By now, many have heard the truly wonderful news about the census in Slovakia.
In these times, when much of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Slavic world are engaged in difficult struggles, and the world, in general, is no doubt going through a time of troubles, it is tempting especially for us to look at the Rusyn situation as being particularly forlorn.
The recent census in Slovakia, however, has shown us on the contrary, that we truly have cause to be grateful, joyful, and yes, hopeful.
The number of self-declared Rusyns in Slovakia has effectively doubled since the last census! We’re at 63,556 now!
And it’s important to note, that this is only the number of those who officially self-identify as Rusyns in Slovakia, the actual number of people of full or partial Rusyn descent is likely higher, possibly even by order of magnitude.
In this article, I would like to provide some reflections and suggestions for further growth, in light of this wonderful news. Namely, I would like to explore the following issues:
The Rusyn Reality Today — What does this census mean for Rusyns?
The Census Data
In short, the official population of Rusyns in Slovakia is 63,556, based on the latest 2021 census, up from a total of 33,482 from the previous census in 2011. In addition, 38,679 people are listed as native Rusyn (Ruthenian) speakers, indicating that over half these Rusyns consider this to be their mother language.
So, the obvious conclusion is this is excellent news, proving that Rusyn identity is growing, not declining.
This may come off as harsh, insensitive, or even offensive to some, but someone has to say it. The Rusyn community has an unhealthy victim complex and a habit of over-emphasizing their historical suffering. That isn’t to say that haven’t suffered, but so have other people, actually almost every nation in the region more or less. As a matter of fact, we may say this is a very typical Slavic tendency, consider the polish idea of “the lamb of Europe”, in addition to the legendary melancholy. I can describe a parallel to the Romanian Miorița, just to prove I’m a Mohylian.
The Austrians even had such a word, and I would say not even offensively, but intended to be endearing for “Russians” and their cultural melancholy, I once heard it from an older German customer, but sadly this word like many aspects of the old diaspora is lost to me.
In any case, I digress, Rusyns, like many Slavs have this tendency to melancholy, depressing, and feeling this way about many things. And it is of course true, they suffered, but Rusyn history is not a crucible of suffering!
If we are honest, many of the worst things which Rusyns suffered particularly occurred in the 20th century itself. That is to say, the entire past of Rusyns was not constant ruin and oppression, it was quite beautiful and joyful too.
We cannot lose sight of this and fall into a circle of self-pity and the victim complex. Rusyns have a lot to be proud of as well. They are not even the least culturally aware people in Europe, despite what some may think, and without singling out nations, I think the Rusyn culture is more beautiful and alive than many other cultures in the world.
Even in terms of cultural awareness, and this may surprise people, I think Rusyns have some advantages and prospects that even very wealthy and powerful nations lack.
Take for example the Netherlands, of course, they have developed a nation since the middle ages, but is every Dutch person as close with his ancestors’ traditions as Rusyns can be with their native village, do they really know what it means to be “Dutch”, beyond the modern, globalized culture most people in the West live in? Would they remember their age-old greetings and village customs as Rusyns do?
And Russia, despite being the largest country in the world by landmass, arguably has less diversity in spoken Russian than Rusyns do in their own dialects. In general, a Russian can in no way tell apart one from Moscow from one from Vladivostok by language, not really. Rusyns on the other hand may have a different accent village to village, and while Russian village culture and even local ecclesiastical and liturgical customs have largely been destroyed by the Soviet regime, or in the case of liturgical diversity, earlier Nikonian-Synodal pushes for uniformity. Rusyn and Carpathian Orthodoxy are very lively with different village traditions ranging from everything from church architecture to singing. In many ways, the Rusyn liturgical tradition itself is more diverse than the entire Muscovite one.
So, despite a feeling that Rusyn culture is being “lost”, in fact, it is quite strong in many areas. There is still of course a tremendous amount of work to be done, but the condition truly isn’t as bad as some people think it is, and it highly varies from region to region.
The State of Rusyns in Slovakia — Being Both Slovak and Rusyn
As noted, the population of Rusyns in Slovakia grew to 63,556.
However, this number is actually a combination of two separate statistics:
- Rusyn as a first ethnicity = 23, 746[2]
- And Rusyn as “another ethnicity” = 39 810.[3]
This methodology has interesting implications.
