ROCKY RIVER, Ohio -- The Rev. Eric Van Scyoc, lecturing on the miracle of the Transfiguration of Christ, is blowing a lot of smoke.

Literally.

That's because he is actually puffing on a big cigar as he discusses St. Matthew's Gospel writings of Jesus meeting Moses and Elijah -- back from the dead -- on a mountain top.

"His face shown bright as the sun," Van Scyoc reads from the holy text, between tokes on a $10 Perdomo Grand Cru.

The preacher's listeners, all men, also are puffing big stogies, gathered at a round table in a back room of a cigar shop.

It's a twice-a-month Bible study group that meets at Cigar Cigars, a storefront smoke shop in a Rocky River shopping plaza.

"It's an opportunity to get out of the cold, have a cigar and learn some Bible," says Larry Gilbert, tapping the burning end of his smoke into a deep ceramic ash tray.

Van Scyoc, pastor of St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Rocky River, has been conducting Bible studies at Cigar Cigars for about three years. So far, the group has puffed through John and are now smoking into Matthew.

"It's a chance to bring the Bible out from the walls of the church," he says.

Van Scyoc, 57, raised in Arkansas, had been a rock 'n roll disc jockey in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas before earning a divinity degree from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 1987.

"I'm doing the same thing now, but with a better product," he says.

He came to Rocky River in 1994 to pastor St. Thomas' congregation, which is tied to the Missouri Synod, a Lutheran branch that is generally conservative on social issues.

Van Scyoc says he had reservations when Cigar Cigars owner George Karitakis first approached him about conducting the back-room Bible studies.

He says he told his congregation about the idea and no one objected, so he went ahead, naming it Smokin' Bible Study. "There are those who might say, 'What kind of a Christian would smoke a cigar?' " says Van Scyoc.

Gilbert, butting in, says, "Let that be our only sin."

The back room could be described as a manly place, rich with masculine d cor -- heavy leather chairs, a big trophy fish and a picture of a ship decorating walls.

"Some women have said to us, 'I'm going to come by because it shouldn't be just for men,' " says Van Scyoc. "They're certainly welcome, but, so far," he added, exhaling an aromatic cloud, "none of them have come by."

The next holy smokes session -- an open discussion with no set lecture -- is at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 30. Van Scyoc's lectures on Matthew's writings will continue at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 6. The study lasts about one hour.

Cigar Cigars is at 21808 Center Ridge Road, Rocky River.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: momalley@plaind.com, 216-999-4893