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A New Spiritual and Cultural Home for Rusyn Immigrants in Metro New York City � In a Most Unexpected Place
By Richard D. Custer (Washington, DC)
Originally published in the New Rusyn Times (Pittsburgh, Pa.),
November/December 2004

It is fairly well known that very few of our Rusyn communities have had the benefit of being reinvigorated by the arrival of new immigrants; this is one thing that distinguishes our American communities from our neighboring ethnic communities, especially those of the Ukrainians, who in many places have received many new immigrants over the past decade.

However, there are a few Rusyn communities in the U.S. who have had some new immigration. Foremost among them is the still-growing Rusyn community in metropolitan New York City, centered around the East Village in Manhattan (mainly Lemko Rusyns from Poland) and Brooklyn (mainly Rusyns from Slovakia).

Brooklyn has long been a focal point of Rusyn immigrant settlement. A number of waves of immigrants brought at times fully half the population of the Rusyn villages around Star� Ľubovňa, Slovakia to New York: Litmanova, Orjabyna, Kamjunka, Krempach, and Sulyn. The latest �wave� began around 1989 and has continued to the present. Unlike previous waves, the latest wave describes itself as Slovak, but for the most part they continue to associate with the Rusyns from their villages who preceded them.

Of this newest wave, the churchgoers among them primarily became members of one of two parish communities in the city: St. Nicholas Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church on East 10th Street in Manhattan (especially those from Orjabyna), and St. Mary�s Byzantine Catholic Chapel on 34th Street in Brooklyn (especially those from Litmanova and Kamjunka). Gradually these communities are changing due to the migration of some of the immigrants to New Jersey (especially around Manville, Whitehouse Station, and Flemington) with more recent immigrants taking their place, with many families in each parish having seen several generations baptized, married, and buried in the same parish.

St. Mary�s Chapel was a beacon to the immigrant Rusyns: under the care of its longtime pastor, the Liturgy was served regularly in Church Slavonic, the homily was given in Rusyn, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Epistle and Gospel readings were actually in Rusyn vernacular, using the translations published in Slovakia by the well-known Rusyn spiritual leader, Father Franti�ek Krajnjak of Med�ilabirci.

However, the abrupt closure of St. Mary�s Chapel in 2000 dispersed that community. Many of them, as immigrants from Slovakia with a �Slovak� identity (though ethnically Rusyn and speaking Rusyn as their first language), began attending the Roman Catholic Slovak parish of St. John Nepomucene in Manhattan; only a handful began attending the �mother church�, St. Mary�s Byzantine Catholic Church on East 15th Street in Manhattan. It seems that the majority, however, have found spiritual solace in their familiar Greek Catholic tradition at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church on 19th Street in Brooklyn, a neighborhood where many of these Rusyn immigrants live.

Although a Ukrainian parish, St. Nicholas Church has warmly welcomed them: its pastor, Father Mykhailo Dosiak, noticed that his church, for many years a small, dying parish, has been full almost every Sunday over the last few years since St. Mary�s Chapel was closed. Upon learning that the newcomers were mainly from Slovakia, he began serving the Divine Liturgy not solely in Ukrainian but partially or entirely in Church Slavonic, enabling both the Ukrainians and the �Slovaks� to fully participate. St. Nicholas parish hall has since been the site of many �Slovak� social activities (a Valentine�s dance and a majales May dance) organized by this immigrant Rusyn community, as well as wedding receptions. In fact, the American Slovak-language press is now carrying announcements about �St. Nicholas Slovak Greek Catholic Church of Brooklyn.� The Slovak-American press is also reporting that the community requested a �Slovak priest� from Bishop Jan Babjak of Pre�ov during his visit to the 2003 Slovak Heritage Festival in New Jersey (that many of these Rusyns attend).

An event that was set up to bring these two �communities� in St. Nicholas Church together was a festival called �Day of Ukrainian-Slovak Culture� on April 15. Oddly, in the Ukrainian Catholic press�s reporting of this festival it was noted that these new �Slovak� parishioners are �former Ukrainians who moved to Slovakia and called themselves Rusyns.� (Sivach/The Sower, 30 May 2004) How strange it is that this same newspaper that within the past three years referred on numerous occasions to Bishops Pavel Gojdič and Vasyl� Hopko as Ukrainians, is now conceding (and promoting) a Slovak identity for these people that they admit are Rusyns (i.e., Ukrainians). It seems an odd change of policy that by a parish�s hospitality (which is laudable) they are enabling the assimilation of their �fellow Ukrainians� into a Slovak identity.

Having previously visited the former St. Mary�s Chapel and being personally acquainted with some members of this community, I decided to pay a visit to St. Nicholas Church on Sunday, September 19 and attended the parish Divine Liturgy. What I found was nothing short of incredible.

I met Father Mykhailo before the Liturgy and spoke with him for a few minutes. I told him I was the editor of a Rusyn-American publication and that had heard that his parish had become home to a community of immigrants from Slovakia. At first he replied to me and described the story of this �Slovak community� coming to his parish. When I gently suggested that they were not really Slovaks, but Rusnaks-Rusyns-he cheerfully agreed. And he was delighted that I might be writing about his parish in our newsletter. More than anything, he seemed grateful that this community had become a part of his parish, and like a true spiritual leader, his first concern seemed to be to do whatever he could to serve them according to their needs.

And this he has done. The first half of the Liturgy was sung entirely in Church Slavonic, and the Subcarpathian Rusyn chant (prostopinije) was sung just as I remembered from St. Mary�s Chapel years before, in the distinctive melodies of northern Spi�. The Ukrainian parishioners sang along, but the voices of the Rusyns (who were perhaps 75% or more of those in church) were unmistakably those of Litmanova and Kamjunka. I wondered how they might handle the Epistle and Gospel readings (which I expected would be in Ukrainian). Incredibly, a woman who appeared to be the cantor from the �Slovak� group opened the very Rusyn-language Epistles & Gospels book published by Father Krajnjak in Slovakia, and chanted the Epistle in Rusyn! For whatever Slovak identity they have assumed, their Rusyn spirit lives on-and thrives!�in this otherwise Ukrainian environment.

The Gospel reading, homily, and the second half of the Liturgy were mainly in Ukrainian, and the singing then also changed to the Galician/Ukrainian chant (samoilka), but our Rusyn people there sang just as powerfully even with the different melodies, even in the Ukrainian language. My fears about this parish further assimilating our people were unfounded � indeed, they were able to be as Rusyn here, or even more so, than they could be in any American Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic parish or even in their own churches back in Slovakia, where a change in priest can mean the end of readings in Rusyn and perhaps even the wholesale changeover to Slovak for the entire Liturgy.

The Greek Catholics of Brooklyn�s immigrant Rusyn community have been fortunate to find a new spiritual home and community base at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church. It remains to be seen if and how immigrant Rusyns in other urban centers where they have settled (e.g., northeast New Jersey, Cleveland, Yonkers, and Chicago) are able to maintain their identity, religion, and close-knit village-based community in the �new world.