First of all, as many of us know, Rusyns have a habit of identifying as different nationalities due to the different states they live in. This is no secret and nothing that needs to be substantiated for the sake of this report, it’s simply a reality for many Rusyns, that their great-great-grandparents could have been born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their grandparents in Czechoslovakia or Poland, their grandparents or parents in the Soviet Union, and their parents or they themselves in a variety of modern countries: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Czechia, Romania, to name a few. Rusyns can do all this without ever leaving their home village as the anecdote goes.
But in the case of Slovakia, it has several implications.
Here we should note there is not a particular study on why Rusyns identify as what in Slovakia. So, for those who choose Rusyn as a second ethnicity, we don’t know for example if this is because they are from a mixed family, for example, part Slovak, and thus they primarily identify with this part of their ethnicity as it is the dominant ethnicity of the country, or, alternatively, if some “pure” Rusyns, i.e. those who have two Rusyn parents, also identify as Slovak first, due to their birth and life in Slovakia.
In this case, it brings up an interesting point that Rusyn identity is diverse due to the fact that they have lived in so many different states – and this is not necessarily a bad thing! It can in fact be a strength.
While there are some of the nationalist orientation that would like firm lines to be drawn between nations, the reality is nations are in many ways artificial constructs. By this we mean that of course, DNA is real, genetics is real, culture exists as an observable phenomenon, but there is no way to look at a human being under a microscope and tell him what his national identity should be. This is an aspect of nurture over nature. Our culture is often the product of what we grow up with.
Many centuries ago the idea of nations was not so clear—at least as we define them today—in the concept of the nation-state.
While the defense of a monolithic ethnostate is today often considered a tenant of conservative, or even ultra-conservative politics, history shows that living in a multiethnic empire was the reality for a large part of human history long before the 19th-century spring of nations, which in many ways still defined the way we look at nations in ethnic and populist terms. In other words, it’s the ethnostate as we know it today, which is the modern construct, not the other way around, not a natural expression of the way our ancestors always lived for centuries.
This is not to say historical Europe was a place of tolerance, that loved diversity in the modern sense, far from it, but here there are two factors at work.
First of all, multi-ethnic empires and great powers like the Eastern Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, did not encourage the growth of populist national identity among their subjects and client nation.
On the one hand, in some cases, there was an idea that only the nobles or elite were true citizens, who embodied and decided the course of the nation, and the surfs or otherwise peasants were more or less subject to their ruling class. Hence the Szlachta in Poland, to which were admitted not only Poles but also Ruthenian and Lithuanian princes, however, the peasantry of either ethnicity were excluded from the golden freedoms, the distinction of Ottoman identity vs Turk identity, and the Hellenic Phanariot hegemony over the Rûm nation in the Ottoman Empire.
There were also the religious and regional aspects. In historic times, people identified far more with their religion, their village, and local region than they did with an all-encompassing national identity. So, in other words, a priest from Galicia in the 17th century likely identified far more with his sacerdotal class, likely being from a family of clergy, his religion, Orthodox or Roman Catholic, and his regional identity rather than a united nation from the San river to the Caucuses. In reality, he probably had more in common with local Poles than his distant East Slavic cousins in Podilia.
So this may help us explain why a Rusyn in Slovakia may also identify also as a Slovak.
If his primary language which he uses every day is Slovak, he spends most of his days in a Slovak city like Poprad or Košice, it is understandable that he identifies also with the national culture.
To take this farther, it’s perfectly ok and quite normal if Rusyns in Poland identify as Lemko and Polish, in Ukraine as Rusyn and Ukrainian, just as Rusyns in America, many of whom have mixed ethnicity, do not have any issue being both American and…well…they don’t have issues being American, some of them do have issues being Rusyn…but we’re working on that!
The point is multiculturalism, in this context, in the context of one’s native land and region with centuries of different nations living side by side, is very natural. And thus, is not rainbow-colored “woke” multiculturalism, as we see in western liberal societies, which more often than not distort age-old cultural values, but the natural home of many peoples of the Carpathian and Danube Basin. One need only look at Brașov în Romania, Mukachevo in Ukraine, Gorlice in Poland, or Prešov in Slovakia to see similarities with Budapest, Vienna, and many other cities throughout the region. The skyline of these cities and the policies made in them defined the lives of the people of the Carpathian region long before ideas of national anthems appeared.
