CANADA COURIER: Where there is hope... (01/14/96)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

Where there is hope...

OTTAWA - Members of a Ukrainian Orthodox community in Ottawa are raising money to reunite an 88-year-old priest with his two sons believed killed during the second world war 53 years ago.

This summer, the Rev. George Pokrowsky learned that his sons, Constantine, now 57, and Evgenii, now 58, are still alive and living in Ukraine. The last time the retired priest saw them was in 1942, when he was in charge of a railway section in Ukraine.

Thirty-five years old at the time and not yet a priest, the then-engineer was also responsible for a cache of weapons used by Ukrainian partisans during the war. With the Ukrainian police on his tail, Mr. Pokrowsky fled but was later picked up by the German Gestapo, who sent him to a labor camp in the Kiel area, near the Danish border. After the British liberated the camp, Mr. Pokrowsky remained, where he worked on building hydroelectric facilities until 1948.

All the while, he wondered about the fate of his family.

What Mr. Pokrowsky didn't know was that his wife, Natalia, and their two sons and a daughter, Vitalia (then 13), hid in the basement of a building destroyed by the Nazis. But when Mrs. Pokrowsky tried to help a wounded Soviet soldier who had fallen near the entrance to their hiding spot, she was shot dead by a German soldier.

The children survived, thanks to a German soldier who prevented the first one from bludgeoning Evgenni with a rifle butt. The 5-year-old had thrown himself across his mother's body and was moments away from meeting his end.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pokrowsky emigrated to Canada in 1948, where he found work on the construction of a dam on the Ottawa River. A descendant of a long line of priests, he, too, pursued the ministry and was ordained a priest in the Orthodox Church of America in 1958.

Remarried to another woman named Natalia - who died two years ago in Ottawa - the Rev. Pokrowsky served parishes in Montreal and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, before arriving in Ottawa in 1966.

Milly Kutowy, parish secretary of Holy Trinity Bukovynian Orthodox Cathedral in Ottawa, remembers that her father, who served as the first parish council president, tried to get the Rev. Pokrowsky to leave western Canada. "We needed to build a church and heard about this priest in Moose Jaw who was a great builder," she said. "My father finally convinced [former] Bishop Sylvester to send Father Pokrowsky to us."

Two years later, the Ukrainian-born priest built Holy Trinity and served as its pastor until 1983.

But ever since he arrived in Canada, the Rev. Pokrowsky attempted to find his family. As recently as June, the Ukrainian Red Cross wrote to the priest, effectively telling him to give up.

However, that same month, Dr. Tamara Vlasova, a retired Moscow surgeon whom Father Pokrowsky had met in 1994, returned to Russia for a visit. She found the answer to the aging priest's near-lifelong quest.

All three children were located in the former Soviet Union.

"My daughter lives in Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky [in the Russian Far East,'' explained the Rev. Pokrowsky in Ukrainian. "My sons live in Voroshylovhrad [now Luhanske]." He also discovered he has three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Advanced Parkinson's disease prevents the priest from making the journey to Ukraine for a reunion. As a result, friends are trying to raise money to bring the Rev. Pokrowsky's children to Ottawa.

His wartime mystery is over. And, seemingly, so is his secret.

"We never knew anything about his children," said Ms. Kutowy. "He never talked about them."

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Already flagged in The Ottawa Citizen, donations for the Father George (trust) Fund may be sent to: The Treasurer, St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, 55 Clarey Ave., Ottawa, Ontario KIF 2R6.

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