Original cemetery cross in Shenandoah: “Here lie Rusyns of the

Greek Catholic faith, who have died from the years 1885 to 1889…”

Historical marker identifying the Shenandoah church as

founded by Ukrainian immigrants.

The Influence of Clergy and Fraternal Organizations on the Development of Ethnonational Identity among Rusyn Immigrants to Pennsylvania1

Richard D. Custer (With minor revisions to original version in Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Neighbors: Essays in Honor of Paul

Robert Magocsi. Edited by Bogdan Horbal, Patricia A. Krafcik, and Elaine Rusinko. Fairfax, VA: Eastern Christian Publications, 2006, pp. 43-106.)

A dense concentration of the earliest Rusyn settlements in the United States is found in northeastern Pennsylvania. As Interstate 81 winds its way north through the heart of the anthracite coal-mining region past such communities as Minersville, Mount Carmel, Frackville, Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, McAdoo, Nanticoke, and Wilkes-Barre, distinctive onion-domed churches dot the landscape. East of Scranton, Pennsylvania Route 6 leads past another succession of towns noted in Rusyn-, “Russian-”, and Ukrainian-American

history: Olyphant, Jessup, Jermyn, and Mayfield. Exiting at Carbondale and heading a mile north on Route 171, one will reach Simpson, a town of few distinctive structures save two remarkably similar white churches topped with onion domes and three-bar crosses. If the curious traveler investigates the churches in the area, he might notice a cornerstone naming the church as “Russian” or “Ruthenian,” perhaps “Greek Catholic,” perhaps “Orthodox,” while the church sign declares the parish’s ecclesiastical affiliation as Ukrainian Catholic or perhaps even Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. In the parish cemeteries, one might find Church Slavonic, Russian, and Ukrainian carvings on gravestones alongside Slovak- or Hungarian-language stones bearing the very same surnames. The variety of cultural markers might lead one to expect that any one of these parishes must have represented a wide variety of differing cultures, languages, and nationalities. Asking church members about their ethnic background might seem to confirm that suspicion. However, further investigation reveals that in every one of these communities, the families are originally from the same small geographical area of Europe and perhaps from the very

same village as the families in another onion-domed church community in the same town. How can this be, if one church is “Ukrainian” and the other “Russian”? In this paper I will demonstrate that the ethnonational orientation of the clergy leaders and the fraternal organizations that were most popular in the community were the most influential determinants of the prevailing ethnonational identity of the residents. In fact, they were as important as – or perhaps even more important than – religious affiliation or denomination. Ethnonational Orientation in Galicia and Hungary at the time of the Emigration Coming from a geographically isolated and technologically backward region with one of the lowest literacy rates among all ethnic groups of the Habsburg Empire, the national consciousness of Rusyn peasants was limited to their region and/or their religion. On the other hand, East Slavic intellectuals in Galicia, where the historic name Rus’ described their territory and the name Rusyn described the population, were generally of two mutually exclusive national orientations – Russophile and Old Ruthenian. The Russophile orientation, characterized by a love for the Orthodox Church of Russia (even though many of its subscribers were actually Greek Catholics), the Tsar, and all things Russian, was a viable ideology in Galicia during the first half of the nineteenth century. Greek Catholic priests, particularly in the Lemko Region, were proponents of this ideology (Himka 143-48). The Kachkovskii Society, a movement of Galician Rusyn intellectuals founded in Kolomyia in 1873, was an umbrella organization primarily for Russophiles, but it also included members of the Old-Ruthenian orientation, which held that the term Rusyn was sufficient to describe this population, and that while they shared many traits, most especially spiritually, with other East Slavs, their regional distinctions were the defining characteristics of their ethnonational identity. Reading rooms associated with the Kachkovskii Society were established in many Rusyn villages throughout the Lemko Region, and the society made important contributions to the development of regional Lemko Rusyn culture and national consciousness (Duc’-Fajfer 90; Magocsi “Kachkovs’kyi Society”). The second half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of the populist Ukrainophile movement among Galicia’s East Slavs. The Prosvita (Enlightenment) Society propagated the Ukrainophile ideology through cultural activities, reading rooms, and literature. The conservatism of the Rusyns of the Lemko Region helped to hold off the development of Ukrainian identity in the region until well after the major emigration to the United States (Duc’-Fajfer 88-89). It was not until after World War I and the brutal fate of the Russophile Lemko Rusyn intelligentsia at the Talerhof concentration camp2 that there is evidence of support for the Ukrainian national movement in the Lemko Region. While the Prosvita Society was the most important Ukrainian secular organization in Galicia before World War I, there were few Prosvita-affiliated reading rooms in the Lemko Region. Those that did exist were shut down by the Polish authorities in the early 1930s (Kravtsiv). Thus the national orientation of Rusyn immigrants from Galicia who established communities in northeastern Pennsylvania can be said to have been primarily Old-Ruthenian or Russophile. Rusyns in Hungary lagged behind their Galician brethren in the Lemko Region in terms of national consciousness. Some influential clergy, such as Aleksander Dukhnovych and

Aleksander Pavlovych, mixed a Rusyn regional identity with an intellectual, spiritual Russophilism, which was compatible with the peasants’ identity. A strong “magyarone” or cultural/political pro-Hungarian sympathy was present among the clergy of the Greek Catholic Church, but these clergy were found mainly in the territory of the Eparchy of Mukachevo, the present-day Transcarpathian oblast of southwestern Ukraine. The clergy of the Prešov Eparchy in present-day Slovakia were by and large Russophiles. A Ukrainian orientation per se was not being articulated in Hungary at the time of the mass emigration. In general, the primary source of any ethnonational identity among the generally illiterate Rusyn peasants in Hungary was nationally-conscious clergy, and to a much lesser extent, the parish cantor/teacher (Magocsi, Rusyns of Slovakia 53; Simon 180-200). Settlement Rusyns began to settle in the anthracite mining districts of central and northeastern Pennsylvania in the late 1870s. The centers of this immigration were Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, and smaller towns such as Centralia, Lansford, Mahanoy City, Mount Carmel, Mahanoy Plane, Saint Clair, and five we shall examine in this paper: Shenandoah, Shamokin, Olyphant, Mayfield, and Simpson. These earliest Rusyn settlements were composed primarily of immigrants from the Prešov Region of present-day eastern Slovakia and the Lemko Region of present-day southeastern Poland. There was a much higher rate of emigration from these regions than from Carpatho-Rusyn areas further east, and this emigration began somewhat earlier (Bachyns’kyi 88). Of the oldest Rusyn settlements in Pennsylvania, a few were partially composed of immigrants from the more eastern counties of Uzh and Bereg in historic Subcarpathian Rus’, the present-day Transcarpathian oblast of Ukraine, but in general, the Transcarpathian element in these communities was negligible or insignificant. The five Rusyn communities of northeastern Pennsylvania examined in this paper were chosen because they were settled at approximately the same time, the main local occupation – coal mining – was the same, the native village backgrounds of the settlers are similar (primarily Lemko with a Prešov Region minority, along with a small number of Galician Ukrainians and other East Slavs), and the community’s religious affiliations today are primarily with either the Ukrainian Catholic Church or the Russian Orthodox Church. Furthermore, these communities all had some interaction in their formative years by sharing clergy and leadership in fraternal organizations. I will discuss the pattern of chain migration that determined the regional makeup of each community, analyze the clergy that served each community in its formative years, and discuss the fraternal organizations that were the dominant forces in these communities. Finally, I will show how these factors combined to help determine the prevailing ethnonational identity that developed among the Rusyn immigrants and their descendants in each community. The Greek Catholic Union (Soiedinenie) The period of the late 1880s and early 1890s was a busy time for organization in the Rusyn community in the United States. Predating or coinciding with the formation of churches was the formation of “brotherhoods” or burial societies, which would pay benefits to the surviving family members of miners killed or seriously injured in the all-too-frequent mine

accidents. By 1892 some of these brotherhoods affiliated themselves with the fraternal benefit societies that had already been established by Slovak immigrants, particularly the Roman Catholic “First Catholic Slovak Union,” popularly called “Jednota.” Recognizing the danger of assimilation posed by membership in Slovak Roman Catholic societies, a group of six Greek Catholic priests, all of Subcarpathian Rusyn origin from Hungary, along with fourteen Greek Catholic parish “brotherhoods,” met in Wilkes-Barre in February 1892 to establish the Union of Greek Catholic Russian Brotherhoods (Soiedinenie Greko-Kafolicheskikh Russkikh Bratstv), later known simply as the Greek Catholic Union (GCU) (Magocsi, Our People 45). The founding lodges of the GCU were located mainly in Pennsylvania, as well as in Brooklyn, New York, Passaic, New Jersey, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Streator, Illinois. The Pennsylvania lodges included the brotherhoods in Olyphant, Shamokin, and two in Shenandoah, all four of which had a majority of members from the Lemko Region of Galicia. The mixed geographical origin of GCU members prompted a dual “Uhro-Rusyn” (Rusyns from Hungary) and “Galician Rusyn” editorship of the GCU’s newspaper Amerikansky Russky Viestnik (Dionyzii Pŷrch of Olyphant represented Galician Rusyns and Pavel Zhatkovych of Passaic, New Jersey was the representative of Uhro-Rusyns) (Roman 44). The GCU, under clerically-dominated leadership, became preoccupied with Rusyn affairs in Hungary and enunciated a generally pro-Hungarian (after 1918, pro-Czechoslovak) political stance. This alienated the significant membership from Galicia, and many lodges seceded from the GCU in 1894 to form a new organization. The Rusyn/Ukrainian National Association (Ruskii Narodnŷi Soiuz) Thirteen lodges of the GCU met in conference in Shamokin to form a new society that would be more faithful to the Rusyn identity, an identity which at that time included all the East Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Of the thirteen founding lodges, five were from the Rusyn communities under discussion: Shenandoah, Shamokin, Olyphant, and Mayfield (two lodges). The Association went through several name changes with respect to ethnic identifier. In 1894 it was known in English as the Russian National Union, later (1900) as the Little Russian National Union, then as the Ruthenian National Association (1911), and finally by 1914 as the Ukrainian National Association (UNA) (Kuropas 73-76).3 While historians have written about the RNS split with the GCU in terms of a conflict between Subcarpathian Rusyns and Galician Ukrainians, an analysis of the background of the individuals involved shows that the situation was much more complex. Of the national officers elected at the founding RNS convention, nearly half were Rusyns from the Hungarian Kingdom, and among these was the Russophile priest Alexis Toth, also from Hungary, who had converted to Orthodoxy in 1891 (Kravcheniuk, “Pershi uriadovtsi”). A number of lodges that switched their allegiance from GCU to RNS in the early years of RNS would later change affiliation again, either to the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid Society (ROCMAS) or to the Russian Brotherhood Organization (RBO). It is likely that this initial secession from the GCU was not a simple assertion of Rusyn/Ukrainian identity, but rather a protest against the clerical domination of the GCU.

