Totally agree! We travelled faithfully from Two Hills to Ridna Shkola around 1968–74. The pieces fell into place for me when I lived in Ukraina (1990s) and did my M.A. in Cultural Studies at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Certainly the community profile has changed greatly, as has the fundamental picture since nominal independence. Now I am not so concerned about inculcating my own children. But still there are fascinating new discoveries and developments, e.g., “Zemlia-Nanaskomun” and “Ancestors & Elders” (for which I urged Shumka to give you a deserved shout-out). Onwards!

Thanks for this, J-P. Ohrid did not invent the wheel, so to speak. Do you know whether his “template” included still some letters of the Glagolitic alphabet?

You’re welcome. There will be a quiz when I see you next in Saskatoon.

Thank you, Yvonne. Ohrid is a UNESCO heritage site, for the obvious reason that it contains within its old city precincts a stunning group of churches and monasteries whose frescoes and mosaics represent a real treasury of 10th to 14th century Byzantine spirituality. Unfortunately, the tacky post-Yugoslav town that has mushroomed around it severely dampened my enthusiasm the last time I visited, in 2011. I am so grateful I was able to visit the churches in an earlier, quieter time. But it still says to visitors: “Come, see.”

Hello Tony, I’m delighted you found this post (but how?) and that it struck a chord or two. I too studied Russian as a university major in the late 1960s but never used it once I decided to learn Ukrainian, my grandparents’ language. I’ve been in Russia only for a few hours, back in the bitter winter of 1991 (I had flown in from Belgrade where the Yugo wars had started) to change flights from Moscow to Kyiv. A staff member of the Canadian Embassy walked me around Red Square and then we went for coffee in a swank hotel. That’s it. But continued travels around the Balkans brought me to the Byzantine heritage of the Slavic Orthodox peoples. Be sure to take your son(s) into an Orthodox church during Divine Liturgy!

Many thanks, Ksenia, for this eloquent response. I don’t know old you are but I was going to Ridna Shkola (Saturday School) in the mid-1950s and it took me several decades of travel in eastern Europe and the Balkans, not to mention Istanbul/Constantinople, to begin to understand the context of what some of our earnest teachers and clergy were trying to get us to appreciate: that Ukrainian-Canadians didn’t fall out of the blue Alberta sky but were being formed already back in 988 when Rus was baptised and entered the Byzantine Commonwealth. Like you, though, I wish there had more of this historic contextualization and less of the (understandably) defensive posture as an ethnic minority in Canada. However, there are several more generations already in the mix and I look forward to how they will tell the story.