Does this heading make you yawn? If so, I hear you. I do not mean that I hear you yawning. Rather, I understand that the average reader is not excited by the prospect of reading about parish picnics, canonical visitations, administrative regulations and pastoral letters.
Actually, pastoral letters can be interesting. I read them for the same reasons I read papal encyclicals and Supreme Court opinions: they are substantive, they stake out a position, and they are usually well-written. But not everyone shares this peculiar enthusiasm.
This is not to deny that the staff and editors of our religious press are diligent, industrious and creative. Putting together a periodical is no easy task and can be stressful as deadlines approach and contributors lag. “Printer’s devils” play tricks with format and graphics. And you generally don’t hear from your readers unless they are complaining.
So this is not going to be a complaint. A comparison, however, might be instructive. For several years, probably for demographic reasons, I received a large-format bilingual English-Russian newspaper titled Ariel, published by the Chabad Lubavitch Russian Jewish mission in Baltimore. Chabad Lubavitch, which is also a movement and a philosophy, originates in a branch of the Hasidic movement that arose in Belarus. (In my student days, I would see Chabad posters all over campus.)
I must say that while I have not the least inclination to switch religions, I found this magazine a most engaging read. It is evidently aimed at secularized Jewish émigrés from the former USSR. While many of them are well-educated professionals, few are likely to have much knowledge of Judaism. Thus, Ariel seeks to provide basic religious information on a sophisticated level. It does not talk down to its readers. It carries serious philosophical and theological articles in standard English and Russian, without jargon or “clerispeak,” and with the understanding that while many educated people know next to nothing about religion, they will not be impressed by simplistic arguments.
There are regular pieces on politics and history too. Ariel contains a good deal of East European Jewish humor, which is unsurpassed – particularly in its Odesan variant. One flaw is the vast amount of advertising, but this is obviously dictated by the economics of the mass printing and distribution of a free newspaper. If the purpose of this publication is to bring Soviet and post-Soviet émigrés to Judaism, one imagines that it would have some success.
There are, of course, many differences between the mission and approach of Ariel and that of a Ukrainian church periodical. But we would do well to follow the example of pitching religious and philosophical articles high, presuming an intelligent and well-educated audience. At the same time, we should never assume, for example, that readers will automatically understand what we mean by a term like “the heart” in anything but an anatomical sense.
And yet, an informal online survey of three Greco-Catholic eparchial publications brought some pleasant surprises. I expected to see a lot of mundane parish news. This feature, which sometimes takes up over a quarter of an issue and features many conventional group photos, would seem to chiefly interest the participants. It is tempting to say that it caters to the vanity of those who like to see their pictures in the paper. For children, however, this may be a good way to encourage parish activism. Moreover, the reporting on parish social projects in the Philadelphia Archeparchy’s The Way highlights important charitable work, which others might wish to emulate.
But there is more. Serious articles on liturgy, moral theology, feast days and Ukrainian Christian customs accounted for a third or more of two recent issues of St. Nicholas Eparchy’s New Star (Chicago). The Stamford Eparchy’s Sower and Philadelphia’s The Way similarly devote considerable space to these essential topics. Naturally, all three publications print Patriarch Sviatoslav’s pastoral letters as well as those of their eparchial bishops.
Eparchial newspapers also draw on the talents, interests and achievements of local laity as well as clergy. The Sower features regular articles based on the holdings of the Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford, Conn., by its director, and discussions of health and spirituality by a priest with medical training. Chicago’s New Star recently offered a laywoman’s reflections on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The children’s corner in The Way is worthy of imitation. The New Star column “Why?Why:” provides that rare but most valuable opportunity: to anonymously receive (and share) answers to one’s questions about religion.
The late Father John Harvey’s column in the Ukrainian Orthodox League Bulletin responded to the same need. This bulletin, which appears six times a year, is intended for UOL members. The official publication of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A., the bimonthly and bilingual magazine Ukrainian Orthodox Word, is similar in style and content to the eparchial newspapers reviewed above. Among newsletters, we should mention the biweekly Cathedral Bells of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Toronto.
As seen online, most of these publications are well-designed. This is particularly true of The Sower, which has a professional-looking format with attractive masthead, elegant typeface and a pleasing layout. The publishers have also decided to include a Ukrainian section rather than creating separate English and Ukrainian editions. This could encourage the imperfectly bilingual to practice reading Ukrainian or English. And it probably saves money.
Our churches’ media initiatives cannot be limited to traditional paper publications, even if available online. Ukrainian Greco-Catholic and Orthodox eparchies in the U.S. and Canada all have websites, most of them imaginative and well-designed, providing useful links and plentiful news.
On paper or online, Ukrainian church media in North America face a tough challenge – communicating with a diverse reading public of recent arrivals from Ukraine, English-speakers of “old immigrant” or more recent waves, and converts. Although there is room for improvement, they are meeting that challenge with style and imagination.