The “American Circle” of Ukrainian-oriented Galician Greek Catholic clergy. Clockwise from top: Ivan Konstankevych (served in Shamokin), Nestor Dmytriv (served in Mount Carmel, Pa.), Mykola Stefanovych, Ivan Ardan (served in Olyphant), Antin Bonchevs’kyi, Stefan Makar (served in Mount Carmel), Pavlo Tymkevych, Mykola Pidhorets’kyi.

Nevertheless, the clear orientation of some of the founders of this organization was evident already at the first convention in 1894, at which the Ukrainian national anthem “Shche ne vmerla Ukraïna” was sung. The continued participation of newly-arrived Greek Catholic priests from Galicia known as “the American Circle” would lay the groundwork for the full conversion of this society’s national identity. In the words of Myron Kuropas, historian of the Ukrainian American community, the American Circle

was initiated by seven Lviv seminarians, all close personal friends, who vowed to take up their pastoral duties in the U.S. and to organize the Rusyn community along Ukrainian ethnonational lines … Politically active in Galicia, Circle members were part of a new generation of Rusyn priests who were sympathetic to the ideals of the Radical Party, a socialist group that included the poet Ivan Franko … Composed of unusually competent, highly motivated and militant individuals, the American Circle led the Rusyn-Ukrainian fight against Latinization, Russification and Magyarization … [I]t was the American Circle that eventually took control of the RNS, and involved the organization in the establishment of reading rooms, enlightenment societies, cultural enterprises, youth organizations and ethnic heritage schools (77).

In 1910 Greek Catholic Bishop Soter Ortyns’kyi attempted to change the character of the RNS to a religious, particularly a Greek Catholic, organization. A number of lodges seceded and formed a “New RNS,” headquartered in Scranton. The “New RNS” changed its name to the Ukrainian Workingmen’s Association and later (1982) to the Ukrainian Fraternal Association (UFA) (Kuropas 107-108). With a few notable exceptions (such as Shamokin), the Rusyn/Ukrainian National Association did not gain a strong influence among Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants in Pennsylvania.

Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid Society (ROCMAS) A convention of church brotherhoods that had converted to Orthodoxy took place in September 1895 in Wilkes-Barre, center of the Rusyn movement to Orthodoxy led by Father Alexis Toth. They formed a federation, and by the first national convention in 1896, eighteen brotherhoods were members. The Society issued a newspaper, Svît, written in a mixture of Galician Ukrainian and Russian (the so-called iazŷchie), using the etymological alphabet. While somewhat concerned with cultural matters, the Society’s primary goal was the defense and promotion of Orthodoxy among so-called “Little Russian” immigrants. It vehemently opposed Ukrainianism and the Greek Catholic Church, and promoted a strict Russian identity almost as a necessary feature of Orthodoxy, to the detriment of the local or regional linguistic and cultural traits of its Rusyn membership (Dyrud 74-76). While its lodges were found in every state where Rusyns settled, the ROCMAS was particularly strong in northeastern Pennsylvania, especially in Wilkes-Barre, Old Forge, Mayfield, Olyphant, and Simpson. The Russian Brotherhood Organization (Obshchestvo Russkikh Bratstv) Some of the GCU and RNS lodges changed their affiliation yet again. In 1900 individuals and lodges gathered in Mahanoy City, just south of Shenandoah, to form a new fraternal organization that would resist clerical domination and stand for the principle of Russian identity among its members. Of the six original national officers, four were from Shenandoah. The presence of the RBO in the Shenandoah Rusyn community was to remain strong for decades. In 1903 the RBO purchased from Viktor Hladyk the Russophile, Rusyn-American newspaper Pravda, which was founded in New York City in 1902, and adopted it as the official publication of the society. The editorial offices were moved to Olyphant in 1906, and editorship was assumed by Father Teofan Obushkevych. Editorial policy and content of Pravda varied with the times and the editor, ranging from a strict Russophile position, which published only in the Great Russian language and avoided local dialects, to an Old-Ruthenian position, with language that varied from Russian to a so-called “Galician Russian literary language” (essentially western Ukrainian) using the etymological alphabet and some Russian words, to occasional material in the local Rusyn dialects of the Lemko Region and Subcarpathian Rus’. One policy of the RBO was consistent, however – a strong opposition to Ukrainianism and to any suggestion that the Rusyn (and for that matter Ukrainian) people’s regional distinctions justified separation from Great Russians. In the years following World War II, the RBO leadership began to recognize its majority Lemko Rusyn membership as such. There was some degree of cooperation with the Lemko Association of the USA and Canada, a much smaller fraternal organization founded in 1929 by post-World War I immigrants from Poland, which argued that Lemkos, along with other Carpatho-Rusyns, are a distinct nationality. However, because of the prevailing pro-Soviet, Communist, and anti-religious views of the Lemko Association leadership, the possibilities for full parity of the two organizations’ activities were limited, and the RBO essentially continued its hostility to Ukrainianism and its classical Russophile position, i.e., that so-called “Carpatho-Russians” and “Galician Russians” are part of the “greater Russian nation.”

The first building that served as St. Michael’s Church in Shenandoah. Still standing, a sign identifies it as the “First Greek Catholic Church in America.”

Advertisements in Ameryka (February 22, 1886) for the Shenandoah Rusyn cooperative store, “Ruska torhovlia”/ “Greek Store”.

Among the old Rusyn settlements of northeastern Pennsylvania, the RBO gained the greatest foothold in the communities between Mount Carmel and Hazleton/Freeland, in the towns of Coaldale, Lansford, and Nesquehoning, and in the Mid-Valley north of Scranton – Jessup, Olyphant, Mayfield, and Simpson. Shenandoah Rusyns began to settle in the vicinity of Shenandoah in the late 1870s. In 1882, they formed the Brotherhood of Saint Nicholas and sent a petition to Metropolitan Sylvester Sembratovych, the head of the Greek Catholic Church of Galicia in the city of L’viv, requesting that he send them a priest. The reason they appealed to Sembratovych was probably

because most of the settlers were from Galicia (although being Lemkos, they were from the Eparchy of Peremyshl’ and not from the Archeparchy of L’viv). The Metropolitan was also a Lemko Rusyn, and as the highest-ranking Greek Catholic bishop in Austria-Hungary, he was the supreme authority of their Church as they understood it. In response to the petition, Metropolitan Sembratovych sent Father Ivan Volians’kyi to the United States. He arrived in Shenandoah on December 10, 1884 and held the first services for the Rusyns of the vicinity. A church dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel was constructed in 1886 and Father Volians’kyi began to publish a newspaper, Ameryka. It was written in a Galician iazŷchie, first using ecclesiastical, and later civil etymological script. Its main purpose was to inform American Rusyns of his community-visitation schedule and to report news especially from the American Rusyn communities and the Rusyn/Ukrainian areas of Austria-Hungary. In this it was not substantially different from Amerykanskii russky vîstnyk, Svoboda, Svît, Pravda, or other Rusyn/Ukrainian newspapers that would follow it. Ameryka ceased publication in 1890.

Primary Villages of Origin of East Slavic Immigrants to Shenandoah, Pa., 1884-1938 With Ideological Influence from Reading Rooms (if any)

(In approximate descending order of number)4

Village, County Reading Rooms in the Village

During the Years of Emigration

Kachkovskii Society Prosvita Society

1908 1936 1908 1936 Hańczowa, Gorlice X X Ropki, Gorlice X X Tylicz, Nowy Sącz X X Wola Niżna, Sanok X Wysowa, Gorlice X X Kwiatoń, Gorlice X Wola Wyżna, Sanok Kyjov, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Szklary, Sanok Uście Ruskie/Gorlickie, Gorlice X X Nastasiv, Ternopil’ ? ? ? ? Jakubany, Spiš n/a n/a n/a n/a Wola Sękowa, Sanok X X Regetów Niżny, Gorlice X Lukov, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Berest, Grybów X X Mochnaczka Wyżna, Nowy Sącz Krynica, Nowy Sącz Beloveža, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Gerlachov, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Bednarka, Gorlice X X Dubne, Nowy Sącz Data includes residents of Shenandoah borough, William Penn/Shaft, and Saint Nicholas, who were members of the Shenandoah parishes. The makeup of the community, in terms of villages of origin, was somewhat similar to Simpson. Notable was the significant presence of Prešov Region Rusyns and the insignificant place of Galicians from outside the Carpatho-Rusyn area. Also notable was the fact that the

most represented Lemko villages had Kachkovskii reading rooms—Prosvita had not made significant inroads in these villages—so we might expect a Russophile or Old-Ruthenian perspective to have a strong foundation in the Shenandoah community.

