For the past month or so, we have been praying for Fr. Roman Galadza, a Ukrainian Catholic priest who served at St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church in Brampton Ontario. Sadly, Fr. Roman fell asleep in the Lord early in the morning this past Monday.
I suppose the question I could be asked is why am I writing about a Ukrainian Catholic priest, especially considering the history and politics that have separated communities and Churches for centuries (in fact our parish started out as Ukrainian Catholic, and became Orthodox when they settled here in Manitoba). In short, history and politics are issues to be considered, and not dismissed… but history and politics are not necessarily people; people who have to deal with the same challenges of trying to live as Christians in this day and age, and in a culture that is ever more adversarial towards any kind of faith. For me, Fr. Roman (and his family) were encountered as people and not issues, or to put it another way, they saw me and my family as people and not the face of politics or history.
Just after I was married, and had our first daughter, I would take her in the stroller with my father and walk around the Glebe neighbourhood in Ottawa. We would walk and talk, looking at the houses. One house always caught our attention, where there was the most beautiful icon of the Theotokos with a lampadi and traditional Ukrainian towel (“rushnyk) adorning it. Eventually we met the owners of the home, and ironically learned that the wife’s father (Fr. Roman) was also a priest like my father. Well a beautiful relationship developed, not only with this couple but with their whole family. Although I wasn’t able to spend as much time as I wanted with Fr. Roman, I did cultivate friendships with his children and family (many of whom I still keep in touch with to this day). I was blessed to have conversations with Fr. Roman and he shared his struggles and his perseverance to cultivate an incredible, large and loving community that is St. Elias.
Fr. Roman was a married Ukrainian Catholic priest; he served in English; he practiced the beauty of the Byzantine Liturgical life -without renovations (all of these were not only , uncommon but even dismmised until the past thirty years). In many respects both himself and the Church he founded (St. Elias) were outliers in the Ukrainian Catholic North American context, yet he persisted with his vision of what a Church could be, and by God’s grace both Fr. Roman and St. Elias grew to become a shining example for Ukrainian Catholicism in Canada, and of the Lord’s saving love. To be clear, his vision wasn’t about founding the best Ukrainian Catholic Church ever, or even about being the best Ukrainian Catholic priest ever.
It was about the saving love of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Liturgy and life of the Church.
Of course we disagreed on some issues of Church ecclesiology and tradition, yet he (and family) never dismissed me (or the Orthodox Church) and always treated me as one of his own despite our differences.
I always consider his (and his family’s) respect, love and acceptance of me (despite our differences) and his perseverance to bear witness to the love of Christ, as a blessing that has inspired me to strive to be better Christian and an Orthodox priest even to this day. I pray that even without the distractions of the challenges he overcame, I can serve St. Nicholas with the same kind of dedication that he served St. Elias, and I pray that I can serve the Lord with the same kind of dedication that he served the Lord. May the Lord strengthen us in our work to proclaim His saving love, and may his memory be eternal! ВІЧНАЯ ПАМ’ЯТЬ!
