"I'm proud that he is perpetuating the faith," Mr. Tarasovich's father, Peter Tarasovich, said. "His great-grandparents, who came here at the turn of the century, would be proud also."

Vladimir Tarasovich is tall and slim, with glasses that encircle serious eyes. He spoke soberly about his plan to become a priest. "I feel like I have a lot of weight on my shoulders," he said. "Last week was my last Saturday as a layman. I hope this will inspire some young people so they will want to do the same thing. If they don't, Orthodoxy will be lost."

The anniversary was also, of course, a time to look back. Two hundred years ago, monks and other missionaries from Russia carried Orthodoxy to the fur traders and native Americans in Alaska, then part of the Russian empire. Among them was St. Herman, who spent more than 40 years on Spruce and Kodiak Islands.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was created during the Russian civil war to prevent any Communist influence in Orthodox churches in foreign countries. The organization has no ties with the Orthodox Church in Moscow and officially supports the restoration of the Russian monarchy. St. Nicholas Parish is part of the Diocese of Eastern America and New York.

The parish's liturgical year follows the old Julian calendar, which means that holidays like Christmas are celebrated about two weeks later than observances that follow the Gregorian calendar. Services are conducted in both Church Slavonic, or Russian, and English.

The red-brick church was built in the 12th-century architectural style of the Novgorod region in northwestern Russia. Motorists traveling south on Interstate 95 can see its nine golden cupolas rising above Stratford's stores and fast-food restaurants. The church, which holds only about 200 people, has no pews. Worshipers stood elbow to elbow for three hours during the anniversary service.

The first members of St. Nicholas Church were Russian immigrants who fled their homeland after the overthrow of the imperial government in 1917. One of the church's founders was Igor Sikorsky, the helicopter inventor and airplane designer. By the start of World War I in 1914, Mr. Sikorsky's airplane research and production business in Russia was flourishing, and his factory made bombers during the war. Forced out of Russia by the revolution, Mr. Sikorsky arrived in the United States in 1919.

After working as a teacher and lecturer in New York, he started building planes again on Long Island. In 1928, he moved his expanding business to Stratford. A number of Russian families working for Mr. Sikorsky moved with him, and in 1929 they founded St. Nicholas Church.

The parish first held services in a small Dutch Colonial house on Lake Street. The altar was in the dining room, the congregation in the living room and the choir in the kitchen. Vestments were hung in the pantry, and the bell was rung from the kitchen window.

The 160 families enrolled at St. Nicholas Church in 1931 had to overcome a lack of space and money, difficulties that were aggravated by the Depression. Nevertheless, membership grew, and the present church was built in 1942.

This year, Orthodox Russians from as far away as Pennsylvania braved the biting cold of a recent morning to attend the triple anniversary at St. Nicholas Church.

"I'm very happy the church is still strong," said Elena Tchertkoff, 18, a college student from Nyack, N.Y., who sat at the dinner with two other young women. "It's great to go to different churches in different cities and states and celebrate with them and to know we have the same beliefs and love. It's hard to describe the incredible feeling of joy."

As she passed around a plate of blini, Mary Eurist, who lives in Waterbury, said she was enjoying the fellowship. "It's a day to be proud to say I'm a Russian," she added.

Mrs. Eurist's brother, Martin Hudobenko of Ansonia, expressed the hope of many attending the banquet that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will someday unite with the Orthodox Church in Moscow. "But it's a matter of time," Mr. Hudobenko said. "How soon nobody knows."

"It's good to see religion back in Russia and the churches open again," he added. "We're making progress, but it will be a long battle."

There are many stumbling blocks to reconciliation, Bishop Hilarion said, the major one being that the bishops in charge of the Moscow church still have not renounced their former collaboration with an atheistic Government. "They need to renounce the instruments of atheism publicly before we can begin dialogue," he said.

A second unresolved issue is that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia rejects ecumenism, the furthering of the worldwide unity of Christian churches, and membership in the World Council of Churches, Bishop Hilarion said.

Another Russian Orthodox parish, Holy Ghost Church in Bridgeport, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year in addition to the bicentennial. The oldest Russian Orthodox parish in New England, Holy Ghost still serves as a haven for immigrants.

"Like days of old, it's happening again," the president of the parish, Tanya Guba of Stratford, said. "They still come because things are really tough over there. There's no food or clothing, and they think our streets are lined with gold."

The Rev. Nicholas Timpko, pastor of Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church, a parish of about 500 in Ansonia, used the bicentennial to point up the challenge facing today's church..

"The farmers and factory workers from Eastern Europe provided beautiful buildings," he said. "We're the recipients of their work. Now we must build the church not as an edifice but as a congregation of people from America. We have welcomed converts from various denominations, and we have to look for growth within our own community and spread Orthodoxy to people who never had a chance to study it."

But as the church reaches out to those unfamiliar with Russian Orthodoxy, many parishioners passionately hold on to the old traditions. Helen Kolton, treasurer of Holy Ghost Parish, whose Russian grandparents were married in the church, said now that services are conducted in English, she misses the beauty of Church Slovanic. When she was a child, she said, she read Saturday night vespers in Russian. "When it comes to church," she said, "I don't think you should change things."

Mrs. Kolton has seen other changes, too. "Children marry and go to other churches, or don't come to church," she said. "We've lost that feeling of extended family."

For others like Mrs. Kolton, Russian Orthodoxy represents something to hold onto in a world where one's values are threatened by constant change.

"With Social Security numbers, you lose your identity," Mrs. Guba said. "But when you hear some of the stories of your grandparents, it helps your identity. A lot of their villages are the same today. Young people coming out of college are looking for that identity. They're like lost sheep, looking for something to belong to."

Like the nine cupolas that shine above the buildings and traffic in Stratford, the Orthodox Russian faith stands out in fast-moving lives bombarded by demands, the pastor of St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church in Mayfield, Pa., Archpriest John D. Sorochka, said in his sermon at St. Nicholas Church.

"Your view of life is different," he told the congregation. "The words you speak are different. The way you project yourselves is different because you have Christ in you. Those who see you will know you are different from the world. It's a challenge to every Orthodox Christian. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the true faith must be lived."