Influential Clergy & Fraternal Organizations – Shenandoah, Pennsylvania Fraternal Organizations Main fraternals: Russian Brotherhood Organization (3 lodges) Minor fraternals: Greek Catholic Union (1 lodge);

Ukrainian National Association (1 lodge; membership mainly Ukrainian); Ukrainian Fraternal Association (1 lodge)

Community Leaders Name Fraternal Affiliation(s) Role(s) Hryhorii Savuliak GCU lodge president; church president,

hotelier, banker Iurii Vretiak RBO national officer, lodge officer Dymytrii Vandziliak RBO national officer Clergy (through World War II) Period Priest Resident? Ethnicity Orientation 1884-1888 Ivan Volians’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1888-1889 Konst. Andrukhovych yes Ukrainian Ukrainian? 1889-1890 Teofan Obushkevych yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./Russ. 1890-1892 Ivan Volians’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1892 Avhustyn Lavryshyn no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1892-1907 Kornylii Lavryshyn yes Rusyn Rusyn 1907-1916 Lev Levyts’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1916 Antin Ulianyts’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1916-1917 Dmytro Khomiak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1917-1918 Vladymyr Obushkevych yes Rusyn Ukrainian? 1918 Ivan Perepylytsia yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1918 Ivan Dorohovych yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1918 Ivan Zakharko yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1918-1920 Ivan Voloshchuk yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1920-1923 Petro Iezers’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1923 Nykon Romaniuk yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1923-1929 Petro Sereda yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1929-1935 Ivan Ortyns’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1935 Oleksandr Pavliak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1935-1945 Michael Kapec yes Rusyn Ukrainian? Lines in boldface indicate a pastorate considered influential based on residency and length of tenure (3 years or more). What little has been written about Volians’kyi’s ethnonational feeling generally agrees that he eventually accepted a Ukrainian identity (Kravcheniuk, “Stezhkamy ottsia Ivana Volians’koho”), even though he only used the term Rusyn during his service in America. Regardless, his efforts were primarily religious and social in nature, as he served far-flung communities of Greek Catholic Rusyns throughout eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, establishing many churches. He was one of the only pro-labor Catholic priests, frequently championing the rights of the immigrant miners. It was his assistant and fellow Galician Ukrainian, Dr. Volodymyr Simenovych, who in 1887 established in Shenandoah the first

Cornerstone of the second St. Michael’s Church, built in 1908: “Russka hr. kat. Tserkov’”.

Invitation from the St. Michael’s church committee to the “first pilgrimage” in the “first American Rusyn/Russian parish in Shenandoah, Pa.”, published in Amerikansky Russky Viestnik in August 1919.

Rusyn reading room in the United States, affiliated with the Prosvita society in Galicia (Bachyns’kyi 360). A community leader and businessman, Hryhorii Savuliak (a native of Medzilaborce, Zemplín County), was active in Rusyn secular affairs as national treasurer (1910-1914) of the Greek Catholic Union, as parish president, and as an advocate for a Rusyn Greek Catholic bishop for the United States. After the arrival in the United States of Bishop Soter Ortyns’kyi in 1907, who was widely rejected by Subcarpathian (“Uhro-”) Rusyn clergy and secular leaders for his Galician origin and Ukrainophile orientation, Savuliak was involved in a number of church congresses calling for a Subcarpathian Rusyn bishop to be appointed for the Subcarpathian Rusyn

parishes. Savuliak served as a delegate to the Congresses of American Greek Catholic Uhro-Rusyn Parishes, ostensibly representing only himself (Protokol [Zapisnica] 34.) After several parochial changes, including a second pastorate of Volians’kyi at St. Michael’s Greek Catholic Church during his second sojourn in America, a new church building church was constructed in 1908. In 1916, the last year of Father Levyts’kyi’s pastorate, the parish suffered a minor schism, when a handful of Lemko Rusyn families and some immigrants from the Russian Empire left St. Michael’s to establish the Holy Ghost Russian Orthodox Church. The reasons for this break are not clear, but there is evidence that it was in reaction to Father Levyts’kyi’s Ukrainian orientation (“Uzhasnoie bezpravie”). It may also have been prompted by a much larger schism in nearby Maizeville and Frackville the previous year. Unlike other Rusyn communities where such schisms were typically larger, this event seemed to have only a minor effect on the Rusyn community in Shenandoah. The parish was ethnically described in several conflicting ways. According to a 1905 census of Greek Catholic parishes, only twenty percent of parishioners were from Hungary, with eighty percent from Galicia (Korotnoki). Another account described the parish as having “a majority of parishioners from Transcarpathia, who still [referred] to themselves as ‘Russians’” (Myshuha 735). However, according to my analysis, the parish was majority Galician with a sizeable minority from Hungary. Indeed, the

parish was incorporated into the Galician jurisdiction (later the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia) of the Greek Catholic Church in 1916 when separate jurisdictions for Greek Catholics from Galicia and Hungary were established in the United States. Whatever the proportions, the Ukrainian ethnic element in Shenandoah was always small, limited to a number of families from the village of Nastasiv in Ternopil’ County. There were other Galician Ukrainians living in Shenandoah, but in 1923 some of them joined a new Ukrainian parish in nearby Mahanoy City, where parishioners were primarily Galicians from Zalishchyky and Dobromyl’ counties. Officially the parish seemed to shy away from specific ethnic identification; for most of its lifetime it was known simply as St. Michael’s Greek Catholic Church, having a “Greek School,” “Greek Band,” and the “Greek Catholic Citizen’s Club.” The town’s centennial anniversary booklet referred to St. Michael’s simply as a Greek Catholic church and the historical sketch spoke of the immigration of “Greek Catholic people” (The Path of Progress). The parish retained the appellation “Greek Catholic” without the term “Ukrainian” until long after most other parishes in the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia had added “Ukrainian” to their names (Diamond Jubilee Souvenir Book). This situation did not change significantly until 1980. On Easter Sunday of that year, a devastating fire completely destroyed the church building. In the aftermath, the parish began to refer to itself as St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church. The parish built a new church in a modern Ukrainian Byzantine style, without the traditional “Russian” three-bar crosses. The centennial of the parish’s founding was celebrated in 1984 as the first Ukrainian Catholic church established in the United States, with great acclaim from the Ukrainian American community (St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church 1884-1984). A casual survey of naturalization documents filed between 1932 and 1941 by individuals born in Rusyn villages and living in Shenandoah and the immediate vicinity reveals that for the most part, they filled in the blank marked “race” with “Russian” (primarily those from the Lemko Region) or “Slovak” (primarily those from the Prešov Region). Only a handful identified themselves as Russniak or Ukrainian. An elderly community member, the son of Lemkos from Hańczowa and Wysowa, reminisced about how Shenandoah’s Eastern European immigrants were able to communicate with each other:

They didn't speak good English at all ... no, they got along. And I wanna tell you something. Take for an example, you're a Polish fellow, right, say I’m Slavish, or Greek, or Car-, Ukrainian [sic]. The languages are pretty close. You can talk to me and I'd understand what you're sayin’, and I could talk and you'd understand what I'm sayin’. See, because if you mention bread it’s called khliba and practically the same thing in the other language. You see, potato’s the same way. So if I mention potatoes and you was Polish and I was Greek, you’d understand what I’m talking about. (Joseph Litwak, in Shenandoah: A Video History)

Such comments indicate a lingering confusion regarding ethnolinguistic identity. Another example of general ethnic and linguistic misunderstanding is a short essay to commemorate the longtime (1929-1985) parish cantor, Joseph Lesko (a native of Shenandoah, son of Slovakized Rusyn immigrants from Slanské Nové Mesto, Abov County): “[Lesko] grew up at a time when epistles were read in UKRAINIAN [caps in the original] here and the cantors

came directly from Ukraine … He was really interested when he was a young kid. He used to read the epistles in Ukrainian” (63rd Annual Ukrainian Seminary Day 79). Ukrainian was not used as a liturgical language in the United States until the 1970s, and epistle books in Shenandoah, as throughout the parishes in the anthracite region, were only in Church Slavonic or English. In recent years parishioners of St. Michael’s have marched in the town’s Parade of Nations under the banner “Ukraine.” On the other hand, members of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society’s New Jersey Chapter have had success at the same event connecting with local parishioners of St. Michael’s, even though those who visited the Carpatho-Rusyn display were as likely to self-identify either as Slovak or Russian (Mihalasky, “Everyone Loves a Parade;” “A Parade of Nations”). A parish website debuted in late 2005 with the name “First Ukrainian.” Its history section does acknowledge that the community is at least partially Rusyn (“families from Western Ukraine and Carpathian Rus/Ruthenia”), and the bibliography references Magocsi’s The Carpatho-Rusyn Americans in the context of “more information about the people of Ukraine, Ukrainian immigrants, our parish and Ukrainian churches in America.” When this author first visited St. Michael’s in the early 1990s, a copy of the icon of the Virgin Mary of Máriapócs, Hungary, beloved by Carpatho-Rusyns, hung on the back wall of the church. However, the author’s most recent visit in April 2006 revealed that the icon has since been removed. While Rusyn immigrants to the Shenandoah community participated in Russophile and Rusynophile fraternal organizations and community leadership, the first American-born generation had a muddled sense of ethnic identity, i.e., “Greek” or “Greek Catholic.” Although nationally-conscious Ukrainian clergy served the parish in the 1920s and 1930s, their pastorates were short; the longest-serving pastor during those years was an American-born priest of Lemko Rusyn origin. Only among the third and fourth generations did there develop a clearer sense of a Ukrainian ethnic identity, led primarily by post-World War II clergy and the parish’s ecclesiastical affiliation. However, the existence of remnants of a non-Ukrainian identity among some members of the community forces those who promote a Ukrainian identity to at least acknowledge the community’s Rusyn origin. And that remnant is giving birth to a renewed sense of Carpatho-Rusyn identity among others with roots in the community. Nevertheless, Shenandoah and St. Michael’s are officially known as the first Ukrainian community and Ukrainian Catholic church in the United States.

