Landmark church marks its 40th anniversary (08/25/02)

Landmark church marks its 40th anniversary

by Andrew Nynka

JEWETT, N.Y. - When St. John the Baptist Church was first built, local newspapers recognized it as a unique and significant piece of wooden architecture. Even today town historians continue to comment that it stands out as a distinctive example of Ukrainian culture, a shrine to human rights and a symbol of Ukrainian freedom.

Over its 40-year existence the church complex has played host to concerts, art exhibits, an active Ukrainian community and curious tourists. It is, quite simply, a focal point of the community. But what makes the story of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church - which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary - more interesting is that, by the fate of a coin toss, it might never have been built.

From the time construction on the church began in the early 1960s to when it was completed in the 1980s the Ukrainian community around the church grew. Parishioners gathered at the 40th anniversary celebration on August 4 said Ukrainians had been drawn to the area for several reasons. And the church they built symbolizes a place from which Ukrainians emigrated and a land that many missed.

Immigrants who found work in New York City longed for their native homeland and many, said historian Lubow Wolynetz, found something similar in New York's Catskill Mountains half a century ago, when the first Ukrainian families moved here.

But, Mrs. Wolynetz said, Ukrainians were also drawn to the area by Olha and Volodymyr Kobziar who, having purchased a house together with another Ukrainian family only several hundred yards from the future site of the church began to persuade friends from New York City to visit. The Kobziars are widely recognized as the first Ukrainian family in the area.

According to Mrs. Kobziar, who recently spoke with The Weekly, the area had a very educational atmosphere and the family encouraged friends and children to vacation with them. Often, said Mrs. Kobziar, the family would entertain 30 people in their house. Their original home had five small bedrooms and no heat or electricity.

Talk of Hunter as a slice of the Carpathians in the Catskills began to spread in New York City's Ukrainian community, and more families began buying houses here.

Ukrainians who vacationed in Hunter could stay at the "Kobziarivka" - a motel called Xenia which was opened by the Kobziar family directly across from their home. As the Ukrainian community grew, Mrs. Wolynetz said, so did the need for a church.

But much of this, said Mrs. Wolynetz - a curator and librarian/archivist at the Ukrainian Museum and Library at the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Conn., and curator of the folk art collection at The Ukrainian Museum in New York - might never have happened.

The Kobziars and the second family who together initially purchased a home came to loggerheads and had to decide who would stay and who would go. "We both wanted the home. It seemed reasonable to flip for it," Mrs. Kobziar said. So they did.

Forty years later, over 230 parishioners and guests, along with town representatives from Jewett, Lexington and Hunter, and Bishop Basil Losten of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, listened to statements read at the celebration of the founding of St. John the Baptist Church. Mrs. Wolynetz reminded them of the coin toss and how the church's construction was the logical result of a growing Ukrainian community.

As celebrations continued over lunch, speeches and music, a large turnout of children seemed content to play under the searing mid-day sun, while every so often the roar of passing motorcycle bands overpowered the celebrations and drew what seemed to be disapproving nods. The sight was a reminder of the area's cultural contrast - not quite the Carpathian Mountains of home.

But the celebration also noted the people instrumental in building the traditional timber block church structure. The church's design - a style of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountain highlander Hutsul and Boyko regions - was an amalgam of several minds, Mrs. Wolynetz said.

Under the leadership and guidance of Dr. Ivan Makarevych, who donated the land for the church project, sculptor Jaroslaw Paladij built a preliminary scale model of the church, for which architect Ivan Zhukowsky drew up the necessary construction drawings. Master carpenter Jurij Kostiw, who in his early years was trained by experienced carpenters in his native Boyko region of Ukraine in the art of building blockwork churches, became the master builder of the church.

The church itself is a 61-foot-high three-frame structure, built of 7 1/2-by-12-inch cedar logs imported from British Columbia. The logs are laid horizontally one on top of the other and secured with wooden pegs.

Asked about the possibility of designating the church as a landmark building, Karen Deeter, town historian for Lexington, said: "If there's anything that could be and should, the church should. It is a precious piece of property and one which the community values."

When the church's foundation was laid in 1961, local papers recognized it as the only Ukrainian Greek-Catholic church of its kind in the United States.

The structures on St. John the Baptist Church grounds include a gate, grazhda (parish hall), parsonage and belfry, which houses a 2,000-pound bell from Italy and a second one from Holland. According to church officials, structures of the whole architectural complex were financed by Ukrainian immigrants.

Mrs. Wolynetz said the church, built completely of cedar logs, can last hundreds of years with renovations needed only to the roof. She added that "we know this because of the churches in Ukraine which have been around for many years."

During the 40th anniversary celebrations Bishop Losten called the church "a gem." He said it is "a beautiful Carpathian-style church here in the [Catskill] Mountains."

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