It’s not the natural state of a person to wake up in the morning and salute the flag and reaffirm their ethnicity before everyone, and therefore Rusyns certainly aren’t supposed to wake up in the morning and sing “Ja Rusyn Byl”. Rusyn culture would be far better served not with flashy activism but by carrying on religious, cultural, and family traditions in one’s day-to-day life, while also being productive and valued members of society.
Thus, Rusyns identifying also as Slovaks is really of no threat to either national identity but in fact the adornment of both nations.
The same goes for Ukraine. It is perfectly natural for someone from Transcarpathia to have more in common with someone from Lviv than someone they’ve never met in the Prešov region. We all have more in common, generally speaking with our neighbors than the lands where our distant ancestors came from. On the other hand, it would also be natural that a Rusyn in Uzhhorod has more in common culturally with someone just across the border in Slovakia than someone in distant Donetsk. Multiculturalism and multilingualism are not, I think, a threat to the Rusyn identity.
Rusyns have always lived nearby other nations, it’s their natural habitat, albeit it was far more common for them in the past to live in their own villages than in cities, however, it certainly can’t be said that Rusyns are not capable of living around other nations.
The only danger would be if, as a result of this, Rusyn traditions are being lost. But is this the result of multiculturalism itself, or is it the failure of Rusyns themselves to preserve and pass on their culture to their children? We may find it is often the latter.
In Czechia and Slovakia, some Rusyns may feel, as many great-grandparents did in America, that learning the language and being a Rusnak would not provide a good future for their children, and that it’s better they only identify with the prevailing culture.
And if this is the case, then it’s an issue for Rusyn activists and leaders to show the value of being Rusyn, and that one can be both a Rusyn and a great member of another society.
A particular issue I often find is a habit of writing Rusyn in Latin letters in Slovakia. I won’t go into the details here, but I find this practice is particularly negative. Simply put Rusyn is meant to be written in Cyrillic, Rusyns have had a Cyrillo-Methodian identity since the beginning. A switch to Latin is not positive multiculturalism, but one culture simply trampling the other.
We’ve yet to see the full implications of what it means to be Rusyn and Slovak in Slovakia today. This is the first census where we have gotten to see this unique dichotomy.
I do not argue that these phenomena, of Rusyn as a second ethnicity, are inherently good or bad, but it is the reality for 39, 810 Slovak Rusyns.
This also means the actual number of Rusyns—people with any Rusyn ancestry—is almost certainly much higher.
Implications for Rusyns in Other Parts of the Homeland
The implications for Rusyns in other parts of the homeland vary. In Poland for example Lemkos are accepted as a nation, in Ukraine the situation is different. Often in Transcarpathia, it’s the case that while most clearly know what a Rusyn is obviously, but the idea of actually writing, for example, in Rusyn seems very niche for many people, from my observations.
I’ve had my conversations, intentionally in Rusyn, with locals, who I will ask “So you’re Rusyn?” Or “Ah so you speak Rusyn!” And I have even gotten responses, in Rusyn such as “No, I’m Ukrainian.” Or “Umm…I can speak Transcarpathian? I can also speak Ukrainian and Russian.” Very often it would be a mix of Rusyn and Ukrainian, which to be fair, many of us do. And the modern Ukrainian taught through the region of western Ukraine in schools is not the local dialect or any kind of Galician, but in fact, the standard Ukrainian based on the Poltava Declension. So, you’ll hear even modern words like гелікоптер (Helikopter), which are clear English lone words, instead of for example вертолѣтъ (vertolit).
So overall my observation was in Transcarpathia, for many people Rusyn as a national idea is quite blurry, but they still have a strong understanding of “our people”.
That is to say, virtually everyone in Transcarpathia understands the local culture is unique from all of Ukraine, they know their local customs, etc. but it’s very difficult for them to for example, decide to write a blog totally in Rusyn, even if they may speak it naturally with their grandparents.
There is of course the element that people wish to also be part of the country in which they live, and as the Slovak example shows us, there is no reason why someone couldn’t be if they so choose, nationally Ukrainian and culturally or ethnically Rusyn.
If anything, this is a reminder that these identities or combinations of them are neither opposed nor a threat to one another, but can come together united in a single person.
The Rusyn Diaspora
For the Rusyn diaspora, the situation is quite different, mainly due to how removed most of the diaspora is from the homeland by generations born apart and separated by the iron curtain. Whereas a Rusyn in Prague can still go back to his native village easily, for many in the diaspora even the language has become foreign.