Primary Clergy Orientation: Old-Ruthenian / Rusyn; later Ukrainian

Primary Fraternal Orientation: Rusyn / Russian Primary Community Orientation: Russian, “Greek,” Rusyn, Slovak, Ukrainian

Shamokin Rusyns began to settle the Shamokin area in 1879. They scattered throughout the surrounding coal patches – Big Mountain, Enterprise, Hickory Swamp, and especially Excelsior, four miles outside Shamokin. After Fr. Volians’kyi arrived in Shenandoah, he visited the community in Excelsior, holding services in private homes. In 1888, the Brotherhood of SS. Cyril and Methodius was founded, which provided the impetus for organizing a parish. In 1889 a church was built in Shamokin so as to be accessible to Rusyns from the city and the

patches. The church was chartered in1892 as the Russian Greek Catholic Church of the Transfiguration. Primary Villages of Origin of Eastern Slavic Immigrants to Shamokin, Pa., 1884-1938

With Ideological Influence from Reading Rooms (if any) (In approximate descending order of number)

Village, County

Reading Rooms in the Village During the Years of Emigration

Kachkovskii Society Prosvita Society

1908 1936 1908 1936 Florynka, Grybów X X Łabowa, Nowy Sącz X X Kamianna, Grybów X Polany, Krosno X X Komlóska, Zemplín n/a n/a n/a n/a Zemplínska Teplica (Kerestúr),Zemp. n/a n/a n/a n/a Zawadka Rymanowska, Sanok X X Kotów, Nowy Sącz Polany, Grybów X Binczarowa, Grybów X Nowa Wies, Nowy Sącz X X X Uście Ruskie/Gorlickie, Gorlice X X Uhryń, Nowy Sącz Myscowa, Krosno X Berest, Grybów X X Malý Lipník, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Lukov, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Czertyżne, Grybów Data includes residents of Shamokin city, Excelsior, Ranshaw, Brady, Johnson City, and Boydtown, who were members of the Shamokin parish. In terms of villages of origin, the makeup of the community was most similar to Simpson. Notable was the almost complete absence of Galicians from outside the Carpatho-Rusyn area. Also notable was that the most-represented Lemko villages at some time had Kachkovskii reading rooms—Prosvita had not made significant inroads in these villages—so we might expect a Russophile or Old-Ruthenian perspective to have strong foundation in the Shamokin community.

As in other early Rusyn communities, a cooperative store was established by and for the Rusyn immigrants. In Shamokin it was known in English as the Russian Mercantile Association, but in advertisements in the RNS/UNA almanacs the name evolved: (from left:) “ruskii stor” (1903 almanac); “Shamokin’ska Ruska Torhovlia / Shamokin Russian Store” (1907), “rus’kyi shtor” (1912), “ukraïns’kyi shtor” (1920).

Influential Clergy & Fraternal Organizations – Shamokin, Pennsylvania

Fraternal Organizations Main fraternals: Ukrainian National Association (1 lodge);

Russian Brotherhood Organization (2 lodges) Minor fraternals: Greek Catholic Union (2 Lodges) Community Leaders Name Fraternal Affiliation(s) Role(s) Ivan Glova UNA natl. pres., natl. treas., church cantor, businessman Aleksii Sharshon UNA natl. vice pres., natl. treas., church trustee Teodozii Talpash UNA natl. pres., natl. vice pres., hotelier Kondrat Kotanchyk UNA national treasurer Rev. Ivan Konstankevych UNA Svoboda editor, national secretary Aleksander Drozdiak ? choir director / church school teacher (1919-1947) Clergy (through World War II) Period Priest Resident? Ethnicity Orientation 1884-1888 Ivan Volians’kyi no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1888-1889 Konst. Andrukhovych no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1890 Teofan Obushkevych yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./Russ. 1890-1892 Ivan Volians’kyi no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1892 Avhustyn Lavryshyn no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1892-1893 Kornylii Lavryshyn no Rusyn Rusyn 1893-1918 Ivan Konstankevych yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Ukr. 1918 Nykon Romaniuk yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1918-1919 Kostiantyn Kurylo yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1919-1922 Volodymyr Spolitakevych yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1922-1924 Mykhailo Kuziv yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1924-1942 Mykhailo Oleksiv yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1942-1949 Mykhailo Kuz’mak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian The 1905 census of Greek Catholic parishes counted that twenty percent of the Shamokin church’s parishioners were from Hungary, with eighty percent from Galicia (Korotnoki). This agrees with my analysis. Accordingly, the Subcarpathian element, who would reestablish two lodges of the GCU after the initial lodge defected to the UNA, remained an insignificant force in the Shamokin Rusyn community. A few Subcarpathian families even

The second Transfiguration Church and its cornerstone (“Ruska Kat. Tserkov”/”Ruthenian Catholic Church”), built 1905-1907.

joined the local Slovak Roman Catholic parish. The Ukrainian representation among the Galician populace of the area was extremely small; Rusyns from the Russophile stronghold of the western Lemko Region made up the vast majority of the community. Without a resident pastor, the Brotherhood was responsible for keeping the community together. Father Teofan Obushkevych became the first resident priest in 1890, but remained only eight months. The second resident priest was newly-arrived Father Ivan Konstankevych, a Rusyn from the Lemko Region, who began his pastorate in 1893. He provided strong leadership in cultural affairs, founding a parish band and the Boyan Choir (later the Bandurist Choir). Father Konstankevych became an enthusiastic member of the American Circle a few years after establishing himself in the United States. A new church was built in 1907 and rechartered, this time as the “Ruthenian Catholic Church of the Transfiguration,” as it appears also on the church cornerstone. Under Konstankevych’s leadership, the Shamokin community began a transition from Russian or Old-Ruthenian identity to Ukrainian identity much earlier than any other Rusyn parish in the region. A reading room, named for Taras Shevchenko, was set up in 1894 (Bachyns’kyi 360). In 1896 the Taras Shevchenko Literary and Benevolent Society was organized, which in 1904 affiliated with the Shevchenko Scientific Society in L’viv. The Shamokin Shevchenko society organized the first observance in America to honor Shevchenko’s memory. It was held in the Shamokin church and hall on May 30, 1900 (“Visti z Ameryky”). At the same time, the RNS was by far the dominant fraternal organization in the community, a position which would never be challenged. Many of the organization’s national officers came from Shamokin and served multiple terms (Kravcheniuk, “Pershi uriadovtsi”). These officers remained in various positions even after Galician Ukrainians began to take over the organization in the 1910s and 1920s. The viewpoint of the RNS was boosted in the region

Commemoration of the birth of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, at the Shamokin church, 1900.

The Shamokin “Ruska Banda” (with Father Konstankevych, 1894), which later became the “Ruthenian Band” (1910s) and finally the “Ukrainian Band” (1920s or 1930s).

when its newspaper, Svoboda, began publishing in Mount Carmel, just three miles to the east, under the editorship (1895-1897) of Father Nestor Dmytriv and his successor, Father Stefan Makar (1897-1900), both members of the “American Circle.”

Quite likely it was the common ethnic background of Konstankevych and his parishioners that enabled him so effectively to lead the overwhelming transition from Russian or Old-Ruthenian sympathies to a “Ruthenian,” and later Ukrainian, identity. The effectiveness of Konstankevych’s pastoral skills also prevented a rupture in the parish when in 1907 the Greek Catholic parish in Mount Carmel split into pro-Ortyns’kyi and anti-Ortyns’kyi factions. The anti-Ortyns’kyi faction organized a new Russian Orthodox parish that was almost entirely Lemko in membership. Some East Slavs from the Russian Empire living in the Shamokin area joined this new Orthodox parish, along with a handful of Lemko families from the Shamokin parish. The staunch Ukrainian identity of the Shamokin community was maintained, even increased, in the decades after Konstankevych’s death. The Ukrainian Brotherhood of Shamokin was chartered in 1921 and owned a building near Transfiguration Church, and the Ukrainian Home Association was chartered in 1926. The parish Bandurist Choir in 1923 invited the famous Ukrainian Koshetz Choir to perform a concert in Shamokin (75th Anniversary Souvenir Book). A Ukrainian Citizen’s Club was set up, and in 1940 an all-day parochial school was formally established, which included subjects of Ukrainian language, history, and geography.

Advertisement from the RBO 1931 almanac for Damian Iadlovskii, “Russkii grosernik” (Russian grocer).

Advertisement placed in a parish anniversary book (Transfiguration of Our Lord Ukrainian Catholic School, 1941-1991) illustrating awareness of a change in identity from the time of the first immigration to the present.

A Russian Brotherhood Organization lodge was founded in Excelsior sometime around 1915 (another lodge transferred its domicile from Warren, Pennsylvania, to Shamokin) and it gained a significant number of members, but it was still insignificant compared to the dominant position exerted over the community by the Ukrainian National Association. Even the members of the RBO in Shamokin described their religion in lodge documents as “Ruthenian Catholic,” rather than “Russian Greek Catholic” or “Greek Catholic,” as was the case in most other RBO lodges. This shows the widespread acceptance in Shamokin of a “Ruthenian” rather than “Russian” identity, which made the wholesale transition of the community from “Ruthenian” to “Ukrainian” all the easier. However, the Ukrainian identity did not universally take root among the parishioners. At least through the 1930s a “Russian Independent Club” bar and social hall operated in nearby Ranshaw (Golden Jubilee 41). There were immigrant parishioners and their children who were firm in their conviction that they were Rusyns and not Ukrainians. Even the longtime choir director, Aleksander Drozdiak (a native of Królowa Ruska/Górna, Grybów County and educated in Przemyśl), was not a promoter of a Ukrainian identity. And his successor, Ivan Chomyn, a nationally-conscious Galician Ukrainian, conceded that there were no true Ukrainians in Shamokin (Interview with John Kelnock).

