's alumni office and alumni magazine

I have not seen anything new about my fellow member of Oberlin College's class of 1968 on Oberlin-related websites for the past few years. The latest was that he was retired and living in Norfolk, Virginia. We were roommates in our junior and senior years at Oberlin. I knew he had become a priest in the Orthodox Church of America. At Oberlin he was called Frank. I have very fond memories of him. I would be happy to send some of them to our class's website and/or the alumni magazine if you would like to have them.

Here is an obituary of him that I have just now found. The only changes I have made to it are to make it conform to usual standards of capitalization and punctuation and to clarify that Chesapeake is also in Virginia.

"The Very Reverend Father Theodore Panchak, Jr., passed away December 30, 2022.

"A native of Gary, Indiana, Ted was the son of the late Frank and Madge Panchak. He graduated from Oberlin in 1968. Following his graduation he received his degree in Divinity from Saint Vladimir Seminary in 1984. He served in Charlotte, North Carolina, before coming to Dormition church in Norfolk. He also taught in the Chesapeake [, Virginia] public schools system for many years.

"He is survived by several cousins and extended family and a host of dear friends.

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"Funeral services will be held in the Dormition Orthodox Church, 736 Sheppard Ave., Norfolk, on Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. with viewing following services. A Divine Liturgy service will be held at the church Wednesday morning beginning at 9:30 a.m.

"In lieu of flowers please make donations to the Dormition Orthodox Church."

These comments followed on the Classmate Profile.

John Ailey Ailey: Sorry to hear of Frank's passing. We had a lot of good times at Russian House. Sounds like he had a full and rewarding life.

Donald Salisbury: Thank you for posting this Stephen. I am so sorry to hear of Frank's passage. He was a dear friend during our freshman year.

Susan Gardner:  Thank you for posting this information.

Barry Mallis:  Frank and I were Russian majors, so we inhabited the same classes all four years. I recall sitting with him on our flight out of the Soviet Union after a summer of study and travel in the first "exchange" program with the Pushkin Institute in Leningrad. That was the summer of 1967, and an amazing time for the two of us. R.I.P.

A former parishioner, Charles Roberts, posted the above photo on an obituary.  He wrote, “Fr Ted officiated my wedding and I received chrismation from him several months before that. This was when the Charlotte, NC was still a mission in 1985. He was a fine priest. May his memory be eternal.”

Previous comments on the Classmate profile included the following (plus numerous other birthday greetings):

Stephen Wagner, August 28, 2022: Happy Birthday, Frank! I hope things are going well for you. Holy Annunciation Church here in Maynard, MA, built with aid from the tsarist government, has conducted its recent Bazaar Russe events on a strictly take-out basis because of the ongoing pandemic; wrapped food was delivered to cars in the parking lot. I'd enjoyed eating food in the church basement and at an annual outdoor picnic for years. I'm not sure whether regular services have resumed. My wife and I were at the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, MA a few months ago; the temporary exhibit was of anti-religious posters from several decades in the USSR. Other icons on display were done by Orthodox artists in many countries, several outside Europe and North America. I have many happy memories of Oberlin and hope you do, too.

Elizabeth Sherman Elvy, November 5, 2022:  HI Steve, I just happened on your account of your days as a Saga employee at Dascomb, which I hugely enjoyed. While we were all being fine lords and ladies dining on white linen tablecloths, and being served by students, you were laboring in the trenches. Who knew? Who even thought about where it all came from, or where it all went? Ah youth! We are all so invinceably dumb when we are that age, it's a good thing we are also so good-looking. In any case, it sounds to have done you worlds of good, and I am so glad you added so much fun to the doing of it. It is a great story. Beth

Daniel Miller, November 9, 2022:  I still remember Liz' slip in Dascomb. She slipped on spilled water while carrying a pitcher of milk and managed to hit the floor after a slow motion fall without spilling a drop. It was above and beyond the call of duty.

Liz Ryan Cole, November 10, 2022:  I love that someone remembers that night! I think it was the evening of the "Fast for Freedom" and I was distracted. In fact I recall having coffee in at least one pitcher and the reason I didn't spill was that I was afraid hot liquid would go everywhere. :)

Donald Salisbury, February 8, 2023:  Gosh - I just found these comments. I have such fond memories of work as a waiter at Dascomb my freshman year - and of so many friends in the crew with whom I value being in touch. One of them is Mari-Ann Dotsenko Kelam who returned to her family roots in Estonia. I am in contact with her on Facebook.

Stephen Wagner, August 28, 2023:  Frank, I haven't heard anything new about you for a long time. I hope you're doing well and can read this. Happy birthday! There is an Orthodox Church here in Maynard, Mass., that was originally subsidized by the czarist government. They have a Bazaar Russe a few times each at which I try to get food for at least one meal whenever I can. When they held outdoor Divine Liturgies at one or another picnic in this town I've gone to them as well. Same for the former Polish Roman Catholic church here that years ago was merged into the larger one, which in turn now is the lesser part of the parish church in neighboring Sudbury, whose pastor is young but VERY traditionalist. I think our present Pope has not gone nearly far enough in recognizing women's right to participate fully, including in the priesthood, but deserves all the help he can get. All the best.

From early February 2022:

Barry Mallis:  Frank! One of our band of four Russian majors! ? ??????  Drop a line.

Stephen Wagner:  Was Stephanie Bodene [right] also a Russian major? I think so.

Barry Mallis:  Yes, indeed!!