One way the diaspora in North America can help, perhaps, is by providing educational exchange and support via the very high quality of universities and the funds available to them. It would be a great help for Rusyns in Ukraine to have an opportunity to study their culture in the high academic standards of an American or Canadian university if for example exchange programs and scholarships were made with local universities, and the Rusyn diaspora can benefit from interaction with Rusyns from the homeland. The experience in the diaspora can also show the value of the “unity in diversity” model for Rusyns in the homeland.
Perspectives for Future Growth
Now that we’ve taken a look at where Rusyns are in 2022, what are some perspectives for growth for Rusyns.
This author believes it primarily depends on extremely active youth involvement and education, using modern technologies to bridge gaps previously made by years of separation and ignorance and disseminate accurate information, and working on the growth of Rusyn representation at the institutional level.
A Focus on the Youth
The saying “The children are our future” is no cliché or platitude, it’s a very serious reality. It’s an issue that is very real for both Eastern Christian Americans and Rusyns in particular.
If we want our culture to exist, we must pass it down to the next generation, and the chance is quickly being lost, as the older generation that knew it well are passing away.
To understand the great difficulty, we have in keeping the culture alive around the young generation, we have to understand how it got lost in the first place.
The Struggles of the Immigrant Experience among Eastern Christians
Eastern and Southern Europeans, people from Asia Minor, and the former Byzantine Œcumene are hardly the “typical Americans” even if they have contributed greatly to American society at every level even up to the highest echelons of power, such as the Vice Presidency.
The fact remains people from this Eastern Christian world have a different culture, one which has diverged in many fundamental ways from Western Europe since the eleventh century or even before.
While not all of America is Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the gap between a Ukrainian or a Greek to even a Hungarian is greater, than that between a “typical American” and an Italian.
Even for Catholics, the Catholicism, Latin rite or otherwise you would encounter in Mukachevo, Lviv, or even Krakow is quite different than a typical modern Novus Ordo American Catholic Church.
And this is only looking at religious differences, but the fact remains that for most Eastern Christian Americans, the Church is by far the strongest or largest cultural organization among them.
Greeks integrated much more successfully to American life one could argue, both due to their mercantile skill and to ambition, better organization, as well as circumstances in the homeland.
On the one hand, you can argue that Greeks came to start businesses, whereas many of the “slavish” folk found themselves slaving away in the mines of Pennsylvania, and oil refineries of New Jersey, to paraphrase what a certain priest of Ruthenian extraction once said to me.
But there is another factor at play here, why passing along East Slavic culture was so difficult.
Ruthenians between McCarthyism and the Iron Curtain
Simply put, the 1960s was not a great time to be a “Russian American”. Effectively the entire Slavic world was under the iron curtain, and many people simply didn’t want to emphasize their Slavic culture due to McCarthyism.
There was also the concept, which anyone familiar with the diaspora should know all too well. The hard-working (great)-grandparents of the greatest generation, who typically said things like: “We’re in America our children need to speak English!”
And so they may have spoken in Ruthenian amongst each other, especially when someone was angry, but simply put, they didn’t teach the children how to read the Rusalka Dnistrovaya, they taught them to read on American storybooks, same as anyone else.
So by in large, there was a whole generation, that while they understood they were some type of Slav, there were dances and the famous “R Clubs”, perhaps the church service was in Slavonic, they had no Slavic education. At the most, maybe they could speak their language as a “kitchen language”, but many of these people were not reading Dostoevsky, Dukhnovych, or Drahomanov. And with each generation, the youth learned less.
This was one aspect, the other is the literal effects of the iron curtain, as opposed to the social pressure.
Simply put, there wasn’t contact with the homeland. This wasn’t Greece or Italy, you couldn’t just hop on an airplane and fly to the Soviet Union, and go for a stroll around Berehovo, and this was no longer in the same state as Prešov or Lesko.
So as a result, there was both a lack of not only desire, but even ability for the early generation to teach the children their language, in some cases, and no cultural communication meant familiar ties were broken for decades, there was no way of sharing books and information. It was simply not as accessible. That’s not to say it was impossible, or there was never any contact whatsoever, but it was difficult both culturally, and practically to have connections with the lands beneath the Carpathian Mountains.
A new hope, a free generation is born
But now our situation has changed drastically. Those born after the fall of godless authorities are the first of a new generation, finally free again to practice their faith and culture. With the fall of communist regimes, contact became fully possible, and then made even easier by the internet. There are resources for learning Rusyn today that didn’t exist before.
