Father,
Would it be possible to move this topic to the Town Hall?

In Christ,

I.

Done!

Thank you for confirming that there is no source for the allegation that the military were about to intervene, tanks and all. A rumor from a pediatrician at the Department of Infectious Diseases is not really enough to base an assertion about tanks being poised to invade anyplace.

Announcing a "Provisional Government" of some territory that already has a government is risky at best - when Ireland did it in 1916 the English put it down by military force and violence (and I can offer MANY published sources for that) and shot dead most of the surviving members of the government - including James Connelly, who was bleeding to death at the time and had to be strapped into a chair in order to make it possible to shoot him before he died of his existing wounds.

So the erstwhile head of the failed "Provisional Government" in Transcarpathia can count himself lucky to be alive and well in Slovakia.

None of this has anything to do with the equally unfounded accusation that Bishop Milan is prohibiting Church-Slavonic in Transcarpathia.

Fr. Serge

I should go there.

Dn. Robert

Dear Father Deacon,

Do have a nice trip! But take my advice and do NOT go there in the winter - snow and ice in the Carpathian Mountains do not make for a happy holiday.

Funnily enough, when the Greek-Catholic Church re-appeared in 1968, Stephen (Kocisko) sent over a couple of priests - to find out how the Greek-Catholics in the Preshov Eparchy "really" take services. As it happens, things are much, much better in Uzhhorod. The city itself, while not exactly Vienna, is rather pleasant. Get set for a slightly uncanny experience; Pennsylvania actually looks like Transcarpathia - you will immediately understand why the good folks from Transcarpathia headed for PA. Driving from Uzhhorod to Mukachevo I was convinced that Hazelton was right around the next bend in the road!

Fr. Serge,

I have had some of the locals in N.E. Pa say the same thing to me. In my town there is an OCA parish where the priest, the deacon, and the parishioners are all of Lemko or Transcarpathian background. The deacon makes annual trips to Zakarpatia, bringing goods and funds for charitable distribution in the area (to Orthodox, of course!). He has commented on the virtual resemblance of that area to ours.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

That's a common comment by later generations of Americans of Rusyn descent who have visited the ethnic homeland.

But the men who first came here and started the flood of emigration, didn't come for the scenery. The only scenery most of them saw was inside coal mines and steel mills.

It wasn't the topography that brought our people. It was the jobs.

And the lack of a livelihood in the homeland.

But Uzhorod doesn't have a Stewart's (famous Root Beer and Ice Cream).

Ungcsertezs (who misses the Sybertsville Pilgrimage,as Stewart's is across the road from the Byzantine-Franciscan Monastery )

Ah yes, Stewarts! The only place I could get iced tea in a carton when I lived in Jordanville. I think the store in Richfield Springs had to have it shipped in from PA!

Alexandr

Which are the good monks lacking: tea or ice?

Fr. Serge

they usually have a lot of RUSSKIJ chai in Russia. Ice, however, is melting away - they produce too much pollution there (as well as in America).

dear me - shall we send in ice cubes by way of humanitarian relief?

Fr. Serge

In exchange for oil - only real thing that makes them powerful. By the way, I still remember the times when there was only Russian tea (of two kinds - 1st and 2nd quality) in the shops in the former Russian-Soviet empire - "Krasnodarskij" or something like that. What a dreadful experience...
It is a matter of personal taste and preference, but I find an iced tea to be of a similar quality.

If the monks at Jordanville are in need of oil, I have no principled objection to donating some. But why are they short of oil?

Fr. Serge