Ford City's Slavic community a melting pot of eastern European customs

Although their Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovakian and Croatian languages and ethnic customs may differ to some extent, members of the Slavic community in Ford City and surrounding areas have many things in common. What brought Slavic immigrants to western Pennsylvania, and to Ford City in particular, can be summed up in one word: Work. Catherine Dilick of Ford City, a member of the former St. Francis of Paola Catholic Church, recalls her parents and other family members telling about the financial security and new life in America that Slavic and other ethnic peoples found by working in the steel mills and other industries. In Armstrong County, the big industry was Pittsburgh Plate Glass.

"Just about everyone worked at PPG Industries,” she said. “It was believed that if you worked at PPG you were 'set for life.' That's no longer true, but we're still working hard and still flourishing."

The Rev. John Izral, a first generation Polish American and pastor of St. Mary's Ukrainian Church, said that in addition to work, the church remains a unifying factor for Slavic people. Originally founded as a place of worship for people of Ukrainian descent, St. Mary's Ukrainian Church includes Slovak, Croatian and Polish members. As in many cultures, certain foods identify the ethnic backgrounds.

"Foods like pirohi, or as most Americans say, perogies, are a mainstay for all Slavic peoples," Izral said. "So is halushki, a dish of boiled cabbage and noodles.” Of course, as this church has proven by its biweekly pirohi sales, you don't have to be Slavic to enjoy pirohi and other traditional foods.

Language also bonds the Slavic community. "The various Slavic languages have many words in common," Izral explained. "There are some words that are different and sometimes the grammar is different, but we can all understand one another pretty well.” Izral said there are differences in the religious practices of the various Slavic ethnic origins.

"There are approximately 50 million Slavic peoples in the world," he said. "About 40 million are Orthodox Catholic and the rest, although some may practice Eastern rites, are basically Roman Catholic. We're pretty much the same except that we recognize the authority of the Holy Father, the Pope, and the Orthodox churches do not. This creates some tension between the two groups in Europe, but there is little or no tension here, especially in this church."

Another factor uniting the families of different Slavic origins is intermarriage. Marge Bobak of Manor Township and Mary Ann Gribik, of Ford City joined the congregation after marrying Ukrainian men.

"Years ago I met this wonderful, handsome young man who happened to be Ukrainian," Bobak said. "I looked into his eyes and I was done. It is our custom for the bride to marry in the groom's church, so we did and here we are. I've been happy to be a member here ever since."

But Bobak and Gribik have not given up traditions unique to their Slovak heritage.

"We have a Slovak Christmas tradition that we keep in our house," Bobak said, "and I know my friend Mary Ann (Gribik), who I went to school with, keeps it too. That's the tradition of the 12 Dishes.”

“In the fall we pick wild mushrooms and dry them for later use in December,” she continued. “The 12 Dishes consist of fish, pirohis of course, creamed peas, mushroom soup, sauerkraut and of course there's things like cookies and other treats."

"We call it the Holy Supper," Gribik said. "When I was a child, we'd eat the Holy Supper on Christmas Eve, and the lights on the tree were not lit until the supper was finished. Since I was the youngest, I got to turn on the lights. After that, we'd prepare for Midnight Mass. I think that's unique to our Slovak Culture."

In the past several years, however, two churches, the predominately Slovak Holy Trinity and Polish St. Francis of Paola, were closed by the Diocese of Greensburg. The closings stirred some dissatisfaction among Ford City's ethnic population.

Now in his 70s, John Novak of Ford City attended Holy Trinity Catholic Church from birth. Holy Trinity was the home church of his parents and grandparents, and its closing in 2002 had an affect on most.

"For many Slovaks I think it was like losing a close family member,” he said. “Some of us went to the new parish, Christ Prince of Peace, and some went to St. Mary's Ukrainian."

St. Francis of Paola also was closed in 2002, and the building was razed in 2004. "The closing was a terrible blow to many Polish families," said former member Chris Dilick. "My parents and grandparents were members there, as were all my brothers and sisters."

Indeed, Slavic culture is far from forgotten among Ford City's ethnic Ukrainians. Helen Lyczak of Ford City believes that perpetuation of language and traditions serve to enrich her Ukrainian culture, but admits that interest in those traditions is floundering.

Lyczak taught Confraternity on Christian Doctrine classes At St. Mary's Ukrainian Church for 39 years and also taught the Ukrainian language.

"I taught many young people our beautiful Ukrainian language," she said, "but when the church liturgy changed to English they had no place to hear or practice the language. Language and traditions are what keeps us together."

Izral said although some ethnic traditions may be waning, the community is upholding the most important traditions of religious observance.

"I came here from my native state of Wisconsin. I am impressed with Ford City and with the people in this parish which is part of the Diocese of St. Josephat, headquartered in Parma, Ohio. The area here is very beautiful and the people here, whether they are part of our church or not, are friendly and helpful and work well together.”