Stephen Wagner:   At the end of our junior year I stayed on to earn some extra money working to help with Commencement. I was assigned to clean Russian House. While working in the cellar, I spotted some sort of small creature, cornered it and trapped it in a large cardboard box. Then I went upstairs and called out until a young woman answered. I asked whether anyone was missing something like a hamster. It turned out to be a gerbil that Stephanie had named Alyosha. It (or her or she) had fallen through a hole in the floor of a fireplace upstairs and hadn't been seen for a very long time. Apparently it had survived on onion peels and other food it had found in the cellar. It was taken back upstairs.

Stephanie had gone off to Russia for the summer. (She told me later that she had a very good time there.) I drew a possibly blasphemous cartoon, based on a famous Renaissance painting showing Jesus arisen from the tomb, holding a white flag with a red cross on it (the cross of Saint George, patron of England, Greece and Russia). I portrayed Alyosha the gerbil in the same pose, with the caption "He is risen!", adding an explanation. I sent it to Stephanie; she liked it.

Stephanie was an enthusiastic and entertaining singer with a student band called, I think, the National Liberation Jug Band Front. Following a concert by the professional group led by Mike Seeger (Pete's brother, I think) both bands joined in a jam session in the co-op dorm north of Tappan Square. That's where a great rendition of "You'd Better Watch Out for the Eggplant that Ate Chicago" was played.

In our senior year we played opposite each other in a German-language production of "Mann Ist Mann" ("A Man's a Man) by Brecht, with music by Kurt Weill. (The year before I'd played The Customer, a sinister character clearly based on Adolf Hitler, in the American premier of two shorter pieces Brecht had written after fleeing the Nazis. The Oberlin Review's reviewer said I was physically clumsy, which I was. Anne Steiner told me she'd been terrified by me.) Steffi played the Widow Begbick, who ran a "beer salon" for British soldiers in India. I played the very stiff Sergeant Fairchild, whose best line was, "The Manual of Arms surely has some mistakes, but it's the only thing that gives a man backbone and assumes responsibility before God." In the play as written, he castrates himself. Professor Friebert cut that part out. Brecht's music for this play was much more "modern" than what he wrote for "The Three-Penny Opera", almost atonal. One song translates as "No matter how long you look at the river, you never see the same water. What flows downward never returns to its origin." I didn't get to sing it in the play but have since for fun.

After that, we went out for a while. At one point, with at least one of Steffi's other friends from Russian House, we had an outing to a park in Lorain, and I, at least, went swimming in Lake Erie, within sight of an outfall from the steel mill. Somehow that apparently hasn't harmed my health.

Barry Mallis:  Fascinating, Steve! I recall eating down the street at Russian House with the obligatory babushka who ran the show. Russian language kept me out of The Viet Nam catastrophe when I found a job teaching the "critical" language following graduation. Over the years, I taught more French than Russian, as the sputnik-based interest in it flagged. I did teach Russian literature in translation, though. In 1997 I was part of a Rotarian group, serving as interpreter, that went to northwest Russian to instruct new, Russian Rotary club presidents on what to do during their one-year terms of office. That was quite an experience in a country so utterly different from the 1967 Soviet Union I visited to study in Leningrad for six weeks. Cheers!

And from early February 2018, before the 50-year reunion::

Stephen Wagner:  Frank, it's great to be able to get in touch. I have lots of grand memories of you, starting with our working in the Dascomb kitchen and dining hall freshman year, then the next two years as roommates. Stories of Gary, Indiana, Motown music from CKLW in the kitchen every evening.

I remember how frustrated we were by having very often to answer the phone near our rooms in East Hall, many of them for guys in a room where, when we knocked to tell the occupants there was a phone call, the door would be opened only a little bit, revealing darkness, I think often smoke, and the impression that there were more than two people there? The Ohio laws were so draconian that we never reported them.

Donald Salisbury:  Looking forward to seeing you in May Frank! Now I recall that we first met working at Dascomb!

Joan Andelman:  Don, so many vivid, funny and enduring memories among those of who worked together in the dining rooms, kitchens and cafeterias during our years at Oberlin.

Stephen Wagner:  The first Reuben sandwich I ever ate was made for me by our classmate Susan Reese when she was studying at Harvard for her law degree and I was studying at different schools there for my Master of Arts in Teaching. But for years whenever I've had a Reuben I've used or asked for strong mustard instead of Russian dressing. The reason for that is my reaction to an incident in the kitchen at Dascomb Hall. I worked there on the dish crew for two years, starting very slowly as "silverman" but becoming at least the second fastest of the guys working there as "racker" or "take-off", the two most skilled jobs on the five-person crew. (Different crews worked midday and evening shifts, and I spent time on both, depending on my class schedule.) But at some point, either in my sophomore year or early in my junior year, I was working there as "floor boy". Somebody dropped a big glass jar -- holding at least three gallons, maybe five -- of Russian dressing. It smashed, with shards of sharp glass all through that pinkish mess, which reminded me of something else decidedly less pleasant. I had to clean it all up, and I haven't wanted anything to do with the stuff since then. I didn't tell Susan about that when she made Reubens for us.

The cooks I worked with were, I think, all African Americans who lived in Oberlin. One named Honey was particularly friendly. One time she made me a dish of liver as a special treat. If I could possibly have enjoyed eating liver, I would have on that occasion. I tried my best that time. Something similar happened in the summer of 1968 in Cambridge.  In this case the cook was a fellow Harvard Ed School student, a young woman who had picked cotton in Arkansas though she was "white".  I think we'd seen "The Quiet Man" starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.  While listening to the Republican Convention nominate Richard Nixon for President, she cooked and served us tongue.  Again, I tried to like it....

Donald Salisbury:  Do you remember that we organized in our sophomore year a working reunion of Dascomb waiters? Great memories.