Manitoba East European Historical Society Churches Project , - - PDF document

Manitoba East European Historical Society Churches Project , 1986-1991

Directors: Basil Rotoff, Roman Yereniuk, Stella Hryniuk, University of Manitoba Rationale for the Project:

The architectural history and spiritual fate of Byzantine- style churches in Manitoba was a major concern that united the three academics at the University of Manitoba who undertook this project - Basil Rotoff, City Planning: Stella Hryniuk, History and Roman Yereniuk, Religion and

• Theology. We were interested in various aspects of the material history

contained in these prominent and beautiful buildings throughout the province of Manitoba .We were being contacted by community members , as were appropriate municipal and provincial government agencies, about such matters as historical designation, maintenance and

• ther matters regarding churches, mainly Ukrainian churches. It

appeared that such concerns were receiving little attention from governmental authorities. The main issues in the early 1980’s included:

• 1. abandoned church buildings - what was to be done with them?
• 2. fires were taking their toll on churches, especially those empty

and abandoned structures -three churches had burned down in a short span of time in this period

• 3. some church communities were making decisions to abandon and

destroy older churches and to erect more modern ones(e.g. Portage La Prairie’s Ukr. Cath. Parish – one of Phillip Ruh’s churches)

• 4. vandalism of church buildings and the issue of security
• 5. church communities with major building complexes surrounding

the church building itself were concerned about the fate of cemeteries, narodni domy/prosvity and bell towers should the church be closed or abandoned

• 6. some parishes were seeking designations by the federal and/or

provincial governments of their churches as historical sites , and were enquiring about what constituted a heritage building, about the process leading to designation, and related matters. All;three of us had research as well as personal interests in these issues. So we decided jointly to take some action to examine the growing concerns, and the project was our response. Five years of intense work for all of us followed from this decision –communicating with church groups, doing library and field research, and writing. The fact that 1988 was to be the year of celebration of the Millenium of Christianity in Ukraine played an important role in the outcome of our

• project. Many Manitoba communities were making application to

provincial government agencies for projects to commemorate that year. Requests came largely from Ukrainian church communities, and the government was unable to support proposals that were faith -based in

• nature. As the department concerned with architectural history knew of
• ur group’s work, some of their officials approached us with the idea of

commissioning our group to produce a book about the church architectural tradition of Ukrainians in Manitoba. They would subsequently support our research, writing and publication of the book with a substantial grant, and with expertise, all of which we much appreciated.

Preparing for Data Collection

1) Application for funds to hire students – we were able to get summer programme grants which permitted us to hire four or five students each year for three years to assist with the project 2) In light of the fact that in 1985 – 6 the Manitoba government was doing a preliminary inventory of Ukrainian churches, we consulted with officials in the departments concerned in order to better define the parameters of our project, and to ascertain what assistance, financial and other, we could get from these departments for our project 3) Hiring and training of students by our team assisted by Government architectural experts for field work related to documentation of churches

Data Collection and Organization:

Goals 1) To identify all existing Ukrainian and other Byzantine style churches in the province 2) To create a documentation scheme for the interiors and exteriors

• f all such buildings and adjacent structures and cemeteries , and

to sketch significant features of a number of the churches 3) To write a book based on completed research 4) To create a data base of the research materials Outcomes Identification of 140 Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox churches and twenty additional East European churches in Manitoba Selection of eighty churches for documentation taking into account the wide distribution of Ukrainian settlements in the province , the condition of the churches, prominent artistic and architectural features Thorough documentation of forty church complexes and incomplete but extensive (50 to 75%) documentation of the other forty A Typical Church File Typical documentation of a church included:

• 1. 200 slides of interior, exterior, churchyard, and of every artifact

(candelabras, icons, chalices diskos, Gospels, liturgical books, etc.)

• 2. Architectural checklist survey - based on federal government

inventory of buildings

• 3. Survey checklist of the site - created by our group
• 4. Oral history of available church members was done if possible,

especially of Ruh churches

• 5. Contact sheets showing 200 black and white photos for each

completed church.