On the day before Easter, Holy Saturday, two dozen or more families will file into St. Mary's Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the annual blessing of their Easter baskets.

Of course the baskets contain Easter eggs, but the eggs are not the ordinary variety dyed solid colors of pink, blue, green or yellow. The eggs brought into St. Mary's that day are known as "pysanky," (pronounced pis-san-key) from the Ukrainian word "pysaty” (pronounced pis-sat-tey) meaning to write.

Pysanky, decorated with a variety of symbols in various colors, are an exceptional and unique manifestation of Ukrainian culture. Many Slavic people in the Ford City area collect or make pysanky and one collector, Stefana Myschisin, has an extensive collection of the highly decorated eggs.

"Any kind of eggs can be used to make pysanky," Myschisin said. "I have one very large ostrich egg and several goose eggs and the rest are standard size eggs.”

Pysanky tradition stems from pre-Christian times when eggs symbolized fertility and were used as amulets for divination and healing or protection from evil spirits.

Myschisin's eggs are decorated with symbols such as the sun, stars, birds, fruits and vegetables, triangles and circles. A widely used symbol is the sun which represents light and life. Stars represent success and each star has four, six or eight points. Birds, roosters in particular, represent good harvest and the pushing away of evil.

Triangles are a common theme and in Christian times, eggs were decorated with 40 triangles representing the 40 days of Lent and the 40 days of Christ's fasting. Circles are the ultimate symbol for protection from evil. According to old Slavic legends, a circle cannot be penetrated by evil because it has no beginning or end.

Colors also have a significant meaning. Red is for love and yellow is a wish for wisdom. Orange symbolizes both love and wisdom.

Myschisin said it takes a pysanky artist four to six hours to decorate one egg. Collectors may pay $25 for an egg with very simple designs but the average price of an egg with more intricate designs can range from $50 to hundreds of dollars.

This Easter, Myschisin will follow her life-long tradition of displaying her egg collection on her dining room table, along with piping hot traditional Easter foods unique to the Slavic culture, such as Easter bread, pirohis, cabbage rolls and ham.

Myschisin said under the old Soviet regime in the Ukraine, religious traditions and ethnic customs were greatly discouraged. However, such customs are alive and well in Slavic communities in cities like Ford City.

After a long bleak winter, such traditions give a renewed sense of hope and joy to the faithful every spring during the Easter season.

The figure of 50 million Slavs is way off, even if you just count people who speak a Slavic language as their main language. (That includes some who may not think of themselves as Slavs, such as Russian-speaking Jews, and excludes people of Slavic ancestry who speak English or some other language.)

The figures from the latest World Almanac for the Slavic languages are as follows:

Russian...145 million speakers
Polish...42 million
Ukrainian...39 million
Czech...11 million
Serb...11 million
Belarusan...10 million
Bulgarian...8 million
Croat...6 million
Slovak...5 million
Bosnian...4 million

In addition, there are about 1.5 million speakers of Macedonian (sometimes regarded as a dialect of Bulgarian), and perhaps 50,000 or so speakers of Sorbian or Lusatian (in eastern Germany). Serb, Croat, and Bosnian are mutually intelligible and are sometimes regarded as a single language (with about 21 million speakers). Taken together, there are over 280 million speakers of one of the Slavic languages.

Oh-oh, Russian, Polish, Ukranian, Slovakian, Croatian...get ready for some lengthy and long winded posts about the nonexistence of a Croatian language or dialect, and ethnic groups omitted(by diabolical purpose, of course) from the article and probably a lot of other crap as well from some of the frequent posters on other Balkan threads

"There are approximately 50 million Slavic peoples in the world," he said. "About 40 million are Orthodox Catholic and the rest, although some may practice Eastern rites, are basically Roman Catholic

This chap is seriously claiming there are just 10 million Orthodox church members? Most estimates range between 200 and 250 million!

The author seems to be seriously ignorant of religious terminology. The majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox, but there is a sizable Catholic minority, and the people dealt with in this story appear to be Catholics.

The World Almanac has 217 million for the world-wide figure of Orthodox Christians. That should mean only those who belong to churches in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople, but they may be lumping in other Eastern churches which broke the connection with Constantinople in the 5th century. (They have 36.9 million Orthodox Christians in Africa, which may include the Egyptian Copts and the Ethiopian Christians, who are "Monophysites" and not in union with the Orthodox Church.)

Of course it is possible to be an Orthodox Christian and not a Slav--the Greek Orthodox, the Romanian Orthodox, and the Albanian Orthodox are cases in point.

Belarusan...10 million

I think that this figure is wrong, there is around 10 million of Belarusians in Belarus but most of them speaks only Russian language.

50,000 or so speakers of Sorbian

I think that no more than 30,000 and the Germans want to cut grants for their schools.

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