This file was kindly provided by our friends at the Ukrainian Church Music Archive.
This file is a compilation of musical settings for Eastern Christian divine services, compiled by bishop Augustine Eugene Hornyak OSBM (1919-2003) in 1957 at the Basilian Seminary in Mundare, Alberta, Canada. The book contains a number of choral arrangements done by then-priest Hornyak for male voices. Augustine Hornyak was born to Pannonian Rusyn parents in Voivodina, Serbia. He later entered the seminary at the Pontifical Ruthenian College of St. Josaphat’s in Rome. Being an accomplished musician with a melodious tenor voice, he was motivated to learn the art of choral conducting.
Amidst the turmoil of WWII, he emigrated to the US and found a home at the Ruthenian Eparchy of Pittsburgh where he served as choir master. Later, in 1956, he went to Canada to enter the Order of St. Basil the Great. From there, he went to Stamford, Connecticut, to teach at the Catholic seminary. He was ordained as a bishop in 1961 at the Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Philadelphia.
He was notably the first Apostolic Exarch of the Apostolic Exarchate for Ukrainians in Great Britain. During this time he found himself in the middle of a complicated history. Being of traditional “Ruthenian” orientation, which tended to be ecclesiastically conservative, he later found himself in the midst of a conflict within the Greek Catholic Church with what’s often called the “Ukrainian Patriarchal Party” led by Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. Slipyj suffered in the prison camps under the brutal, anti-Christian Soviet regime and was later released with the help of the US government, and later became a cardinal. At this time a rather poignant conflict emerged between Ruthenians of more conservative (and often Latinized) eccleisastical orientation, and the dynamic and progressive Ukrainophile party centered around Slipyj, which often advocated in some ways for a renovation of church structure and the creation of a Ukrainian Patriarchate recognized by both Rome and Constantinople. Despite Hornyak being of the “old-guard” and loyal to the core to the Vatican and the Oriental Congregation, he was eventually made to retire as Slipyj’s influence prevailed. Nonetheless, both figures are very important church leaders for the Ruthenian and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Communities respectively, and both were among the noteworthy Ruthenians or Ukrianians to participate in the Second Vatican Council which changed and renovated monumentally the structure and outlook of the Roman Catholic Church.
Hornyak died in 2003 at the age of 84.
Once again we thank our friend and colleague Mr. Markian Komichak, head of the Ukrainian Church Music Archive, a project to catalog important musical works, for kindly providing us with this file of interest to both the Rusyn and Ukrainian communities.
