CRAFTS AND CULTURE
Church celebrates Ukrainian culture with annual pre-Easter event
WATERVLIET, N.Y.>> One local church celebrated its Ukrainian culture on Sunday with a pre-Easter bazaar.
Hundreds of event attendees experienced Ukrainian cuisine and crafts on Sunday afternoon at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, located at 2410 Fourth Ave. in Watervliet.
This annual event, which has been held for more than 40 years, is presented by the local chapter of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church.
The Ukrainian National Women’s League of America brought cultural-specific embroidered textiles, ceramics and wooden wares as well as elaborately decorated pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs for sale.
Another station had a demonstration on how to make pysanky, using a tedious process that involves beeswax and dye.
“That’s an Easter tradition, absolutely,” explained event organizer Zoriana Mangione. “The egg symbolizes rebirth and we try to make it as beautiful as possible to coincide with Christ’s resurrection.”
On the menu at the bazaar was a variety of Ukrainian dishes like stuffed cabbage, borscht, kapusta and pyrohy, or potato and cheese dump-
lings. These are called pierogi in Polish.
In its newly renovated commercial kitchen, members of the church volunteered on Friday to make a total of 12,850 pyrohy for Sunday’s bazaar. This took 14 hours and involved nearly 100 people, Mangione said.
“We hold regular pyrohy sales three times a year, but this is our biggest event in preparation for the Easter holiday,” Mangione said.
Another popular selling item at the bazaar was paska, a sweet Easter bread.
Often church- goers buy these foods in preparation for after the liturgy next Sunday, when the priest will bless it, because they are fasting until the season of Lent is over.
Many of the 300 to 400 attendees at the pre-Easter bazaar were from outside the church’s congregation. Some even traveled in from places such as Lake George, Queensbury, Kerhonkson and Pittsfield, Mass.
Along with serving as a fundraiser for both presenting organizations, this annual bazaar is a way to promote the Ukrainian culture, one that was suppressed for many years.
Part of the mission of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, Mangione said, “is to try to educate the public that there is a difference between us and Polish, us and Russian and us and any other Slavic country.”
In addition to sharing this knowledge, the yearly pre-Easter bazaar is a fun gathering for the community.
“We always look forward to this event,” said Fr. Mikhail Myshchuk of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church. “We are happy to help the people to celebrate Easter by providing traditional Ukrainian food.”
This week will consist of several more services leading up to the holiday, including masses on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday and, of course, Easter Sunday .
More information about St. Nicholas Ukrainian
Catholic Church and its upcoming events can be found at www. facebook. com/ cerkvaNY or www.cerkva. com.