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THE MASTER CARVER looked approvingly over the shoulder of his new apprentice. "He has experience," said Konstantinos Pylarinos of the apprentice, 40-year-old Climaco Rinta, who carved a byzantine cross into the mahogany wood.
Pointing to ornate filigree and arabesque designs on a nearby piece of mahogany, Pylarinos said in halting English, "After 15 days, he can start on this."
Finally, pointing to an intricately carved dove, he said, "And after a year, he can do this."
Pylarinos is believed by folklorists to be the only Byzantine-style woodcarver in the United States. From his saw dust-filled Byzantion Woodworking Co. in Astoria, he creates religious furniture for Greek churches throughout the United States and Canada and passes on the fine and rare art to apprentices.
"I enjoy contributing to the Greek community, so that they can see what they have left behind," he told a researcher from the Queens Council on the Arts. "You don't find this (carving) here" in the United States. "Even in Greece this is something special."