In 1976, on the occasion of the nation’s bicentennial and as a celebration of the centenary of Ukrainian settlement in America, the UNA staged a two-day Ukrainian festival in Shamokin, the birthplace of the UNA, to salute the society’s founders. The festival performances had no Carpathian/Lemko elements (Ukrainian Bicentennial Festival). In 1984, the parish’s centennial journal finally acknowledged the parish’s Lemko origins, but attempted to place the Lemko Region geographically within Ukraine: [The immigrants] came from the Western tip of Ukraine, where the Carpatian [sic] mountains extend into Austro/Hungary, to join the Tatra mountains. The early arrivals…came…from a region called Lemkovia [sic], who became better known as Lemkos. Then came the Boykos and Karpatho-Rus. These were dialectic names because their speech was dialectic… They came from all points of the compass in the Ukraine. (Transfiguration Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church 1884-1984 15) Noted persons from Shamokin who have publicly

proclaimed their Ukrainian heritage, although they are of Lemko Rusyn descent, include:

Michael Luchkovich (1893-1973), Canada’s first Ukrainian parliament member and author of the book A Ukrainian in Parliament; opera singer Mary Lesawyer, who performed in Ukrainian operas and was active in the UNA and the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America; and Melanne Starinshak Verveer, former Assistant to First Lady of the United States, Hilary Clinton.

Primary Clergy Orientation: Ukrainian

Primary Fraternal Orientation: Ukrainian Primary Community Orientation: Ukrainian

Olyphant Rusyns began to settle in Olyphant, Dickson City, Throop, Blakely, and Peckville as early as 1880. Their first organization was the Brotherhood of St. John the Baptist, founded in 1886, and they began a cooperative store in 1887. Served by clergy first from Shenandoah and later from Kingston, the community built a wooden chapel in 1888. The parish’s “Russian School,” as it was known in English, began in 1894, as did the dramatic club and church choir (SS. Cyril & Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church Centennial Jubilee 107).

Primary Villages of Origin of Eastern Slavic Immigrants to Olyphant, Pa., 1884-1938 With Ideological Influence from Reading Rooms (if any)

(In approximate descending order of number)

Village, County

Reading Rooms in the Village During the Years of Emigration

Kachkovskii Society Prosvita Society

1908 1936 1908 1936 Mochnaczka Wyżna, Nowy Sącz Miklušovce, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Bednarka, Gorlice X X Łosie, Gorlice X Wapienne, Gorlice X Rozdziele, Gorlice X X Wisłok Wielki, Sanok X X Zawadka Rymanowska, Sanok X X Męcina Wielka, Gorlice X X Stawysza, Grybów Czarna, Grybów Tylicz, Nowy Sącz X X Słotwiny, Nowy Sącz

Village, County

Reading Rooms in the Village During the Years of Emigration

Dobra Szlachecka, Sanok ? ? Ulucz, Brzozów ? ? X Łodzina, Sanok ? ? Liubelia, Zhovkva ? ? ? ? Vyšná Oľšava, Zemplín n/a n/a n/a n/a Verkhnia Iablun’ka, Turka ? ? ? ? Vyshnia Roztoka, Bereg n/a n/a n/a n/a Klenov, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Sedlice, Šariš n/a n/a n/a n/a Bartne, Gorlice X X Pstrążne, Gorlice Data includes residents of Olyphant borough, Pricedale/Dickson City, Blakely, Grassy Island, Throop, Peckville, and Jessup, who were members of the parishes in Olyphant. The makeup of the community, in terms of villages of origin, was most similar to Mayfield and Simpson. Notable, however, was the significant presence of Galicians from outside the Carpatho-Rusyn area. Also notable was that some of the most-represented Lemko villages had developed Prosvita reading rooms, so we might expect Ukrainian identity to have stronger potential in the Olyphant community.

Influential Clergy & Fraternal Organizations – Olyphant, Pennsylvania Fraternal Organizations Main fraternals: Concord of Olyphant Societies “Zhoda Bratstv” (9 lodges);

Greek Catholic Union (5 lodges); Russian Brotherhood Organization (4 lodges - most membership non-SS.C/M)

Minor fraternals: Ukrainian National Association (1 lodge); ROCMAS (2 lodges) Lubov (2 lodges) First Catholic Slovak Union (1 lodge)

Community Leaders Name Fraternal Affiliation(s) Role(s) Iurii Khŷliak UNA / UFA / ZB ZB natl. pres., UNA natl. treas., banker, hotelier, travel agent, town mayor Rev. Ivan Ardan UNA / UFA Svoboda editor, natl. president, reading room coordinator, book dealer Seman Mytrenko UNA / UFA national trustee, hotelier Kost’ Koban UNA national trustee, church trustee Iliia Hoiniak RBO Pravda editor

Clergy (through World War II) – Greek Catholic (Ss. Cyril & Methodius Church) only Period Priest Resident? Ethnicity Orientation 1884-1887 Ivan Volians’kyi no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1887 Zenon Liakhovych no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1888 Nykolai Zubrytskŷi no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1889-1890 Konstantyn Andrukhovych no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1891 Havriyl Vislotskŷi yes Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1891-1897 Teofan Obushkevych yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1897-1902 Ivan Ardan yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1902-1905 Mykola Strutyns’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1905-1906 Ivan Velyhors’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1906 Volodymyr Stekh yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1906-1907 Mykola Strutyns’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1907-1908 Teodozii Vasovchyk yes Rusyn Rusyn 1908 Oleksandr Ulyts’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1908-1909 Volodymyr Hryvnak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1909-1911 Ivan Sendets’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1911-1915 Iliia Kuziv yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1915-1919 Mykhailo Oleksiv yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1919-1920 Mykhailo Lisiak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1920-1935 Mykhailo Gurians’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1934-1948 Ivan Ortyns’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian In 1891, Father Obushkevych published an article on the community in the almanac of the Kachkovskii Society. It described, in glowing terms, Father Volians’kyi’s pioneering work in Olyphant, the state of the parish and the finely appointed church building, the people’s dedication to the church, and the prevailing harmony among the parishioners, whom he identified as “our Lemkos and Rusyns from Hungary” (Obushkevich). With the arrival of Father Ivan Ardan in 1897 came a program of pro-Ukrainian cultural activity. Among other Ukrainian-oriented cultural programs, a reading room dedicated to Galician Ukrainian poet Markiian Shashkevych was established (Bachyns’kyi 360). At about the same time, Olyphant became a center of Russophile activity. Pravda (1902-present), the official organ of the RBO, began publishing in Olyphant under the editorship of Father Obushkevych, and continued under the editorship of local Rusyns Vasyl’ Fekula (1909-1912) and Iliia Hoiniak (1912-1920) until 1923, when it was moved to the organization’s headquarters in Philadelphia (Horbal). A major schism occurred in 1902, when a segment of the parish, under the leadership of Father Obushkevych (who had just left his pastorate in Mayfield) established a parallel Greek Catholic parish in the town, All Saints Church, in protest of Ardan’s role in trying to wrest ownership of the original parish from the Roman Catholic bishop of Scranton and his subsequent excommunication (Bachyns’kyi 301). In 1904 another smaller segment reacted against Ardan and his successor and established the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas, which included mostly Lemko Rusyns, but also some immigrants from the Russian Empire. Both these new parishes were Russophile in outlook, but curiously, the smaller parish, St. Nicholas (most of its families coming from the western Lemko Region or Pielgrzymka in the central Lemko Region), remained more conscious of its Galician regional origin than did the All Saints Church. The fiftieth anniversary book of St. Nicholas Church described its origins as follows: “People of Russian descent began immigrating in large numbers to this country in the 19th century. A majority of these people, who came from Galicia, Austria and Hungary, were of the laboring class and took employment in the mines of our region…” (Golden Jubilee). The parish’s centennial-year

Cornerstone of the second SS. Cyril and Methodius Church: “Ruska Greko-Kafol. Tserkov”.

history continued reference to its founders as “a group of Russian immigrants, most of whom came from Galicia, Austria-Hungary Empire…” (“Parish Background”). All Saints Church joined the Russian Orthodox Church in 1916. Despite being pastored for its first fourteen years by Obushkevych, the parish seemed to have abandoned any particular Old-Ruthenian or “Galician” awareness of its early years for a purely Russian orientation. Its only published history referred to “Russian people,” “the great Russian race,” etc., without any reference to the parishioners’ geographic place of origin. The only remnant of the parish’s original Galician/Old-Ruthenian origin was a page sponsored by the “Russian Society of John Naumowicza, Lodge No. 129” (of the RBO) (Golden Jubilee 1902-1952). A Galician Ukrainian-language popular humor-satirical magazine, Osa (The Wasp), appeared in Olyphant in 1902 and lasted just a year. Its favorite target was Russophiles and pro-Hungarian Subcarpathian Rusyns. Father Obushkevych, by that time pastor of the new All Saints parish, was a prominent character in the unsigned anti-Russophile limericks and lyrics. The original parish built a new church in 1908, still known as the SS. Cyril and Methodius Greek Catholic Church, although the cornerstone includes the word “Ruska” (Rusyn) according to old Galician/Lemko dialectal spelling, which was left untranslated into English. The 1905 census of Greek Catholic parishes counted that only ten percent of the Olyphant church’s parishioners were from Hungary, with ninety percent from Galicia (Korotnoki). Even with the 1902 departure of some Subcarpathian Rusyns to All Saints parish, this was a gross under-representation of the Subcarpathian Rusyn element in the parish, which I would estimate at closer to thirty percent. By the 1920s a significant minority of SS. Cyril and Methodius parish were Ukrainians from eastern Galicia, as was a portion of All Saints Church, even though no single east-Galician village was the birthplace of a significant number of members of either parish. An Olyphant Greek Catholic parish was among the “Greek Catholic Russian (Galician)” parishes whose parishioners indicated that they were not in a position to send a delegate to the Church Congress of American Greek Catholic Uhro-Rusyn Parishes in Johnstown in 1910 (the purpose of which was to unite the opposition to Bishop Ortyns’kyi), but they stated that they would agree to all the decisions of the church congress (Protokol [Zapisnica]). This could have been either Saints Cyril and Methodius or All Saints parish, but All Saints as a community would have been more likely to show support for such a congress. Indeed, All Saints’ pastor, Teofan Obushkevych, was a clergy signatory to the congress’s resolutions, but the “Uhro-Rusyn” representation in Saints Cyril and Methodius parish was far more significant. The GCU was exceptionally strong in Olyphant, with five lodges numbering 200 members. Membership was mostly confined to parishioners of SS. Cyril and Methodius Church. It

