Tim Cuprisin January 14, 1958-November 23, 2011 - Vicnija Pamjat. Eternal Memory.

Tim Cuprisin, president and founding father of the Lake Michigan Chapter of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society and creator of its blog, passed away Wednesday, November 23 at home.

 

At the age of 20, the Chicago native graduated from the University of Central Michigan in 1978. He started his career as a police reporter at Chicago’s City News Bureau then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today before going to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.   Included in his assignments were covering the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism on six Eastern European countries.  His long-time fascination with television programs led to a daily TV and radio column in the Milwaukee Journal (now the Journal Sentinel).  In 2009, he took his writing talents to OnMilwaukee.com.

On March 13, 2010, Tim met with 15 people from Northwest Indiana, the Greater Chicago area and Wisconsin at the Polish Museum in Chicago to create the Lake Michigan Chapter of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society.  With his vast knowledge of his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage, Tim was unanimously elected president.  The first event of the new chapter in June 2010 drew 104 people to hear National C-RS President John Righetti’s talk “Who are the Rusyns?”.  According to Righetti, it was a record number for a first-time event held by any of its chapters.  

In the year and a half since that first public meeting, more than 300 people have attended at least one event sponsored by the chapter.  Those events include hosting the author of The Linden and the Oak Mark Wansa for the first celebration of Carpatho-Rusyn Day, newly instituted by the World Council of Rusyns in 2010.  Other undertakings of the organization include a genealogy workshop focusing on Eastern European resources and a pysanky workshop where attendees learned how to turn eggs in works of art using wax, a stylus and dye just as their ancestors had done in “The Old Country”.   Conversations at the Rusyn New Year’s potluck luncheon focused what was or wasn’t on the attendees' Christmas Eve Holy Supper table now or when they were growing up.  Pagach and pirohi were a big hit and quickly disappeared.

Tim's last appearance

Tim’s last public appearance was at the Lake Michigan Chapter’s Carpatho-Rusyn Day luncheon in October which celebrated 100 plus years of Rusyns in Northwest Indiana and recognition of the 100^th anniversaries of St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church and Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church.  An avid collector of all things related to his ethnic background, his presentation featured early 20^th century photographs of Rusyn immigrant life, the six churches they founded around the tip of Lake Michigan and a Pepsi Cola ad with the sales pitch in Rusyn.  History Professor Jim Lane of Indiana University Northwest and the Northwest Indiana Archives explained what brought the immigrants to northwest Indiana, far from their arrival ports on the east coast.

Tim’s determination to preserve his ethnic identity and his access to media resources led him to create the chapter’s blog which features news about Rusyns here and abroad. The hunger of Carpatho-Rusyns for information about their heritage and what was happening to other Rusyns brought hits from across the globe.  The Lake Michigan Chapter board will continue the blog.

At the time of his death, Tim was also working on a book about Andy Warhol, a world-renowned Rusyn artist, as well as a murder mystery set in Chicago.

Tim is survived by his brothers John, Ken and Dave, a sister Elaine Black and his partner Sharon Boeldt as well as numerous nieces and nephews.  He was preceded in death by his parents John and Helen (Cordak) Cuprisin and niece Leslie Cuprisin.

A celebration of his life held Saturday, December 3 brought about 200 people to the Schmidt and Bartelt Funeral Home in Mequon, Wisconsin.  Speakers included his brother Ken, Fr. Thomas Mueller of St. Cyrill and Methodius Orthodox Church in Milwaukee, friends Jim Rowan, Andy Tarnoff and Meg Kissinger and his god daughter, Molly Boynton.  Carpatho-Rusyn Society Lake Michigan Chapter members Fr. William Conjelko and Fr. John Lucas closed the memorial with leading the singing of the traditional Rusyn funeral hymn Vicnija Pamjat/Eternal Memory.

