Roots of community - Community Leaders
Theodore Fuhr of the Rabbit Hill community near Edmonton was one of the key leaders in building one of the first Orthodox missions, together with his wife, Anna. The Orthodox missionaries, Father Dmitri Kamnev and Deacon Alexandrov held their first service in the summer of 1897 wrote in their report that they had stayed at the Fuhr home. In 1902, Bishop Tikhon visited the congregation.
In 1904, Vladyka TIKHON returned, this time with a gramota for Thedore Fuhr for all of his loving efforts in promoting the growth of the Orthodoxy. Services were held at the Ascension Church during the passable seasons. In the winter, Theodore often traveled by sleigh, holding serious religious discussions, convincing his Ruthenian friends and neighbours of the truth of Orthodoxy. He was discrete and patient, and when a Uniate parish was built near the Orthodox one, he worked hard for a merging of the two parishes. The church building of the Ascension was smaller than St. Mary’s and it was finally agreed that St. Mary’s would become “Russo-Orthodox” on the condition that both parishes would merge and conduct services at St. Mary’s. In 1910, the two congregations met on the road, with the monk Arseny (later Archbishop ARSENY) present, and with great joy became one!
The Fuhr home was always available, with new immigrants and traveling priests—and one, Father Joasaph Varkhol, being a widower, stayed with the Fuhrs a whole year, with his son. In the time of the Great Flu, all of the family served their neighbours, including young Evdokia (mother of OCA priest, Father Orest Olekshy of Saskatoon) caring for the sick and even preparing the bodies of the departed. Katherine as eldest daughter, always had to go on foot to bear the news to the neighbours that a priest had arrived and that services would be held in the Fuhr home.
Of the ten children in the Fuhr family, only five, Katherine, Mary, Eva, Anastasia and Andrew survived. In 1912, Theodore Fuhr returned to Galicia looking at the possibility of having his children educated there, but came back to Canada. He was disappointed by what he experienced there, as political turmoil on the eve of war and revolution was already surfacing.
Rabbit Hill, its name carefully scrolled on old letters, journals and service books, has been preserved in the annals of Orthodox endeavour. The names of Theodore and Anna Fuhr are truly deserving of a place of honor among the faithful servants of Orthodoxy in our Canadian land and the members of their family who served the church in many places, now several faithful generations, who include grandsons, Father Orest Olekshy of Holy Resurrection Church, Saskatoon, Dr. Kyril Holden of St. Herman’s Parish, Edmonton, and grand-daughter, Mother Varsanuphia of Holy Protection Monastery, Bluffton, and others.
The Rabbit Hill settlement south of Edmonton (between Nisku and Devon) was founded by Theodor Fuhr (Fed’ko Fur) from the village of Vysotske, district Yaroslav, who arrived with his family in Canada (Quebec) on the S.S. Christiania on 30 April 1896. Besides being the founder of the Rabbit Hill Ruthenian colony, he is also considered to have been the first Ruthenian to own property in Canada (section 4-township 51-range 25, west of the 4th meridian), as early as 1896. Another eleven families from the villages of Vystoske, Vetlyn and Lazii of the Yaroslav district, Western Ukraine, settled in Rabbit Hill at the same time.
Star (formerly Edna, then in the district of Alberta, North West Territories), the first rural settlement of Ukrainians in Canada, was founded in 1894 by six families from the villages of Nebyliv and Perehinske. The families were those of Mykhailo, Fedir and Mykola Melnyk (three brothers), Petro Melnyk (unrelated to the former), Vasyl’ Feniak and Mykhailo Pulyshy. They settled within township 59, range 19, w. 2. Later in the same year Mykola Tychkowsky and Ivan Pylypiw (both from Bruderheim homesteads), Andrij Paish, Ivan Dobrutsky (or Dubrowsky), Stephan Chichak, and Matey Melnyk joined the first six families at Star.
Dmytro Derhak in 1902 with his wife Hafia, his elderly mother Ahaphia, his sister Petrina, his daughter Titania and ten year old son John immigrated to Canada from Panivtsi, Ukraine, near Borschiv in Galicia. They settled in the Sandy Lake area next to the Ivan Klym farm. Ivan Klym was a husband of Titania, Dymetro's sister. In 1926, Dmytro was one of the first Ukrainian immigrants from Canada to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Archimandrite Ignaty (Falovsky) - An Early Priest and Photo Archivist.
In 1911 he was accepted to the North American Mission and was tonsured a monk with the name Ignaty, and was consecrated a Hierodeacon in the same year by Bishop PLATON.