The 1930s would hold more tests for
the church with an economic depression that would grip the
country. Through dust, poor harvests and joblessness, communities
found new ways to help each other and to feed those passing
their gates. The old saying "Khrista radi" (to
give 'for the sake of Christ' ) took on new Canadian meaning
during the Depression.
New parishes were even
built in these years, such as Ss. Peter and Paul Parish
in St. Walberg, St. Michael's Church, Montmartre and St.
John the Baptist Church, Endeavour. In 1934 the Canadian
bishopric consisted of sixty-seven parishes, with thirty-four
priests and two deacons; as it was divided into six deaneries
by province, extending from Quebec to British Columbia.
There was also the prayerful
presence of new monastic endeavour at Bluffton, Alberta.
A skete in the rural heartland was formed there in 1933
by Bishop IOSAF. Its first Igumen was Hieromonk Ilia. The
buildings were constructed from the wood of its own surrounding
trees on its 240 acres, with the church built in 1937. Various
monks lived there, including a brother, Platon (Kustov)
who was in Valamo Monastery. As one writer described it,
many tears of repentance have been poured out there. In
time, it would become a women's monastery.
Ss. Peter and Paul Church, St. Walberg
 The
Parish of Ss. Peter and Paul, St. Walburg, Saskatchewan
was formed on June 29/July 12, 1933. Their founding document,
carefully written and marked with a cross, lay beneath their
altar until 2003, when those tidying the church noticed
"something" seemed to be lying under the altar.
It was this document, of which there were several more pages.
Donations were collected from within the community and many
non-Orthodox donated. Especially generous was the Jewish
merchant, J. Segal and R. Musch, another businessman. Some
donated what they had: a can of biscuits and another, some
pillow slips.
Unknown Russian
Pioneers
Caroline, Alberta: After
40 years the walls chinked with moss on the outside and
covered on the inside with “Russian plaster”
– mud and straw mixed by the hoofs of plodding horses
– stand as strong as the will of the refugees of
a revolution who sifted their coarse home-ground flour
for two purposes: what went through the sifter was used
for making bread and what didn’t, was for porridge.
Near the strange dwelling
in the small clearing is a dilapidated log structure which
was the bath house, where the five persons, two married
couples and a bachelor, cleansed their weary bodies in
the warmth of the steam of water poured on hot rocks.
“The women were
good cooks and the men were hard workers and real gentlemen,”
remembered a neighbour…The story is that the refugees
of the Russian upper class, reached Canada via China.
They settled on land near Caroline, 38 miles west of Innisfail.
“The White Russians built a remarkable home,”
said Mrs. Sam Nelson, who lives on adjoining property
today. “We lived in it in the 1930s and it was still
in splendid shape. The plaster was like cement. It was
a real chisel job for us to make a hole for a stovepipe.”
 It
would be difficult to find a log home like it, for it
combined three apartments separated by swinging doors.
The refugees…cut logs on the spot, hauled them five
miles to a sawmill, then five miles to a planer and another
five miles back, as they spent two years building the
structure in a picturesque clearing on a hillside.
Although they broke only
five acres, they bought a section, which they fenced with
“willow boughs placed so tightly together that a
mouse couldn’t get through it.” They made
their own furniture and they made their own brooms from
twigs…. “I never saw anybody with such a garden
up to 14 tons of potatoes from a small garden plot.”They
had no stock, only the two old plugs of horses and a wagon.
Their larder was skimpy and their chief food was borsch…."
The peacefulness of the
clearing, the singing of the birds and the rustling of
the trees…One leaves rather reluctantly, nursing
pleasant thoughts of the tranquility of a lighted lamp
in a farm house window in the still of the night. Calgary
Herald, 1 January 1962
|