Donations to a media scholarship in Tim’s name may be directed to the Hoffman York Foundation, 1000 N. Water St., Suite 1600, Milwaukee, WI, 53202.  Donations in his name may also be made to Mayo Clinic's Melanoma Research Program at www.mayoclinic.org/development or mailed to Department of Development, Mayo Clinic, 200 First St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905.

 

On January 14, 2012, the Lake Michigan Chapter will pay tribute to its first president at its annual Rusyn New Year Potluck.

Video of the Funeral for Metropolitan Basil Schott

The following is a YouTube.com video of the Funeral for Metropolitan Basil M. Schott of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, PA. The Funeral was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Munhall, PA on June 18th, 2010.

Memory Eternal!

Carpatho-Rusyn Saint Alexis Toth

Holy Father & Confessor Alexis of Wilkes-Barre - Father Alexis (Georgievich Toth) of Wilkes-Barre was a missionary priest, sent from his homeland in (Eperjes, now Presov in Zepes county) Slovakia as a Uniate, who, in order to serve and protect his flock in the United States in a hostile Latin environment, recognized the need to lead them in a return to their Orthodox Christian heritage. His feast day is celebrated on May 7th.

By this action Father Alexis Toth gained the distinction of being the first Uniate Greek Rite Catholic priest in America to lead his people in reunion with the Orthodox Church. Having been sent originally to America to be a missionary to the immigrants, Father Alexis, in his new role, was to fulfill his destiny as the missionary leading his people back to the Orthodox Church.

In December 1892 he evangelized the immigrants in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, preaching and enlightening them about their social and religious future in America. In 1902, he received the parish of St. John the Baptist in Mayfield, Pennsylvania, into the Orthodox fold. Elevated to the rank of protopresbyter, he was in the forefront, over the years until his death, of receiving parishes from the Unia into Orthodoxy. Through his efforts over 20,000 Carpatho-Russian and Galician uniates were re-united with the Orthodox Church.

Carpatho-Rusyn Saint Holy Martyr Maxim of Gorlice

Holy Martyr Maxim of Gorlice – Our righteous father Maxim Sandovich (also Maximus) of Gorlice, Protomartyr of the Lemko people, was a Carpatho-Rusyn hieromartyr who, in practicing his Orthodox faith as a priest under the rule of the Unia, as enforced by the Roman Catholic Austrian imperial government, was arrested and then executed for his faith in August 1914.

Maxim Sandovich was born into the family of a prosperous farmer, Timothy Sandovich, and his wife, Christina, in the village of Zdyna, Galicia. His father served as the choir director in the local parish. After finishing four years of study at the local high school in Novy Sanch, Maxim crossed the border into Russia to become a novice at the Pochaev Lavra in Volynia. Subsequently, he attended the Orthodox seminary in Zhitomir. Completing his studies he married a young Orthodox woman, Pelagia, and was ordained as a deacon and then to the priesthood before returning to his home.

It was not very long before the Austrian militia discovered his Orthodox pastoral and missionary service as he was denounced by a Ukrainian teacher by the name of Leos, in 1912. Immediately the Austrian gendarmes put Fr. Maxim in chains and sent him to prison in Lvov. There he was held for two years without a trial or inquest while being abused horribly and living in equally bad conditions. Then as World War I was to begin he was released for lack of evidence.

Fr. Maxim's stay at his home in the village Hrab was to prove to be short as the first shots of the war heralded a wave of new repressions of the Orthodox Carpatho-Russians. The militia, on August 4, 1914, arrested the whole family of the young priest and dragged them off in shackles to the prison in Gorlice. Fr. Maxim, his father, mother, brother, and wife were forced to travel on foot to the prison while being prodded by the bayonets of the gendarmes. In prison they were placed in separate cells and denied the opportunity to see each other.

