In the late 1930s and early 1940s, a thin, slightly built artist from Croatia labored inside a Millvale church, where he painted vivid murals freighted with heavy themes -- war, injustice and the exploitation of immigrants in industrial America.

In 1941, Maxo Vanka finished the 22 murals, calling them his gift to America. To the parishioners of St. Nicholas Church, located atop a hill on Maryland Avenue, the captivating, detailed images are a constant reminder of their Roman Catholic faith and Croatian heritage.

This week, a society dedicated to preserving and lighting the murals is staging four dramatic readings inside the yellow Romanesque church to raise funds. Heavy rains from Hurricanes Ivan and Frances damaged the murals in 2004, causing the plaster to bubble and crack.

Local actors will dramatize a play called "Gift to America." The first performance is 8:30 tonight, and subsequent readings are at that same time tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. Tickets cost $10 and are available in the church basement starting at 7 p.m. Croatian pastries and nut roll also will be available for sale.

The one-hour reading features a conversation between Maxo Vanka and the Rev. Albert Zagar, the priest who commissioned the murals. First staged at the church in 1981, the play was written by David Demarest, a professor of English literature who taught at Carnegie Mellon University before retiring.

Directing the production is Geoffrey Hitch, a CMU professor at the Tepper School of Business. Mike Sambol of Shaler will appear as the priest who commissioned the murals, and David Crawford of Squirrel Hill will play Vanka.

"The actors are a lot less important than the murals. We think of the figures in the murals as the characters in the play," Dr. Hitch said.

The lighting, Dr. Hitch said, "is going to be focused completely on the murals and not on the actors. The actors will walk around with candles by which they can read their scripts."

Vanka, who immigrated to the United States in 1934, knew firsthand the pain of being an immigrant in a strange land. The illegitimate son of uncertain parentage, he was born in Zagreb, Croatia, on Oct. 11, 1889. His father was reputedly an Austro-Hungarian nobleman who sent Maxo to be raised in poverty by Croatian peasants.

But the boy showed artistic promise and, in 1897, when he was 8, a benefactor moved him to an aristocrat's estate, gave him the last name of Vanka, and enrolled him at the School of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb.

Vanka became an accomplished portrait painter and learned to speak German, French, English, Hungarian and Italian. In 1914, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium, winning first prize for his self-portrait plus a gold medal for his work.

By 1923, he was a professor of painting at the Academy of Beaux Arts in Zagreb. In 1931, Vanka married Margaret Stetten, the daughter of a prominent New York surgeon. As Nazis rose to power in Europe, he fled his beloved Croatia for New York City to ensure the safety of his Jewish wife and daughter, Margaret.

In 1934, Vanka visited Pittsburgh for an exhibition sponsored by the Yugoslavian consul. This exhibition introduced Father Zagar to Vanka's work. Louis Adamic, a writer and socialist who befriended Vanka, introduced the artist to the priest.

Mary Petrich, an 80-year-old member of the parish from Lawrenceville, said Vanka did not belong to any organized religion. "He was a socialist," she said as she led a reporter on a tour of the sanctuary.

Vanka's murals, which were heralded by Time magazine as some of the best in America, were revolutionary for their time, Petrich said.

"In 1937, you had a Croatian Catholic priest whose socialist writer friend introduced him to an artist who did not espouse any particular religion. This priest had enough courage to permit these murals to be painted," she said.

Vanka drowned while swimming off the Mexican coast of Puerto Vallarta in 1963. His work was exhibited in detail in 2001 at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

Diane Novosel, who grew up in Lawrenceville and is a longtime member of the parish, lives in Leechburg, Armstrong County, but drives to Pittsburgh on Sundays to attend Mass at St. Nicholas.

Novosel is chairwoman of The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, which is a separate nonprofit. The estimated cost of restoring one mural is $40,000, she said. As there are 22 murals, the organization needs to raise $880,000.

The Rev. Larry Smith, pastor of St. Nicholas, said the Diocese of Pittsburgh has approved the church's plan to start a capital campaign because the church, which was founded in 1900, is more than 100 years old and its steeple is in dire need of repair.

The last major effort to preserve the murals occurred in February and March of 1998 when Christine Daulton, a Greensburg-based paintings conservator, treated the Pieta mural to the right of the altar. The scene shows the Virgin Mary holding her dead son, Jesus, in her arms.

"I was really overwhelmed by them. Just the imagery is so powerful. They're very tricky because they're painted directly on the plaster," Daulton said. "The type of paint that was used is called distemper and it's glue plus pigment, so they are sensitive to water and have to be cleaned very carefully."

For Mary Petrich, the message of Vanka's murals is "to act justly, love tenderly and walk in the way of the Lord."