Seraphim and the Tin Can Cathedral
As Collections Administrator for the Ukrainian Museum of Canada, Khrystyna Hudyma frequently encounters mysteries.
While looking for something else, she came across an envelope containing an unusual document written in the Old Slavonic, the language of the ancient Eastern rite church.
“Old Slavonic is used in liturgy and church text,” she says, “and dates back to the Middle Ages. It’s not Ukrainian or Russian, but has similarities to both.”
The document, a certificate of priestly ordination, bears a wax seal and a photograph of a church official. It is dated 1906 and was signed by Seraphim Metropolitan of the Orthodox Russian Church for the whole of North America — something Hudyma found curious, because there was no Russian or Ukrainian Orthodox or Catholic Church in Canada at the time.
Her curiosity piqued, she began digging and uncovered a fascinating story.
Seraphim, whose real name was Stefan Ustvolsky, was born in northern Russia in 1858, graduated as a priest from a theological academy in St. Petersburg, was defrocked in 1893 and only allowed to return to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901 as a monk.
“From here, different sources have different stories,” Hudyma says. “One is that he went to Mt. Athos, an autonomous monastic state in Greece with 20 independent Orthodox monasteries. While there, a call came from the Orthodox Church in the U.S. to send a bishop for the Ukrainian immigrants who were being served unsatisfactorily by Catholic and Orthodox missions and Presbyterians.
Ustvolsky answered the call and arrived in New York in 1902, but was unable to attract many followers.
In early 1903, he arrived in Winnipeg with the lengthy, self-imposed title of Seraphim Bishop and Metropolitan of the Orthodox Russian Church for the Whole of North America.
“Seraphim was reported to be an engaging speaker with a melodious voice and a remarkable memory. He didn’t use notes, and preached in Church Slavonic, the language people from the Old Country were accustomed to,” Hudyma says.
With the large influx of Ukrainian immigrants to the prairies and no Ukrainian Orthodox priests to serve them in the Eastern rite, Seraphim began indiscriminately ordaining priests from among cantors, deacons, teachers, and farmers.
The church, which adopted the name All Russian Patriarchical Orthodox Church, flourished in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and at its peak, had over 40,000 followers.
“People saw his practice of ordaining priests from among their own as following Christ’s example of picking poor and humble men to be his apostles.”
Two of the priests he ordained were Ivan Bodrug and Ivan Negrich, teachers who had been educated in Old Country and in Winnipeg. Some said they joined Seraphim’s church to infiltrate it and take over. Others said they simply seized on the opportunity when Seraphim returned to Russia to receive recognition for his accomplishments in Canada and to solicit funds for his church.
Whatever the reason, the renegade priests called a convention, adopted a new constitution, announced the formation of a new independent church, and accepted support from the Presbyterians on the condition they would follow evangelical principles and stress the teachings of Christ.
“Imagine Seraphim’s surprise when he returned to Winnipeg in the fall of 1903 to find his church had been taken over. He quickly excommunicated the ‘Protestant reformers,’ but the damage was already done. Seraphim was left with a handful of poorly educated priests and very few followers.”
Since the defectors had control of his chapel, Seraphim began building a new cathedral in Winnipeg using whatever his remaining supporters could scrounge up from Winnipeg’s scrap yards — discarded lumber, windows, bricks, barbed wire, bed frames, even tobacco tins. The structure became known as the Tin Can Cathedral.
Seraphim tried unsuccessfully to sell it in 1907, but the building was eventually torn down by the City.
“An L. B. Foote photograph shows the Tin Can Cathedral with a group of priests standing in front,” Hudyma says. “I can’t help wondering if photograph includes Hryhory Vorovko, the priest whose certificate of ordination I found.”
What became of Seraphim? No one knows for sure. One source says he went to California. Another says he returned to Russia where he died in prison. A Ukrainian language newspaper in Winnipeg reported him being seen selling bibles to railway workers in British Columbia.
The truth remains a mystery, but Hudyma sees the episode as shedding valuable light on the religious life of the early Ukrainian pioneers.
“If there is anything to credit Seraphim for, perhaps it is that he created a movement that stirred the Ukrainian church to action. When they saw how many followers he gathered, the Ukrainian Catholic Church quickly sent Basilian fathers to Winnipeg and the Russian Orthodox Church established congregations.”
The church established by the breakaway teachers ceased to exist in 1913 when the Presbyterians withdrew their support.