Most importantly, the social stigma of being from “over there” has not only disappeared, but now it’s fully acceptable or even fashionable to emphasize your heritage or identity, especially in the west. So, with this comes new opportunities to educate youth about their culture, in ways not possible for previous generations.
Youth Groups are the Key
First and foremost, an idea that comes to mind, and that needs to be explored and discuss further, is cooperation between church youth groups at the pan orthodox level, and in particular, between the ACROD, the UOC-USA, and the OCA, which have large communities of Ruthenian descent, all ironically and conveniently centered especially in Pennsylvania.
I am thinking in particular of the amazing summer camps we have in Pennsylvania.
Of particular note, Camp Nazareth of the Carpatho-Russian Diocese is truly in superb condition, from all the reports I’ve heard, and hosts a beautiful Carpathian style wooden church, not totally dissimilar to the one at the Ukrainian All Saints Camp.
Antiochian Village is also a beautiful camp ground and very modern conference hall, where the relics of St. Raphael of Brooklyn are kept. St. Raphael lived for a time in Kiev, and was close with St. Dosifey of Zahreb, who was a Serbian bishop that cared in particular for Rusyns in Subcarpathia during its time under the Serbian Church.
The Romanians have the historic Camp Vatra in Michigan — perhaps our Wallachian, Transylvanian, Moldovan brothers from over hill would be interested in hosting some Lemkos at the Vatra Românească. This would be an interesting place to examine ties between Rusyns and Romanian peoples, for example, in our communal chant, in which I believe there are many prospects for development and cross-pollination.
This great video of a priest in Romania, chanting very much in the Ruthenian style, which sadly, few young Rusyns in America would recognize today, is a simple example.
Rusyn Plain Chant is a tradition with some ties that can even be said to go back to the ancient Greek world and its eight tones, the concept of which, still exists in Orthodox divine music. Any young Rusyns with musical interests should consider learning it. And like any living tradition, it could only grow through cross-pollination with other Orthodox traditions.
These interconnections should bring everyone together and form tighter and tighter bonds.
The prospective of Orthodox Youth Groups, which among Rusyns should also promote their language and culture is of the utmost import and something which must be discussed and studied more and more. They can also perform incredible charity and works of mercy in society, which would both do good for their communities, and raise awareness for our culture. Rather than simply saying how good it is, we could show people, as we have always believed in the gospel maxim that people will know we are Christians by our love. This naturally attracts people, meanwhile, our dividedness has the opposite effect. If we appear divided amongst each other, we have no future as we cannot stand even in the present, and why would anyone want to join or learn about us? A beautiful culture and active charitable people, however making a difference for the better in our communities — that means something.
There needs to be opportunities for young Rusyn, and other Orthodox people to meet, and form life-long bonds of friendships, relationships, marriages, and families, and then for these families to join together as one big Orthodox family.
If we don’t bring the community together and support each other, it becomes increasingly natural for people to grow apart as job opportunities and life carries people away from the Great Lakes Region, and if these close bonds aren’t formed early on, our culture will always be simply a distant nostalgic memory for those wishing they learned their Baba’s language.
If we allow it to be lost, that’s on us.
If we have any brains or hope for the future, we should be pouring all that we have into giving the best opportunities for our children to learn their culture, grow together, and achieve their dreams, so that they too will pass these laurels on go the next generation.
The Internet and 21st Century Solutions to Old World Problems
We need to bring Rusyn culture to the 21st century. It can’t stay up on a distant mountain enjoying a beautiful sunset beneath the lonely Carpathian Mountains.
As Fr Alexander Schmemann taught us, it’s good for us to be here, atop mountains taking in the light, but our mission, if we want to consider ourselves sons and daughters of light, is to take the light we see and receive, and deliver it to the world.
That includes taking the light of our culture and educating people about it using the most modern technologies.
There is a reason why the word for education and enlightenment can be the same in Slavic languages.
St. Peter Mohyla had to cross the Carpathians and bring the printing press to Kiev, from which it spread in earnest to the rest of Rus’.
Now I think we find ourselves in similar situations, in many ways technologically behind the latest curb.
While the internet is the source of many issues, from fake news to simple stupidity, it can also be a source of enlightenment, if we use it correctly.
Never before could we share information this quickly.
