Redemptorists' work restored Slavic faith

By adopting their familiar language and rite, devoted priests kept immigrants Catholic

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Had it not been for the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, popularly called Redemptorists, perhaps thousands of Slavic immigrants would have left the Church or would have been lost to other Christian churches during the early 20th century.

Seeing that Slovak and Ukrainian immigrants were leaving the Church in droves because they didn't have priests who could serve them in their language, the Redemptorists adopted the Byzantine rite and preached to the immigrants in their own language.

"The major contribution of the Redemptorists was that (when they saw) that the vast majority of Ukrainian and Slovaks were leaving the Catholic Church in disgust at the Catholic Church's inability to recognize their language and rights, they began to preach to them in their own language and helped them create not just religious organizations, but cultural organizations," noted Paul Laverdure.

Laverdure is the author of the recently-published Redemption and Ritual, an official history of the Eastern rite Redemptorists of North America - 1906-2006.

Cultural identity preserved

"The Redemptorists participated in the establishment of such things as schools and halls for cultural events. They were foremost in helping to establish those organizations and helped preserve their cultural identity. The Redemptorists, just by being there, maintained the membership of so many of those Catholics."

Laverdure, a father of two and currently a librarian at the University of Sudbury, wrote Redemption and Renewal (Redeemer Voice Press; 419 pages) at the request of the Yorkton, Sask.-based Redemptorists.

Years of preparation

In preparation, he spent one evening a week for two years in Yorkton sitting with elementary school children in a basement learning the Ukrainian alphabet and speaking half-formed simple sentences. For four years he also established and organized the Redemptorists' Yorkton Archives.

"The Redemptorists, I am more and more convinced, amply illustrate the way Catholics have shaped Canada and how they, the Redemptorists, have shaped Catholics - French, English and Eastern European - in Canada," he says.

Illustrated with dozens of photographs, Redemption and Ritual contains the stories of many of the religious priests and brothers who worked among eastern European immigrants, including Father Achilles Delaere, a Latin-rite Redemptorist who joined the eastern rite to serve Slavic immigrants.

In the early 20th century, immigrants from Eastern Europe began to move to North America in search of a better life. Thousands settled in the boundless plains of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Spiritual orphans

Many of these immigrants were Catholic but not Roman. They were Ruthenians. Most of them were Ukrainians, some Slovaks. The life of these pioneers was difficult in the beginning. They not only had to battle adverse forces of nature but also spiritual abandonment.

Paul Laverdure

In their homeland the lives of these immigrants revolved around the parish church. But in North America they felt deprived of spiritual care, as they had no priests who spoke their language or churches of their own.

The Roman Catholic bishops of Western Canada appealed to the Belgian Redemptorists, who had missions in Eastern Canada, to care for the various Slavic peoples immigrating to Canada.

The order appointed the energetic Father Achille Delaere, who had been ordained in 1896, to the task of caring for the Slavs in Western Canada.

After months of study of the Slavic languages, Delaere and Father Joseph Coppin, also a Redemptorist, left for Canada. By October 1899, Delaere had arrived in Brandon, Man. He established a Redemptorist house there and without delay he put himself to work in his new field.

St. Gerard's Monastery

In 1904 he established St. Gerard's Monastery in Yorkton to care for the large Polish and Ukrainian population on the prairies of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

It soon became obvious to him how much the Ukrainians around the Brandon area were in need of religious attention. But the job presented some difficulties, one being the fact Delaere belonged to the Latin rite. The Ukrainians were very suspicious of him and many refused his services.

"In the Yorkton area, despite Delaere's brave words, 500 Ukrainian families had refused to accept him," writes Laverdure. "The fact was Delaere spoke Polish and was correctly believed to be trying to have the Ukrainian Catholics join with the Roman Catholics."

Byzantine rite adopted

In 1906, convinced that Greek Catholics, Ruthenians and later Ukrainian Catholics required services in their own language and rite, he persuaded his superiors to allow him to adopt the Byzantine rite, to preach in Ukrainian and to use Old Slavonic instead of Latin as the liturgical language.

Having spent several months in preparatory study, Delaere celebrated Mass in the Byzantine Rite for the first time on Sept. 26, 1906.

"I think that the Redemptorists suffered, Delaere suffered, for several years before he proposed adopting the rite," Laverdure said in an interview.

"But he knew first hand that it would be much easier for a few priests to serve the immigrants in their own language and their own rite rather than demanding that a whole group of immigrants learn English or learn French and attend the Roman Catholic Church."

Over the years, the reputation of the Eastern-rite Redemptorists has grown large within the Church, to the point that their province "has been decimated by appointments to the episcopacy around the world, testifying to the confidence it commands in Roman circles," Laverdure writes.

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