Architect Apollinare Osadca sponsors church in his native village in Ukraine (12/15/96)

Architect Apollinare Osadca sponsors church in his native village in Ukraine

by Khristina Lew

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - It was a poignant homecoming that brought a gifted architect's life full circle. This fall, on the eve of his 80th birthday, Apollinare Osadca returned to his native village of Voloshchyna in western Ukraine to survey the construction of a church built on the property that once embraced his ancestral home.

The red-brick facade of Laying the Vestments of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church rises imposingly on a slight incline. The skeleton of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic church's cupola remains protected by scaffolding. A wooden cupola rests on a patch of grass in the church yard.

On October 6, the ailing Mr. Osadca, who designed many Ukrainian Catholic churches in the United States, and his wife, Tania, visited the nearly completed church that Osadca family donations built.

The Osadcas were welcomed by the tens of villagers who are building the church with their own hands. Young children greeted them with bread and salt, while elders presented them with bouquet after bouquet of fall flowers.

The parish priest, the Rev. Roman, recited a poem in honor of the Osadcas, thanking the church's benefactors for "not forgetting your native land, the land over which your boyish feet ran." Village elders then escorted Mr. Osadca into the church for a divine liturgy.

Mr. Osadca was born in the village of Voloshchyna in the Pidhaitsi area of western Ukraine in 1916. On November 12, he celebrated his 80th birthday. The boyhood home he shared with his parents, Evdokia and Kornel Osadca, a mayor of Voloshchyna, once stood where the Laying the Vestments of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church now rises.

He studied at the Lviv Polytechnical Institute in 1935-1941 and worked as an architect in Lviv and later in New York. He designed many buildings in the United States, including several Ukrainian Catholic churches: St. George in New York City, the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Astoria, N.Y., and St. Nicholas in Passaic, N.J. He is perhaps best known for St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Glen Spey, N.Y., where he lives.

Mr. Osadca also designed the Ukrainian National Home and St. Joseph Roman Catholic Cathedral in Hartford, Conn., and the opera building and campus building at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. He was one of the architects who worked on the Ukrainian National Association building in Jersey City, N.J.

The idea to build a church in his native village came shortly after Ukraine declared its independence. Mr. Osadca was unable to design the church by himself - a local architect was employed; instead he and his wife, an artist in her own right, decided to purchase the building materials. Construction of the church, which was scheduled to be completed by next spring, has slowed down due to lack of funds.

Mr. Osadca fell gravely ill after his 10-day trip to Ukraine and was hospitalized. He greeted his 80th birthday from a hospital bed. His family prays that he will be able to return to Voloshchyna in the spring to witness the blessing of the completed church. For more information about the Laying the Vestments of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Voloshchyna, contact Tania Demchuk, (703) 978-8798.