SS. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Chorus, attired in typical Ukrainian folk dress, 1938.

included not only Rusyns from Hungary but also many from Galicia, although generally no Ukrainians. Officers of these lodges were natives of Hungary as well as Galicia. The sizable group of settlers from Šariš County villages were generally members of the Greek Catholic Union, but a number of them also maintained membership in the local lodge of the First Catholic Slovak Union (Pamätník XXV. ročného jubileuma). After the original fraternal brotherhood lodge and others defected from the RNS/UNA in 1910 to the “New Rus’kyi Narodnyi Soiuz” (later the Ukrainian Fraternal Association), it was not until 1915 that a new UNA lodge took its place. The defecting lodges (initially six, from Olyphant and Priceburg/Dickson City, eventually nine) left the “New RNS” in 1913 to form the Concord of Olyphant Societies, Zhoda Bratstv (ZB). ZB took in other dissatisfied lodges in the Scranton area to become a regional fraternal (Shustakevych 187). It acquired a headquarters building in Olyphant and published a newspaper Nove Zhyttia/New Life (1913-1938) and almanacs (1916-1929). The organization was pro-Ukrainian, but used the terms Rusyn, Rusyn-Ukraïnets’, and Ukraïnets’ interchangeably. Its president was longtime Ukrainophile community leader Iurii Khŷliak (a native of Binczarowa, Grybów County), and most of its other leaders were local Lemko Rusyns. It became, by far, the dominant pro-Ukrainian secular organization in Olyphant. The RBO was fairly strong in Olyphant with four lodges, but the majority of the members were parishioners of All Saints Church or the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church rather than SS. Cyril and Methodius. Curiously, of all the communities under discussion, despite the large Lemko Rusyn settlement in each, Olyphant was the only one where a lodge of the Lemko Association was established, although Olyphant never became a significant center of activity in that organization.

Culturally, the original parish, SS. Cyril and Methodius, leaned heavily towards Ukrainian rather than Rusyn culture. The dramatic society performed the Ukrainian operetta “Natalka Poltavka” in 1903. A commemorative celebration of the birth of Shashkevych was held in 1911 with a concert of Ukrainian songs and a scene from his “Rusalka Dnistrova” (Odnodnivka). In the 1930s the choir

performed other Ukrainian plays. Ukrainian-named parish organizations were established,

including the Young Men’s Ukrainian Association (1918) and the Ukavets parish baseball team (1930). A parish newsletter, Uke-Views, began publication in 1941 (Centennial Jubilee 57). The 1980 dedication of a shrine/monument with the image of an icon of the Zhyrovytsi Mother of God (from Zhirovitsy/Zhirovichi in southwestern Belarus), whose veneration was known to some Ukrainians but was unknown in the Carpathian region of the parishioners’ origins, established Olyphant as a place of pilgrimage for Ukrainians. The parish’s 1988 centennial celebration, coinciding as it did with the Millennium of Christianity in Rus’/Ukraine, was effectively a dual celebration with a pronounced Ukrainian theme. A “millennium-centennial” monument commemorating this event was erected near the church (Centennial Jubilee 35, 173). SS. Cyril and Methodius parish indirectly acknowledged its Lemko and Subcarpathian Rusyn origins in its centennial year, 1988, with this rather convoluted introduction to its parish history:

Around 1880, early Ukrainian settlers began to arrive in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. They came from poverty stricken but simple peasant stock, emigrating from Ukrainian localities in the province of Galicia, a part of the huge Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary. Those territories today are divided among Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, Rumania and Moldavia. They came from counties or districts – Gorlice, Sanok, Yablinka, Zemplun, etc. – on the north and south sides of the massive Carpathian Mountain chain that cuts a semicircular swath through Middle Europe. Most of these early immigrants were known as “Lemko’s,” so named because of a linguistic peculiarity in the dialect of the Ukrainian language which they spoke. The area they came from was fondly known as “Lemkiwshchyna” (Lemko Land). (Centennial Jubilee 35)

The parish website, created and maintained by a descendant of Rusyns from Šariš County, adds the following information, capped with a dubious claim about the western extent of Kievan Rus’:

Some came from villages in the Priashiv (Presov) region, which is considered to be the westernmost part of ethnic Ukrainian territory and called themselves Rusyns (not to be confused with Russian). The Priashiv region (presently located in Slovakia), lies in the Eastern Beskids of the Carpathian Mountains and is commonly known as ‘Priashivshchyna.’... All these territories were once part of the great empire of Kievan-Rus (Ukraine). (“Church History”)

Not all the descendants of the Prešov-region group were convinced of a Ukrainian identity, however. Members of the parish’s remaining Greek Catholic Union lodge in 1992, the lodge’s centennial year, prepared a history of their lodge that omitted any use of the term Ukrainian, referring only to its members as natives of “the Carpathian Regions” (Staskewitz, “1892-1992: St. Michael’s Lodge” 22). The celebration dinner included a heritage display of such items as “a Saris costume,” “hand-embroidered items from Klembarek (now Klenov) Sariska Zupa,” and a “map of the Carpathian Region” (Staskewitz, “Lodge 52” 21). To the present day a Ukrainian dance group and a Ukrainian-oriented choir exist in the parish. However, the Church Slavonic language has been retained in services, and literary Ukrainian has never been used. Occasional obituaries of parishioners make reference to their membership and funeral service in Sts. Cyril and Methodius “Greek Catholic,” rather than

Rusyn businessmen in Olyphant advertised in publications of both Ukrainian and Russian orientation, even varying their ethnic self-identification to suit their audience. Local undertaker Petro Vil’kha was an “odinokii Russkii pohrebnik” in the 1922 RBO almanac (top left), while in a 1922 issue of Olyphant’s pro-Ukrainian Nove Zhyttia, he was an “odynokyi Rus’ko-Ukraïns’kyi pohrebnyk” (top right). His competitor, Ivan/John Turko, advertised his business in the 1924 ZB almanac (bottom right) as an “Ukraïns’ke Pohrebnyche Zavedennia”, but in the 1936 RBO almanac, he was a “Russkii pohrebnik” (bottom left).

“Ukrainian Greek Catholic,” Church. Nevertheless, the parish is generally known as Ukrainian, and its public face holds very strictly to that orientation. Although the immigrant settlers may have only been mildly pre-disposed to pro-Ukrainian ideas, the UNA and its daughter organizations had a strong presence in the parish from the early years. The early arrival of pro-Ukrainian clergy, starting with Ivan Ardan and continuing uninterrupted from 1908, provided the Ukrainian movement with strong leadership, which was combined with the influence of the pro-Ukrainian fraternals led by Iurii Khŷliak. The Russophile elements, including the leading non-Ukrainian Galician cleric, Obushkevych, while always present and influential in Olyphant as a whole, departed from the original parish, and the pro-Rusyn or pro-Slovak remainder were outnumbered by the large Galician segment. As a result, the Ukrainian orientation won out and remains strong to the present time.

Primary Clergy Orientation: Ukrainian

Primary Fraternal Orientation: Ukrainian, Rusyn/Russian Primary Community Orientation: Ukrainian

Mayfield Mayfield received its first Rusyn settlers in 1878. Ten years later these Rusyns formed a brotherhood and purchased a church building. In 1891 a new church was built and was chartered as the Russian Greek Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist.

Primary Villages of Origin of Eastern Slavic Immigrants to Mayfield, Pa., 1884-1938 With Ideological Influence from Reading Rooms (if any)

(In approximate descending order of number)

Village, County Reading Rooms in the Village

During the Years of Emigration

Kachkovskii Society Prosvita Society

1908 1936 1908 1936 Pielgrzymka, Jasło X X Łosie, Gorlice X Desznica, Jasło X Kunkowa, Gorlice X Stawysza, Grybów Hałbów, Jasło Brzezowa, Jasło Uhryń, Nowy Sącz Śnietnica, Grybów X Kłopotnica, Jasło Wisłok Wielki, Sanok X X Stoky, Bibrka ? ? ? ? Jaworze, Jasło Binczarowa, Grybów X Świątkowa Wielka, Jasło X Brunary, Grybów Wierchomla Wielka, Nowy Sącz X Czarna, Grybów Data includes residents of Mayfield borough, Erie, and Mayfield Yard who were members of the parish in Mayfield. In terms of villages of origin, the makeup of the community was most similar to Olyphant and Simpson. Notable, however, was the almost complete absence of Rusyns from Subcarpathia. Also notable was the fact that some of the most-represented Lemko villages had Kachkovskii society reading rooms, Prosvita not being a factor in the European villages represented, so we might expect the Russophile orientation to have stronger potential in the Mayfield community.

