Draft:Saints Peter and Paul Serbian Orthodox Church (Sudbury, Ontario)

Saints Peter and Paul Church (Sudbury), located at 515 Antwerp Street in Sudbury, Ontario, was built by the descendents of early Serbian pioneers. The parish church is one of many under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Mitrofan Kodić of the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Canada.

History

Single men from Europe who worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway first arrived in Sudbury to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). During the construction of the railway in 1883, lumber companies began operating lumber camps in the region. Most of the men employed by them spoke little or no English and were kept busy cutting down trees to make telegraph poles and track ties for the CPR. With blasting and excavation, a high concentration of nickel-copper ore was revealed, giving the future town the moniker -- "Nickel City". Mining also became a source of employment, railwaymen spent their spring and summer cutting lines for CPR across the Nickel Basin's rocky outcrop and on through Algoma District, where newcomers from all over Europe began trickling in before and at the turn of the 20th century. The discovery issued a clarion call to all able-bodied immigrants, among them, many from the Balkan lands, who arrived to work as prospectors, miners, railwaymen, lumberjacks, and in construction of a railway station, hotel, hospital and other infrastructure needed for a growing town (1893) and city (1930). These were single men, pioneers in their time. Only later did they bring their families and kin.

When the Dominion of Canada declared war on Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914, it turned more than a dozen ethnic groups of that "empire" into enemy aliens by a stroke of an enactment under the Robert Borden Administration. Most of the Slavs and their co-religionists, Romanians from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, joined the Canadian Armed Forces and went overseas to avoid being classed as an enemy. Lodge 83 of the Serb National Federation existed there since the earliest beginnings of the SNF. Serbs together with Croats, and Slovenes at the time would gather at Sudbury's Frood Hotel, named after the early Scottish teacher and prospector Thomas Frood (1837–1916). It was at the Frood Hotel that the Women's Auxiliary, better known as Circle of Serbian Sisters, was organized in 1937, according to Father Mihailo Doder. On 16 October 1940, with the visit of the newly-installed Bishop Dionisije Milivojević of North America, a church-school congregation was established. In 1944, the Serbs built a community hall on Bloor Street in Sudbury where the offices of the Serbian National Shield Society of Canada, the Serbian Club of Sudbury, and the Serbian Community Centre were housed. The first parish priest, Rev. Dragoslav D. Kaserić (1922–1986), had to work as a miner because the parish could not afford to pay him a salary. After Rev. Kaserić was moved to Minnesota's Iron Range, then came hieromonk Pavle Pomanov and Rev. Milan Radojević, who emigrated to Canada from Australia. The services were held in the Serbian Community Centre on Bloor Street long before the church was built.

Serbian Church Schism and its Aftermath

However difficult and divisive the schism became, there was a silver lining that made church life in Sudbury blossom after all. More Serbian churches were built in Canada during the long schism with the post-communist period and the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia than any in the previous century. In Canada, there were seven Serbian churches (Windsor, Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Sudbury, Winnipeg, and Regina) according to a Windsor Star article while today, there are more than forty. In Ontario alone, more than 25 church institutions have been erected to date, including a monastery in Milton.

With the church split, the majority of the Sudbury parish went with Dionisije Milivojević and not the Mother Church. On 8 October 1963, Bishop Dionisije Milivojević officiated at a cornerstone-laying ceremony at Antwerp Street in Sudbury. The new church and rectory were built in 1964 and 1969, respectively, and dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.

Several families remained loyal to the Mother Church after hearing Voivode Momčilo Đujić of Gary, Indiana speak in Sudbury on 3 July 1964 defending the established Church against calumnies of both the communists and those who were led astray by the deposed bishop. The missionary parish was established in 1963 and continued until 1992 when the two parishes united under the Patriarchate of Belgrade. At the initiative of Patriarch Pavle and the mediation of Bishop Irinej (Gavrilović), the rupture with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Canada (and elsewhere) was finally healed.

The parish priests who served the missionary parish were: Rev. Milan Radoević, V. Rev. Mirko Visnjić, Rev. Borko Borčić, Rev. Miloje Raičević, Abbot Simeon Grozdanović, Rev. Žarko Mitrović, and Rev. Mihailo Doder. Bishop Sava (Vuković) visited Sudbury on 16 August 1970 and suggested renewing the Church School Congregation. After the reconciliation in 1992, the two Church School congregations merged into one under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of New Gračanica.

In 2014, the Serbian community of Sudbury celebrated its 50th anniversary. The most recent clerics included Rev. John Marjanac of Milton and Rev. Brian Payne of Windsor.

Population decline

The number of Serbian families within Sudbury during the 1930s stood at about 100 households. The number increased exponentially with the new wave of Serbian émigrés from Yugoslavia after World War II and the bitter internecine civil war. In 1964, "Sudbury was the home to more than 300 Serbian families".

In the decades that followed, more and more of their youth began attending universities in Windsor, Toronto, Montreal, and other major North American cities, and after graduating, they secured employment elsewhere, seldom returning home, only for short visits. The breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the new millennium, brought a few Serbian newcomers to the most northerly city in Ontario, while the majority preferred settling in cosmopolitan cities in the south near the U.S. border.

Today, the Serbian community of Sudbury has 50 members, mostly seniors or middle-aged businessmen and a few young families.

The current priest, Rev. Brian Payne, who resides in Windsor, visits the Saints Peter and Paul parish once a month.

Bibliography

• Diaspora Serbs: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Earle Waugh and Milan V. Dimić, M. V. Dimić Research Institute, University of Alberta, 2004, pages 137-138 and 165 cites V. Rev. Mihailo Doder, Short History of Sts. Peter and Paul in Sudbury, Souvenir Book, pages 228-230;
• "Serbian Bishop Tells Of Anti-Red Fight", The Windsor Star, Wednesday, October 9, 1963, page 5 cites the cornerstone-laying ceremony at the church construction site in Sudbury
• "Differences Flare in Orthodox Church", The Windsor Star, Friday, July 3, 1964, page 42.

References

• Translated and adapted from Serbian Wikipedia: Црква Светих апостола Петра и Павла у Садберију