Then, on Sunday, August 6, while at prayer at the dawn of the new day, Fr. Maxim could hear the noise of a crowd beyond the walls of their prison. The noise was accompanied finally by a load thud as a moustachioed German captain, named Dietrich, from Linz entered the prison grounds, accompanied by two soldiers and four gendarmes. The captain was known to be a cruel and sadistic person. This group was followed by the prison wardens, some civil servants, officers, and a group of curious women led by Pan Mitshka, the leader of the Gorlice District. As silence fell, the order was given to the warden to bring Fr. Maxim from his cell.

With that order two soldiers led the twenty-eight-year-old Orthodox priest from the prison. Fr. Maxim suddenly realized where they were taking him and humbly and with dignity asked, "Be so good as not to hold me. I will go peacefully wherever you wish." Even the taunting of the crowd did not affect his courageous bearing as he walked calmly and with a measured gait to the fateful wall, as befitting a follower of Christ.

Captain Dietrich ripped Fr. Maxim's cross from his chest, tossing it on the ground where he trampled it with his feet. As the captain bound Fr. Maxim's hands behind his back and blind folded him, Fr. Maxim exclaimed that it was not necessary as he had no intention of running away. But, the "brave" captain laughed and then marked with white chalk a line on Fr. Maxim's black cassock as a target for the riflemen. In the silence of the moment as the executioners were arranged, Pan Mitshka read the death sentence. With a short command from the captain, the saber was raised and lowered. With that action, shots echoed through the prison.

Fr. Maxim's voice could then be heard, first strongly but diminishing as he spoke, "Long live the Russian people." Then, leaning against the wall, "Long live the Holy Orthodox Faith." And, finally and barely audible, "Long live Slavdom." As his powerful frame slid down the wall, a gendarme ended Fr. Maxim's suffering by firing three shots from his pistol into Fr. Maxim's head.

Through all this Fr. Maxim's father and mother watched his heroic death in silence and as the final shots echoed through the prison his wife fell senselessly to the ground. Thus died Fr. Maxim Sandovich, a martyr for Orthodox Christianity.

His feast days are celebrated on August 6 (his repose) and September 6 (his glorification).

Carpatho-Rusyn Saint Alexis of Khust

Holy Father & Confessor Alexis of Khust (Hust) – Our venerable and God-bearing Father Alexis Kabaliuk, Apostle of Carpatho-Russia (August 30, 1877 – December 2, 1947), was a leader of the Carpathian Orthodox in the early 20th century. His feast days are celebrated on October 21 and December 2. There is an akathist written for him.

Alexander Ivanovich Kabaliuk was born into a Greek Catholic (Uniate) family but converted to Orthodoxy as a young man. He became an archimandrite and played a major role in reviving Orthodoxy in Transcarpathia in the early 20th century, and his missionary activities were persecuted by the Austrian-Hungarian authorities, who suspected Orthodox believers of pro-Russian sympathies. On the eve of World War I, Kabalyuk was sentenced to jail, and following his release he was one of the leaders of the Carpathian Orthodox until his death in 1947. He is considered an Orthodox hero and was glorified in 2001 by the Church of Ukraine (Moscow Patriarchate) as the first Subcarpathian Russian Orthodox saint.

His relics are at the St. Nicolas monastery in the village of Iza in the Ukraine.

Notable Rusyn Americans

Juliya Chernetsky, Hostess of various TV shows on Fuse TV.
Sandra Dee, actress
Steve Ditko, comic book illustrator and co-creator of Spider-Man
Bill Evans, jazz musician (Rusyn mother)
Thomas Hopko, Orthodox Christian theologian
Tom Ridge, politician (Rusyn mother)
Tom Selleck, actor (Rusyn father)
Mark Singel, politician (Rusyn mother)
John Spencer, actor (Rusyn mother)
Michael Strank, soldier
Robert Urich, actor (Rusyn father)
Andy Warhol, artist
James Warhola, illustrator
Peter Wilhousky, composer
Gregory Zatkovich, lawyer and political activist
Paul Zatkovich, newspaper editor and cultural activist