The Fourth Convention of the RNS, held at St. John’s Church hall, Mayfield, June 1897. Among the delegates pictured are Petro Sabat and Aleksii Shlianta (Mayfield), Fr. Teofan Obushkevych (Olyphant/Mayfield), Iurii Khŷliak (Olyphant), and Ivan Glova, Fr. Ivan Konstankevych, and Kondrat Kotanchyk (Shamokin). Within a few years thereafter, the Mayfield lodges and most of the Mayfield members seceded from the RNS to join the RBO and ROCMAS.

Influential Clergy & Fraternal Organizations – Mayfield, Pennsylvania

Fraternal Organizations Main fraternals: ROCMAS (6 lodges)

Lubov (6 lodges) Russian Brotherhood Organization (3 lodges)

Minor fraternals: Ukrainian National Association (1 lodge – membership entirely Ukrainian) Community Leaders Name Fraternal Affiliation(s) Role(s) Aleksii Shlianta RBO, Lubov national treas., parish school teacher, businessman Petro Sabat ROCMAS national trustee, lodge president Petro Korba ROCMAS national trustee, lodge president Petro Kykhart ROCMAS national trustee Stefan Telep Lubov Liubov editor, natl. secretary, businessman (print shop) Clergy (through World War II) Period Priest Resident? Ethnicity Orientation 1884-1888 Ivan Volians’kyi no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1887 Zenon Liakhovych no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1888 Nykolai Zubrytskŷi no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1889-1890 Konst. Andrukhovych no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1891 Havriyl Vislotskŷi no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1891-1897 Teofan Obushkevych no Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1897-1902 Teofan Obushkevych yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1902-1904 Jan Olszewski yes Polish Old-Ruthenian 1904-1908 Arsenii Chahovtsev yes Russ.?Ukr.? Russian 1908-1911 Mikhail Skibinskii yes Russ.?Ukr.? Russian 1911-1912 Vasilii Vasiliev yes Russ.?Ukr.? Russian 1912-1914 Vasilii Oranovskii yes Russ.?Ukr.? Russian 1914-1917 Iona Milasevich yes Russ.?Ukr.? Russian 1917-1920 Iosyf Fedoronko yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1920-1936 Vasyl' Repela yes Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1936-1952 Filip Pechinskii yes Russ?Ukr? Russian

Mayfield was unique among the five settlements discussed in this paper because almost all its Rusyns were from villages in the Lemko Region of Galicia. However, for a time in the early existence of the Mayfield parish, there was a significant Subcarpathian element living in nearby Jermyn. These Rusyns from the county of Zemplín, along with Lemko Rusyns from Wierchomla Mała, Wierchomla Wielka, and Wisłok Wielki formed their own (Orthodox) church in Jermyn in 1907. The Mayfield church, established by Volians’kyi but soon closely associated with the original Olyphant church and its pro-Rusyn and Old-Ruthenian or Russophile clergy, retained its Greek Catholic association until 1902. The arrival of Father Obushkevych as visiting priest (1891) and then resident pastor (1897) began a flowering of cultural activity: a reading room (1894) named for noted Galician Russophile priest Ivan Naumovych and affiliated with the Kachkovskii Society, the choir, the parish band, and a school, where local businessman and community leader Aleksii Shlianta was the schoolteacher. In 1902 under the missionary influence of Father Alexis Toth, the community elected to enter the Orthodox Church. Their pastor, Father Obushkevych, responded to the will of the people and found them a priest (the ethnically Polish, Basilian monk Jan Olszewski) who joined the Orthodox Church with them, even though at that time Obushkevych himself did not. He then returned to Olyphant to organize the All Saints parish (“Istoriia”). Of the three communities under discussion that had significant membership in the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid Society, one of the lodges in Mayfield was among the ten largest, having 108 members in 1936. There did exist a UNA lodge in Mayfield, but its membership was fewer than forty members and did not seem to include Lemkos (Myshuha 701). In 1912, local members of the RBO and ROCMAS joined together in a new fraternal organization, the Russian Orthodox Fraternity Lubov. It was based in Mayfield but grew to include lodges in Simpson, Olyphant, Wilkes-Barre, Jermyn, and Old Forge, as well as in Lemko communities in southwestern Pennsylvania. Lubov published a newspaper, Liubov/Lubov (1913-1957) in a Galician iazŷchie using the etymological alphabet. In contrast to the mainstream Russian emphasis of ROCMAS and the sometime anti-clerical perspective of RBO, Lubov took a pro-Orthodox, particularly Galician stance (Magocsi, Our People 53). Its editor, Stefan Telep, was also a prolific publisher of “Russian” books, especially primers and Galician dramatic plays, from his Mayfield print shop. The community’s organizations consistently used the term “Russian” to describe themselves. The parish musical corps, founded in 1895, was known as the Mayfield Russian Band. In 1898 the Russian Hose Company (renamed the Mayfield Hose Company in 1939) was founded by a group of nineteen local men, most of them Rusyns. Culturally and linguistically, the community inclined toward things Russian, yet there remained hallmarks of their Rusyn origin.

The second St. John’s Church, built 1933, on the “3 descending-height towers” model of Lemko-type churches in the European homeland.

The Mayfield church choir in 1941, dressed in “boyar costumes of the Russian Court life of the 18th century” (100th Anniversary 1891-1991).

Their 1891 church, and a new one built in 1933, followed the typical Lemko style of church architecture, i.e., with three main domes descending in height from the highest in the front to the lowest in the back of the structure. However, in other ways, the community went completely Russian, such as in choir costumes. Despite their Russophile orientation, the Mayfield community kept their particular homeland in mind through the decades. A fund drive to support the village of Kunkowa was organized in 1923, and a fund drive for support of the Ruska Bursa in Nowy Sącz was organized in 1927. Members of the Mayfield community and their descendants (Stefan Dutko, Eva Danilo Yurkovsky, Peter J. Yurkovsky) were instrumental in organizing at least four collections to support the Orthodox community in Pielgrzymka (Peregrymka), Poland, between the 1920s and 1960s. One writer in particular, Peter J. Yurkovsky, wrote about Mayfield’s “Carpatho-Russian”/“Lemko” community in the RBO’s Pravda/The Truth and the ROCMAS Svit/The Light in the late 1960s. Eva Yurkovsky was also eulogized in the 1970 almanac of the Lemko Association (“Eva Danilo Yurkovsky”). The parish’s 1991 centennial commemorative book opened with a narrative clearly identifying the parish as Rusyn (“Carpatho-Russian”): “Its earliest beginnings actually date to 1878, with the arrival of Carpatho-Russian immigrants from the western part of Galicia known as Lemkovstchina” (100th Anniversary 1891-1991, 1)

Alongside were reproduced maps by Paul R. Magocsi, “Carpatho-Rusyn Homeland Before World War I” and “Carpatho-Rusyn Homeland.” Mayfield native John Uram, grandson of Rusyn immigrant settlers to the town, became the editor of the RBO’s newsletter The Truth in 1992, and since that time he has consistently promoted in its pages the term Rusyn/Carpatho-Rusyn, as well as Carpatho-Rusyn history, Rusyn-American cultural activities, and images of Rusyn wooden churches, alongside occasional Russian motifs. This community, which had an initial potential for Russophilism, as an entirely Galician community initially participated in what developed into the pro-Ukrainian stream of the UNA. However, with the presence of clergy such as Obushkevych and his successors and the parish’s transition to Orthodoxy, the community never experienced any further factors that would divert it from the Russophile path.

Primary Clergy Orientation: Old-Ruthenian, Russian

Primary Fraternal Orientation: Russian Primary Community Orientation: Russian

Simpson Rusyns settled in Simpson as early as 1888, the year that Simpson residents began to appear in the sacramental registers of the Shenandoah church. After the departure of Father Volians’kyi to Galicia, the priest in Kingston took over the service of the community. Eventually Mayfield became, and was to remain for over a decade, the spiritual center for the Simpson Rusyn community.

Primary Villages of Origin of Eastern Slavic Immigrants to Simpson, Pa., 1888-1938 With Ideological Influence from Reading Rooms (if any)

(In approximate descending order of number)

Village, County Reading Rooms in the Village

During the Years of Emigration

Kachkovskii Society Prosvita Society

1908 1936 1908 1936 Habura, Zemplín n/a n/a n/a n/a Mochnaczka Wyżna, Nowy Sącz Żegiestów, Nowy Sącz X Zubrzyk, Nowy Sącz Krynica, Nowy Sącz X X Słotwiny, Nowy Sącz Bielanka, Gorlice Brunary, Grybów Łosie, Gorlice X Kamianna, Grybów X Zlockie, Nowy Sącz X Florynka, Grybów X Ożenna, Jasło X X Wierchomla Wielka, Nowy Sącz X Hańczowa, Gorlice X X Piorunka, Grybów Andrzejówka, Nowy Sącz X Roztoka Wielka, Nowy Sącz Grab, Jasło X X X Pielgrzymka, Jasło X X Veľký Sulín, Spiš n/a n/a n/a n/a Data includes residents of Fell Township (Simpson) who were members of the parishes in Simpson. The makeup of the Simpson community, in terms of villages of origin, had significant commonality with all the other communities in this study. The starkest difference was that the village having the largest number of natives was in the Prešov Region. Otherwise, there was a general predominance of Kachkovskii reading rooms in the villages the settlers had

left. We might expect the Old-Ruthenian or Russophile orientation to have a strong foundation in the Simpson community.

