In November 1886, the first Ukrainian Catholic church in the United States opened in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, to serve recent immigrants in their native language.
Miles away in McAdoo, other recent Ukrainian immigrants hoped for their own church someday. In the meantime, St. Michael the Archangel in Shenandoah was their only hope for keeping the Lord's Day holy.
This was years before cars.
“When they first arrived in McAdoo to mine coal ... in the late 1800s, there was no parish in McAdoo,” said Joe Krushinsky, a member of St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church in McAdoo. “So, every Sunday they would gather up their families and their picnic baskets and walk over the mountain to the only Ukrainian Catholic parish that was available.”
Ten miles there and back
Over the mountain and through the woods, they walked, probably at least 100 people, probably at least 10 miles there, 10 miles back, fellow St. Mary’s parishioner Paula Duda Holoviak said.
“This is after, as you know, working six days in the mines,” Holoviak said. “The church was just central to the lives of the people ... They didn't just go there to church and go home. The community got together. They would have meetings of (a) ... reading society. They would have activities for the kids, dance groups, all of this stuff. So, they would picnic, of course, or have food, and then they would come back.”
The descendants' walk
At 10 a.m. Saturday, for the seventh time, their descendants will walk - about 16 miles because they don’t take the direct line through the woods - from St. Michael’s to St. Mary’s to honor their ancestors and raise money for war-torn Ukraine.
Information on how to join the walk or contribute is available here.
The first walk happened in 2016 “as a tribute to our forebears and church founders,” with plans to repeat it five years later, Holoviak said. They did repeat it in 2021, but then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the walk turned into an annual event. Usually, about a dozen people participate.
Honoring 'the gift'
The walk carries deep meaning for Holoviak and Krushinsky.
“It's on two levels,” said Holoviak, whose Ukrainian roots date to her immigrant great-grandparents. “When we started it, it was very important to me to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors ... Just to thank them for giving us this gift of the church and the culture and all the things that we benefited from and the community.”
The war in Ukraine turned the walk into something even more personal.
“I mean, we just learned that a friend of ours was killed at the front lines,” Holoviak said. “His brother's here in the United States, so it's very personal ... We have friends, we have family, we have connections there. We've made new friends with new immigrants here. It's very, very personal this war, and you feel you want to do something, right? You want to do something. So, this is something that we can do.”
A time to reflect
Krushinsky sees the walk as a chance to reflect.
“Each time that I have done this, and it's seven now, I do it from beginning to end, and some years that have been more challenging than others,” he said. “But it just gives me such an incredible opportunity to reflect. I felt like I had a wonderful connection with my grandparents, and in a way, over the course of those hours and in that physical exertion, I get to revisit that in a way that I don't give myself time for most of other days of the year, and I am intentional about trying to.”
He posts pictures online as he walks.
“I want people not just to know that we're having a walk, but I want people to be mindful of what's going on in this part of the world, and hope that they recognize that we have an interest in how this turns out, and that will move them to the actions that they see fit,” he said. “And if that's contributing to this humanitarian fund, I'm going to be happy about that. But there are probably other ways that they can think of to act on it as well.”
'Some wonderful conversations'
Walkers don’t have to traverse the entire 16 miles, which takes about four hours.
“Anybody who wants to walk any portion of it is welcome to do so,” Krushinsky said. “I have found over these years that some pretty wonderful conversations happen. We don't give ourselves time for conversation, but if you're walking for four hours, you can kind of drift ahead and have a conversation with one person, drift back and have another one. And it's relaxed and plenty of fresh air, and it's pretty meaningful in that way.”
