St Elias in Brampton, Ontario
After hearing much about it, I finally managed to get out to St Elias Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church in Brampton, Ontario. Coincidentally (providentially?), last Sunday was their patronal feast day, so there was also a community picnic afterwards.
All I can say is "wow!" We've all heard the reports of the Hagia Sophia ("we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth"), although I only understood it in a mostly intellectual sense before last Sunday. Experiencing just Great Vespers at St. Elias brought me to tears!
This experience has certainly reinvigorated my faith and instilled a greater desire to serve God with all my strength. Anyone who has the opportunity to visit, please do. While the famed Fr. Roman may have passed (eternal memory), his legacy certainly lives on. Their reader, Reader Ilyas, and others I'm sure, seem to have kept up the liturgical discipline that I've heard Fr. Roman used to maintain. I really got the sense that we are a church militant, and liturgy is our battle. Words truly cannot describe the magnificence I experienced/witnessed.
Thank you to the parish community for welcoming me and my family with open arms during our visit. While it may be a while before I make it back out, I look forward to my next visit.
