Do the Ukrainian Churches, Orthodox and/or Catholic, sponsor Ukrainian Scouting , either in the US or Canada? We have the Russian Scouts, emphasizing Orthodoxy, love for both our homeland and our adopted countries and proper formation of young people to become good Orthodox citizens of wherever we in the diaspora end up. I was watching a memorial service being conducted at St George Pathfinder Camp in New York, and it dawned on me that I can't recall ever seeing Scouts in any of the Carpatho-Russian or Ukrainian Churches.
There isn't an officially church-sponsored scouting organization in the Ukrainian community, however, historically members of Plast (Scouts) tended to be Greek Catholic so it is not uncommon to have a small Greek Catholic chapel at a Plast camp and Liturgies seved on Sundays.
The same goes for CYM (pronounced 'Soom'). The CYM camp in upstate NY has a Greek Catholic chapel. CYM is not quite as into the traditional model of scouting that Plast uses, but its motto is "God and Ukraine." Similar camps for both Plast and CYM exist in Canada, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and so on.
ODUM is another scouting-type organization that is much more prevalent in families with historical ties to Central and Eastern Ukraine and hence would have an almost exclusively Orthodox membership, with its own Orthodox chaplains, chapels, etc.
This relates to the diaspora and not to whatever current situation is going on in Ukraine.
So to answer your question, at least in the diaspora, there is no official church-sponsored Scouting organization.
дякую тобі! This might be one way of working together to ease current hostilities between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians. Put the 2 groups of kids together. It's not as if we can't understand each other!
As memory serves, scouting organizations exist in both the Byzantine Metropolia and the American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Diocese. I'm virtually certain that our own Deacon Lance has posted in the past about his involvement with the former and I suspect that David/DMD can fill us in on the latter.
An interesting historical piece, from a 1957 Scouting Jamboree:
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
There isn't an officially church-sponsored scouting organization in the Ukrainian community, however, historically members of Plast (Scouts) tended to be Greek Catholic so it is not uncommon to have a small Greek Catholic chapel at a Plast camp and Liturgies seved on Sundays.
The same goes for CYM (pronounced 'Soom'). The CYM camp in upstate NY has a Greek Catholic chapel. CYM is not quite as into the traditional model of scouting that Plast uses, but its motto is "God and Ukraine." Similar camps for both Plast and CYM exist in Canada, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and so on.
ODUM is another scouting-type organization that is much more prevalent in families with historical ties to Central and Eastern Ukraine and hence would have an almost exclusively Orthodox membership, with its own Orthodox chaplains, chapels, etc.
This relates to the diaspora and not to whatever current situation is going on in Ukraine.
So to answer your question, at least in the diaspora, there is no official church-sponsored Scouting organization.
What he ^^ said. But you can learn more by taking a look at:
Did anybody catch the Kol Slaven at the end of the video? I am intrigued about where this practice originated. Also, what did you think of Father Serge's pannikhida?
CYM was big or bigger than Plast loyalities around these parts. It was regional thing. As as aside, Plastoonky and Cymivchi weren't noted as always friendly toward one another, unfortunately. Probably things have changed now. I wasn't involved with either. Aside from political divisions in the body politic (so what else is new?), some popular impressions hold that Plast folks see/saw themselves as more refined and insistent on Ukrainian fluency; CYM folks were seen as more militant, coarse, and hardier partiers. Gross oversimplification, I'm sure.
Many years ago, maybe in the wake of Ukraine's Independence, 60 Minutes did an absolute hatchet job in a segment dealing with Ukrainian nationhood, per se. Anyone remember this? This was my first real taste of palpable media bias. The canard about Ukrainians having a rabid and something like a genetic anti-semitism seemed to be the focal point. I saw what media can do with editing. This one was one of the more laughable examples of yellow journalism: in excoriating Ukrainian political sensibilities as implicitly anti-semitic, a montage of images are taken out of context including a Plast group at night time carrying torches - as if they were mobilizing for a pogrom!
It was utter crap. And I can't look at Morley Safer, who narrated this bile without a reflexive need to dry heave. Active protests about this segment were made to CBS and the result was a lukewarm apology. I am not a supporter of the conservative view that the thrust of news is and has been filtered though "our liberal media," (Fox is equally a caricature and agenda laden as any apparent liberal media source), but this was one egregious example of manipulating popular sympathies.
ACROD was pivotal in the creation of the Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting and one of its priests created the Alpha-Omega Award fot Eastern Orthodox Boy Scouts. http://eocs.org/
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