The internet can serve Rusyn activists in a plethora of ways. For example:
- Making books and information free and accessible, as we try to do here at RLS, particularly at our archive. This was one of the reasons I co-founded the archive with our RLS founder Starik and our Rusyn Editor Tomash.
- Holding conferences with international participation. This is happening and needs to keep happening.
- Facilitating dialog and friendships between Rusyns in the homeland and diaspora. Thanks to messaging apps like Viber, Telegram, WhatsApp, we can talk to people across the globe in an instant.
I realize in many ways, these are not revolutionary ideas, though if I may, we at RLS are very proud of our archive.
But there is still so much more that can be done. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Rusyns could come together and create free language courses, for example like those on Duolingo?
If people are serious about their culture surviving, we need to use these powerful 21st-century tools to make it present and accessible.
And this doesn’t just have to be in purely educational form.
The development and popularization abroad of Rusyn subculture, video games, meme culture, indie films, all of the aspects of the way young people communicate, Rusyn culture needs to be present here if it wants to survive.
It can’t only exist in Baba’s village. That’s a great place for it, but it needs to be present in a way that isn’t a fossilized relic of the 19th century. It needs to be marketed and brought into all aspects of modern memetic culture.
Need for Accessible Resources
As noted above, Rusyn culture has to be accessible to all, but that doesn’t mean it should be produced for free.
While I realize this is a great undertaking, nobody should have to work for free.
Young Rusyn activists and linguists can’t be expected to create something like this for free when they need to support themselves, BUT on the other hand, many young Rusyns can’t afford or simply can’t access professional language learning material. Not everyone can simply go to Prešov for a week or two.
This is where Rusyn institutions could come in with funding. It’s important to fund these cultural projects, this can’t be stressed enough.
Strategic Culture and Rusyns at the Institutional Level
Powerful, influential, and most importantly self-sustaining Rusyn cultural institutions need to exist which do not depend on crowdfunding or EU grants. And these institutions must also be down to earth, they can’t be done by out-of-touch bodies of elites. They must be representative and answerable to the needs of the Rusyn community as a whole.
Together, they can work for the development of what we can call Strategic Culture.
By this I mean, an organized, curated, coordinated, and well-planned out vision for developing Rusyn culture towards, important goals such as in the aforementioned spheres and issues.
This does not of course mean some dictatorial body that will tell small communities of Rusyns what to say and do nor should this be political. This would be a disaster.
Strategic Culture is not about a single vision or goal for culture that everyone must follow.
Instead, it’s about understanding that a culture is a form of information, in the sense that it carries the whole history of a people and the way they view the world, and information is power.
Thus, something as important as culture can’t simply be forgotten, left to chaos, or to simply grow wildly in every direction with no vision.
This is why Rusyns would end up marginalized because, unlike other nations, there is little institutional power behind them. If Rusyn culture only means wearing a Vyshyvanka once in a while and posting Smi Rusyni on your socials, this is about as powerful a statement as making a temporary Facebook profile picture with the flag of some country you heard in the news is going through hardships. It’s nice but it’s just for show.
The fact that we can’t even get a national Rusyn youth league, or even organize cooperation and pilgrimage trips to Holy Sites in Europe, as the late great Metropolitan Nicholas (Smisko) of blessed memory once did, is unfortunate. What a great visionary we had, and one which simply didn’t replicate the past in a fossilized state, but brought it to life and developed it with his own vision.
This is the kind of leadership we need to see in the Rusyn community.
To be clear, I say this with absolutely no prejudice to anyone. I am a simple church historian, I am not a great activist and there are tons of people who have done far more for Rusyns than I have.
I only say these words perhaps harshly because the hour may be later than we realize.
So many great elders, fathers, and grandparents, are passing away, the people who delivered both the Rusyn culture and Orthodoxy to America and planted it in that vineyard. Where have they gone? Who is going to carry on their work?
In the homeland, I have more confidence, as I remember how good the fruit of Transcarpathian vines is, and the salt of the earth there still has great taste.
But some would argue modern western culture is becoming more and more anti-Christian, anti-traditional, and simply against the values that made our cultures great.
I believe if we want to see Rusyns grow not only quantitatively, as happened in Slovakia, but qualitatively, if we want to see it flourish, we need to think strategically about the future of our culture.
We need to ask ourselves what is our foundation, what made it great, what is our future, and how can we build it stronger now and forever. What does it really mean to be a Rusyn, and why were these people not simply called great before, but holy.
Matfey Shaheen