Nearly three years ago I sat on a rectory porch with a young pastor who spoke freely of his worries but kept his biggest dream to himself.

What the Rev. Armando Elkhoury saw as important was holding together his tiny Colorado flock of Maronite Catholics. Many hailed from Lebanon - where he's from - and other war-ravaged lands throughout the Middle East.

Back then, Elkhoury's flock of 40 families was dependent, you could say, on the kindness of relatives.

Aligned with Rome and the pope, they found refuge at All Souls Catholic Church in Englewood, which gave them a rectory and church space for Sunday evening worship.

It's a generosity the tiny band of Maronites cannot forget.

"We're their baby," says member Neemat Abdelsater. "They spoiled us."

So, All Souls might have stayed home base a long time. But, as often is the way with dreams, things began to happen fast.

On Sunday, 250 worshipers, including well-wishers, watched the scarlet-clad bishop, Robert Shaheen of St. Louis, consecrate St. Rafka's Maronite Church at 2301 Wadsworth Blvd.

Elkhoury's dream to establish the first Maronite church in Colorado had succeeded.

The flock was able to plunk down 25 percent to buy a $1 million former Baptist church, an imposing structure thrust like a ship's prow over the busy boulevard.

Shaheen, an affable bishop who presses blessings into kids' foreheads as he passes by, said much of the credit goes to Elkhoury, a former engineer: "He's the driving force, though he would say no."

Abdelsater, the mother of two teenagers, laughingly recalled Elkhoury's style: "He pushed us so much. He'd say, 'Put your effort into it or you will never have a church.' "

Actually, a Maronite presence in Colorado goes back 33 years. Eight priests before Elkhoury kept the flock together. But they had no church of their own. Many worshiped in Western, Roman- style Catholic churches, but stayed homesick for the icons and liturgies of the East.

Retired hotel executive George Khalife, 80, recalled Sunday how they finally implored Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput to help them find a place to worship. Chaput put out the word, and All Souls came through.

On Sunday, Shaheen had a surprise gift. He announced that St. Rafka's has been elevated from a mission to a full parish, an official sign of permanence - "something like the difference between dating a girl and marrying her," as Elkhoury put it later.

Later, recalling our first conversation on his borrowed porch, I asked the self-effacing Elkhoury what made him push so hard to get his flock a church of their own - "besides the fact you'll say it was God?"

Elkhoury thought a moment and then said:

"And who do you think pushed me?"

St. Rafka's Maronite Church

• Affiliation: Member of the worldwide Maronite Church, one of 22 church bodies that recognize the pope as head of the universal Catholic Church. (Known as part of the Eastern Rite.)

• Established: Founded in the fourth century by a hermit, St. Maron, who lived in northern Syria. In the seventh century, pressured by Islamic forces, the church moved to the Mount Lebanon region.

• Claims to fame: Jesus Christ traveled to Tyre and Sidon, future Maronite country.

• St. Rafka: A blind, 19th century nun canonized in 2001 as Lebanon's first woman saint. People often pray to her for peace in the Middle East.

• Membership: 1.5 million worldwide; 60 percent of members live in Lebanon.

• Churches in U.S.: 80

• Languages of liturgy: English, Arabic and Syriac

torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5055

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