Influential Clergy & Fraternal Organizations – Simpson, Pennsylvania

Fraternal Organizations Main fraternals: Russian Brotherhood Organization (3 lodges)

Greek Catholic Union (2 lodges) ROCMAS (2 lodges) Lubov (4 lodges)

Minor fraternals: Ukrainian National Association (1 lodge - membership entirely Ukrainian) Ukrainian Fraternal Association (2 lodges)

Community Leaders Name Fraternal Affiliation(s) Office Iakov Markovych RBO lodge secretary Konstantyn Merena ROCMAS lodge president Petro Smetana ROCMAS, Lubov lodge president, controller Petro Baisa RBO supreme council, lodge secretary, businessman Clergy (through World War II) – Greek Catholic only Period Priest Resident? Ethnicity Orientation 1888 Ivan Volians’kyi no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1888 Nykolai Zubrytskŷi no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1889-1890 Konstantyn Andrukhovych no Ukrainian Ukrainian 1891 Havriyl Vislotskŷi no Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1891-1897 Teofan Obushkevych no Rusyn Old-Ruth./Russ. (from Olyphant) 1897-1902 Teofan Obushkevych no Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. (from Mayfield) 1902-1904 Jan Olszewski yes Polish Old-Ruthenian 1904-1906 Teofan Obushkevych ? Rusyn Old-Ruth./ Russ. 1906 Mykhal Mitro yes Rusyn Hung./Rusyn 1906-1911 Vladymyr Obushkevych yes Rusyn ? 1911-1913 Dmytro Khomiak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1913-1914 Fylymon Kysil’ovs’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1914 Lev Chapel’s’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1914-1915 Iosyf Bernats’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1915-1918 Vasyl’ Zholdak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1918-1919 Dmytro Khomiak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1919 B. Budnyk yes ? ? 1919-1921 Mefodii Nasveshchuk yes Ukr/Russ.? ? 1921-1922 Vasyl’ Hryvniak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1922-1923 Oleksandr Pelens’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1923-1925 Dmytro Kryshka yes Ukrainian ? 1925-1931 Casimir Dudkowski yes Polish? ? 1931-1936 Lavrentii Zakrevs’kyi yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1936-1937 Vasyl’ Zholdak yes Ukrainian Ukrainian 1937-1950 Mefodii Nasveshchuk yes Ukr/Russ.? ? The Brotherhood of Saint Basil was established in 1892, and in the course of ten years it made a transition in its fraternal affiliation from the GCU to the RBO. Since the Simpson community did not have a church of its own, the Brotherhood was the overwhelmingly dominant unifier of the community. Although Simpson was among the oldest Rusyn

The 1905 cornerstone of SS. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church, “Russkaia Gr. Kaf. Tserkov’”/ “Russian Gr. Cath. Church”.

settlements in Pennsylvania, the community did not establish its own church in the town until 1904. Affiliated most closely with the Mayfield church until then, it is perhaps natural that the Simpson community would establish an Orthodox parish, since the Mayfield parish entered the Orthodox Church in 1902. But the community became divided when they resolved to establish their own church in Simpson. A “religious struggle,” as it was described in the history of the original St. Basil’s lodge of the RBO (“Bratstvo sv. Vasiliia Velikoho” in Dzvonchik 54-55), temporarily broke the unity of the community. One faction established a Russian Orthodox parish, also named for Saint Basil the Great, and formed a new RBO lodge, and the other faction, which remained with the original lodge, chartered a Greek Catholic parish named for Saints Peter and Paul. It is notable that the Orthodox Church’s cornerstone was laid on September 18, 1904 and the Greek Catholic church’s charter was issued on September 19. The Saints Peter and Paul Greek Catholic parish showed an early inclination towards the Old-Ruthenian or Russophile position when in 1910 it was among the “Greek Catholic Russian (Galician)” parishes that, while not sending a delegate to the congress of Uhro-Rusyn Greek Catholic Parishes in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, would agree to the decisions of the church congress (Protokol [Zapisnica], 5). Within the Greek Catholic parish, there were three primary groupings. The largest group was composed of those who considered themselves “Galicians,” who were from the Lemko Region. The second largest group were the “Uhorshchane,” those who had come from Hungary, namely the village of Habura in Zemplín County and a few from Sulin in Spiš County. The term “Haburchane” was also used to refer generally to the Subcarpathian segment of parishioners (Interview with John Onufrak). Both these groups were well represented in the RBO and GCU lodges. The third group, smallest in number, were those who considered themselves Ukrainians. These people were members of the UNA lodge in Simpson, and it is interesting to note that the 1944 history of this lodge counts forty Ukrainian families in Simpson from the counties of Zbarazh, Kolomyia, Ternopil’, and Przemyśl. Unlike the histories of virtually every other UNA lodge in Pennsylvania communities, no mention was made of the huge number of Lemko Rusyns or the Rusyns from Hungary, nor were they included in the count (Myshuha 733). What were the factors by which the Rusyns did not accept a Ukrainian identity, but even Ukrainians themselves in the town did not consider those people to be Ukrainians? Religion, the presence of a Greek Catholic parish under Ukrainian jurisdiction, did not seem at all to be an influence in Simpson. Most likely it was the fifteen years the community was not denominationally divided, plus the influence of the Old-Ruthenian and Russophile clergy in Mayfield.

Traditional Rusyn culture was maintained in the Greek Catholic parish despite its affiliation with the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Male parishioners continued the particularly Subcarpathian Rusyn “iaslychkary” dress and custom of house-to-house Christmas caroling as late as the 1970s.

Though both parishes were primarily Russophile in orientation, even the St. Basil’s Russian Orthodox Church resisted complete cultural russification. Parishioners wore their native traditional Lemko dress for the 1941 performance of an “Old Country Wedding.”

The local Rusyn community, while divided on religious grounds, was united in spirit in an ethnonational sense (“Bratstvo sv. Vasiliia Velikoho”). Parishioners of both churches were members of the Russian American Patriotic Club in town. Colloquially, the people of Simpson would refer to both parishes as “the Russian church,” even though Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church was officially Ukrainian Catholic (Interview with Mary Onufrak). Even today, the Russian Brotherhood Organization’s St. Basil’s lodge is still active in the parish, and parishioners, upon hearing of my study of their parish’s history, encouraged me

to “do our Russian people proud!” Although both Orthodox and Greek Catholic segments of this Rusyn community have consistently referred to themselves as Russians, even the St. Basil Russian Orthodox Church resisted cultural Russification to a greater degree than did some other Russian Orthodox Rusyn communities. Parish plays were presented with parishioners in authentic Lemko Rusyn folk dress rather than Ukrainian or Russian costumes, and many of the native liturgical chant melodies from Galicia were retained, unlike many other Orthodox parishes where the music was replaced entirely with Russian choral music.

Cover of the 2005 centennial booklet of SS. Peter and Paul parish.

The Greek Catholic parish persists in its Russophile, or at least generally non-Ukrainian perspective. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary in 2005, the parish still retained the name “Greek Catholic Church” rather than “Ukrainian Catholic Church” and in fact is the only parish in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States to still do so. Its centennial history booklet referred not to any national identity but only geographic origin: “…newcomers began settling in the town of Simpson… Many came from Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia, while others left their homes in the Ukraine and the southwestern part of the Carpathian Mountain Region” (100th Jubilee Celebration 23).

Primary Clergy Orientation: Old-Ruthenian, Russian;

later Ukrainian Primary Fraternal Orientation: Russian, Rusyn

Primary Community Orientation: Russian Conclusion In terms of religious denomination, the five communities have had different histories. Only one, Shamokin, never suffered a schism and to this day remains a Greek Catholic parish as it was founded. The oldest parish, Shenandoah, had a minor schism. Olyphant, the largest community, divided twice, resulting in a small Russian Orthodox parish and a more significant parallel Greek Catholic parish (of Russian orientation), which eventually also became Orthodox, leaving the original Greek Catholic community still the largest of the five analyzed here. The Mayfield community converted en masse to Orthodoxy, leaving no Greek Catholic presence in the town whatsoever. The Simpson community, existing for fifteen years without its own church, formed two separate churches within days of each other, one Greek Catholic and one Russian Orthodox, but this did not divide the community on regional grounds, ethnically or ideologically. The largest Greek Catholic parishes, Shamokin and Olyphant, also had the strongest Ukrainian orientation, although overall, the orientation of the Olyphant parish, with its larger Subcarpathian Rusyn membership and strong non-Ukrainian fraternals, is decidedly mixed. The presence of two Russian-oriented Rusyn churches in the same community could also account for the polarization of identities within the original parish between the Russophile or Rusyn camps and the Ukrainian. We have seen that in America emigrants from a single Rusyn village living in different communities did not necessarily follow the same course of ethnonational identity development. The need for further study of the complex events of this history is clear. What was the implication of membership in a particular fraternal society for a person’s own

ethnonational identity? Could one presume that membership in the UNA was an indicator that such a person considered himself to be Ukrainian? Could membership in the RBO be reason enough to suppose that a person was a Russophile? There are many cases of individuals who were members of both organizations, and perhaps other fraternals as well. What did a person’s educational background and social standing contribute to the direction in which his ethnonational identity developed? Another useful course of research could be to trace the parallel development of ethnonational identity in the European villages from which these immigrants came. However, there is clear evidence showing the influence of clergy and the activity of fraternal organizations on the course of ethnonational development in these Rusyn communities in northeastern Pennsylvania. Taken together, these factors were more significant than religious affiliation alone. 1 A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 18 Apr. 1998. 2 With the outbreak of World War I, hundreds of persons in the Lemko Region were arrested by the Hapsburg authorities on suspicion of possible collaboration with the advancing tsarist Russian Army. 3 Here it will be identified as RNS when discussing the early years of the organization (1894-1914) and as UNA elsewhere. 4 Information on reading rooms is from Shematyzm Vseho Klyra hreko-katolycheskoho eparkhii soiedynenŷkh Peremyskoy, Sambôrskoy y Sianôtskoy na rôk vôd rozhd. Khr. 1909 and Shematyzm hreko-katolytskoho dukhoven’stva Apostol’skoï Administratsiï Lemkovshchyny 1936.

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