Achille Delaere

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Father Achille Delaere

Achille Delaere (* 1868 in Lendelede , Belgium , † 1939 in Canada ) was a Belgian-Canadian Roman Catholic clergyman. He was one of the founders and organizers for the structures of the Catholic Church of the Byzantine-Ukrainian Rite of Ukrainian Immigrants in Canada.

biography

As the son of a Flemish farmer, Achille Delaere grew up on his father's farm, where he had to work in his early youth. His brother was a priest teacher in Bruges . The hard, tough life in the country had a decisive influence on him in his youth in order to decide for the priestly profession. At the same time, he preferred to always say openly and directly what he thought, and used to address his opinions and views as well as criticism in the appropriate place. Achille Delaere joined the Redemptorists in 1889 and was ordained a priest in 1896. He did not change his attitudes even after his ordination . Canada's Apostolic Delegate Andrea Cassulo learned of Delaere's openness. Delaere once said to him: ... that actually only liars and crooks would write to the apostolic nuncio to complain. The apostolic delegate is said to have answered him with a smile: that sometimes bishops and archbishops write to the apostolic nuncio on such matters.

In the summer of 1898, he was from the provincial superior of the Redemptorists Belgian in Brussels for work in the Canadian Prairie Provinces ( Canadian Prairies recruited). Father Delaere was one of the three Belgian Redemptorist monks who were eventually recruited to this position by the French-Canadian Archbishop Langevin . In this region, support and help for the integration of the population with a migration background from Eastern Europe in the Canadian Prairies were sought for the corresponding believers . Father Delaere was a Flemish mother tongue and spoke only a little French . Before emigrating to Canada, he spent a year in the Galician city of Tuchów , learning Polish and Ukrainian . In Canada he would then look after the Polish and Ukrainian immigrants in Brandon-Shoal Lake in the district of Manitoba .

On his crossing to Canada he was on the Scotsman ship from Liverpool to Canada. However, his ship sank off Belle Isle and sixteen people died in the accident. Delaere survived and continued his journey to Brandon , which he finally reached on October 11, 1899. Delaere was warmly welcomed by the residents and the Belgian Redemptorist as the “Apostle of the Poles”.

By about 1903 Delaere and other Redemptorists in the Brandon area became very active and began visiting the Yorkton area once a month. Delaere was initially overwhelmed by the workload. He reported that the area was about half the size of Belgium, with only thirty to forty English families and, since the Oblates moved there , it has been completely neglected by other Catholic clergy. Seraphimit Stefan Ustvolsky , Russian Orthodox and other Protestant clergy had already partially established themselves in this area. The Redemptorists reported that there were now seventeen Protestant clergymen in the Yorkton region. For Delaere this condition was unsatisfactory and asked for further help and encouraged French Canadian Catholic seminarians to study different languages. He found support in Father Kryzhanowsky, a monk of the Basilian of St. Josaphat , who helped him in the various regions on site.

Delaere was aware that the majority of Galician people actually preferred to worship in the Eastern Rite of the Ruthenians . In the struggle between the Eastern Churches and the Latin Church , the unmarried celibate Roman Catholic priests and their Latin rite were rather strange for many of the immigrants whom Delaere looked after. Regardless of how the Roman Catholic Church tried to respond to the immigrants, the realization finally matured that only the introduction of the oriental rite had a real chance with the believers. Delaere was increasingly confronted with hostilities from some defectors, and there was a lack of support from his Archbishop Langevin. He founded the Redemptorist Monastery in Yorkton on January 12, 1904 for the immigrants from Galicia. This still exists today as St. Gerard's parish in a Roman Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Regina . On March 9, 1906, Delaere finally received official permission from Pope Pius X to practice the Byzantine rite . Father Delaere celebrated Mass in the Byzantine Rite for the first time on September 26, 1906. The other Belgian priests soon followed suit.

Most Ukrainians weren't really able to pronounce his name correctly, so Father Delaere became Father Dollar . John Bodrug wrote of his own experiences in his memoirs on Delaere: “In Sifton , there was a small Greek Catholic church, visited occasionally by Father Zaklynsky, but much more often by Father Dollar. Delaere even learned to read masses in Church Slavonic and dressed in liturgical robes of the Greek rite, but gave his sermons in Polish . "

About his knowledge of the Byzantine rite and his language skills, Achille Delaere told his closest colleagues that he had actually never really learned French and at best only had a mediocre command of Ukrainian. In spite of all of this, his zeal and commitment made him indispensable for his superiors, although they couldn't always cope with his rustic openness.

In 1911, at Delaere's urging, Archbishop Langevin came up with the idea of appointing a Ukrainian Catholic bishop and informed the Holy See of his change of heart. In May 1912 Delaere asked Archbishop Langevin to start further negotiations with Pope Pius X. On July 15th, after a hearing of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy in Galicia, Nicetas Budka was called to be the first bishop for Ukrainian Greek Catholic Christians in Canada. At the same time he was appointed titular bishop of Patara appointed and Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky OSBM of Lviv and the co-consecrators Bishop Konstantyn Czechowicz ( eparchy Przemyśl ) and hryhory khomyshyn ( eparchy Stanislaviv ordained) to the bishop on 13 October 1912th

When Budka first arrived in Canada, Delaere found it difficult to get along with the new bishop. Delaere was unsettled by Budka and his so-called “cold neutrality” as well as a perceived lack of support, so that he had doubts to do the right thing. Ultimately, however, he showed himself steadfast because he did not want to give up the Ukrainians in Canada.

Father Delaere lived and worked in the Canadian Prairie Provinces for forty years from his arrival until his death.

bibliography

  • Ivan Bodrug: Independent Orthodox Church: Memoirs Pertaining to the History of a Ukrainian Canadian Church in the Years 1903–1913 , translators: Bodrug, Edward; Biddle, Lydia, Toronto, Ukrainian Research Foundation, 1982.
  • Paul Laverdure: Achille Delaere and the Origins of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Western Canada ( English , PDF) (Retrieved October 26, 2014).
  • Orest T. Martynowych: Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Period, 1891-1924 . Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1991.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Laverdure, Paul, Achille Delaere and Origins of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Western Canada
  2. ↑ a b c Martynowych, Orest T. Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Period, 1891-1924. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1991.
  3. ^ Wreck Report for 'Scotsman', 1899
  4. ↑ Joseph Lozinsky: Ukrainians in Canada, 1900-1930. In: catholiceducation.org. Retrieved January 24, 2015 .
  5. ↑ John Bodrug, John Bohdan Gegorovich, Edward Bodrug, Lydia Biddle, Senator Paul Yuzyk, (Rev.) Wm. H. Shaver: Independent Orthodox Church: Memoirs Pertaining to the History of a Ukrainian Canadian Church in the Years 1903 to 1913 ( English ) Ukrainian Canadian Research Foundation (1000). September 9, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
  6. ^ Biographies of twenty five Greek-Catholic Servants of God. In: vatican.va. Retrieved January 24, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Budka, Nykyta. In: Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved January 24, 2015 .
  8. ^ Achille Delaere in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 6, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Delaere, Achille
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian-Canadian Roman Catholic clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Lendelede , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH 1939
Place of death Canada