Hromada - Community

Seasons change, time passes, but some things remain.  You can change your work, the color of your hair, the size of your bank account, but one thing remains.  You can't change the facts around your birth, your mother, your family and your heritage.  It is what it is.  So you might as well cherish and pay homage to the ancestry who created such a person as yourself.

Ancestry.com and other sites like Reunion.com make it possible to reconstruct a family's lineage.  But that is after the fact information.  Wouldn't it be nice to know your overseas family earlier?

The Ukrainian community in Calgary is a fair mix of newly arrived Canadians and many of the earlier stock.  It would be so nice if we could help each other a bit more!

A few years back my folks became acquainted with a new-aspiring Canadian, but he eventually decided to return home.  But they have retained contact.  Through this gentleman, it has become possible to make closer ties with the old family places in Ukraine.  He scouted out the cemetaries, the tiny hamlets, and found roads signs that showed places Google Maps couldn't find.  It has just taken a personal touch, a relationship of mutual benefit.

I really hope our new Canadians from Ukraine feel welcome in our community, because who knows how our relationships could grow over time.  Bravo for your aspirations to become Canadian, but also Bravo and Mnohaya Lita for those who are striving to make Ukraine a better place today and in the future!

Here are some new lyrics to the Ukrainian National Anthem - I hope you are moved!
EGOIST - Revolution - Новий Гiмн України 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0GayNxqoJc&feature=youtu.be


Ania Jacyniak's photo
 

Roots of Calgary's Ukrainian Spiritual Community 1912-2012

There is an interesting story about Calgary's Ukrainian community and its spirituality.  Complicated, at best.  But very resilient.  I was just listening to an audio clip from CBC's Calgary Eyeopener, and heard Danielle Suchet interviewing Calgary's resident historian Harry Sanders about the Century Old Church in Calgary on 1st Avenue NE.  So way back in 1912, there was an active, growing Ukrainian community in Calgary, with dreams and aspirations that became a reality. With the arrival of the first Ukrainian heirarch - Bishop Budka of the Ukraine's Greek Catholic Church to Canada (to Winnipeg), the spiritual community felt confident in building their own local parish church.  With the combined efforts of all the then recent immigrants, a new structure was built in 1912 and sanctified for this purpose.  Turns out this first Ukrainian prairie church structure was built to last, and it certainly has.  It was originally built to serve the Ukrainian Catholic Community of the time, and in anticipation of a population boom, built in Tuxedo - way up the hill at 23 Avenue and 1St. NE.  With the First World War, and the Internment camps, Ukrainians (those holding Austrian papers) were considered enemy aliens, and essentially removed from activity in the Ukrainian community.  Over time, the changing political and social climate in Calgary, the community decided to move the building to its current location on 1st Avenue NE just east of Edmonton Trail.   Well, if the walls of that church could speak, they would tell an interesting story about Calgary, the hopes and dreams of the earliest Ukrainians to this lovely city of Calgary, and the changing social, economic, political and spiritual landscape over the years.  I hope you have a listen!  Enjoy!

http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/episode/2011/08/11/hidden-calgary---a-century-old-church-in-bridgeland/