• 6. Selected colour photos were taken of each church - approximately

twenty per file

• 7. Popular histories, brochures, booklets related to the given church –

(twenty five such histories are in our files)

• 8. Architectural plans of church and grounds ( only received these from

6 churches.) Other materials acquired in the course of research were municipal maps of areas where project churches were located, and a map of Winnipeg on which all Ukrainian churches are identified Process and Legacy of Project Field Work During the three years of having summer student assistance, a great deal of research and writing took place. The actual field work was done largely by students under our supervision. It consisted of the following: 1) Travel to the designated region of the province to determine the scope of work to be done 2) ) Finding accommodations and local assistance for the project 3) ) Photographing the churches and grounds 4) Finding oral history subjects and interviewing them 5) Compiling the materials into files 6) Reporting to the directors of the project, usually at two week intervals Library research , preparation of manuscript , publication of book,”Monuments to Faith: Ukrainian Churches in Manitoba.” In 1989, the University of Manitoba Press accepted the challenge of publishing the manuscript. Once it was known that we were to prepare a manuscript for publication, the number of meetings with government officials

increased, and library research and creation of drawings of prototype historical churches was undertaken by ourselves and our student assistants. Creation of drawings of ten Manitoba churches including elevations of north and south facades as well as side elevations (west to east) was needed for the publication as well. As a matter of information, most of the churches were of the traditional orientation. The placement of the domes was of special interest as was the floor plan. We took care to record the status of the bell towers, cemeteries, narodniy dim/prosvita, manse and other buildings in the religious- cultural complex of any given church. Preparation of the manuscript was a long drawn out task, naturally, due to the many stakeholders. The book was published in the spring of 1990. Data gathering and researching of churches effectively stopped at that point. Post-publication In 1993 the project was briefly re-visited due to our receiving a small grant for two summer students.In that period, seven new churches were documented and a number of church documentations in progress were completed bringing the number of documented churches to over fifty. Entire inventory of project was transferred for storage in the Faculty of Architecture Archives where it remains to the present. Some portions of the research materials were retained by the co-authors and are accessible to interested parties, with our permission 200 individual files on each church) and 6 boxes of slides (total slides - 5500). Also approximately 1000 pictures. The three of us are now contemplating where to place this collection so that it could be accessed by researchers. Another issue is to complete the collection of Manitoba churches.

Accomplishments:

• 1. Documentation of more than half of Manitoba Ukrainian

churches has been done, some completely, using our group’s scheme for that documentation

• 2. “Monuments to Faith: Ukrainian Churches in Manitoba “, was

published and reprinted a number of times in the past eighteen years, and is now out of print. It has been a popular resource for laypeople and specialists alike. Our group has assisted several parishes with insurance issues especially where property appraisals were too low. Our research materials provided for them ready evidence of holdings

• 3. Our group assisted parishes with preparation of publications for

their anniversaries or other celebratory events. For example , the walking tour pamphlet for the Church of the Resurrection in Dauphin was written by S. Hryniuk and is used extensively by tourists who come to see the church during visits to Dauphin during the National Ukrainian Festival each August

• 4. At least one church in Manitoba has been saved from demolition

(Holy Resurrection Ukr. Cath. in Dauphin) . Unfortunately our efforts were not sufficient to stave off the demolition of thePortage La Prairie Ukr. Cath. However, we were able to record on video, photographs and slides, the bulk of the icons in the church and the interior and exterior views of the structure in the final weeks prior to its destruction. We obtained information regarding the actions of several parish families who “rescued” some of the wall icons especially those at the floor level of the church. A number of years later one (the icon of the Resurrection) was presented as gift to Roman Yereniuk who subsequently donated it to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. We attracted considerable interest in the press over the period of time and were interviewed several times. 5.

Slide presentation for Edmonton Conference:

Note that the slides and the whole presentation material are dated as this material was used as a promotion of our project in the 1980’s (we did approx. 25 showings) We have also on hand one file – that of the Church of the Holy Resurrection in Dauphin.