Turning the pages back... April 4, 1897 (04/02/00)

Turning the pages back...

April 4, 1897

The Rev. Nestor Dmytriw (1863-1925) was a pioneering Ukrainian Catholic priest who emigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1895, becoming editor-in-chief of Svoboda in 1895-1897. In 1897 he was appointed by Canada's Department of the Interior to serve as an immigration agent. The cleric arrived in Winnipeg on April 4, 1897. Simultaneously he was tapped by Cardinal Sylvester Sembratovych to serve the Rusyn (as Ukrainians were then known) faithful in Canada.

In the Winnipeg immigration building, according to immigration historian Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, the Rev. Dmytriw "heard confessions, distributed communion and baptized children. Later he traveled to Terebowla, now Valley River, where he celebrated the first Rusyn-Ukrainian divine liturgy on Canadian soil. ... [He] served as an immigration officer and interpreter for Canada's newly arrived Rusyns, all of whom were from Galicia and Bukovyna."

During his two years in Canada, the Rev. Dmytriw was the only Ukrainian Catholic priest in the country. He helped relocate immigrants to their homesteads, and provided spiritual guidance. He also organized parishes in Stuartburn, Terebowla, site of Canada's first Ukrainian Catholic chapel, and the Edna-Star area, where the first large Ukrainian church was built. Dr. Kuropas notes that in all the larger settlements visited by the Rev. Dmytriw "Crosses of Freedom" were erected in memory of the Ukrainians' arrival in Canada.

Source: "Ukrainian-American Citadel: The First One Hundred Years of the Ukrainian National Association" by Dr. Myron B. Kuropas. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1996.

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