On Sunday morning we had Matins, Divine Liturgy, and Vespers at the Church of the Holy Protection of the Mother of God in Andrašovtcy. When we arrived Father went inside the Church while I remained outside to take some photos. One of the men from the village came up through the cemetery on his way to Church and stopped to talk to me. The only thing I understood from the first gentleman that approached was “far”. He said a lot more than that, but that was all that I understood. “Kah-nah-dah?” Oh, I get it now. I replied that I was an American and that my name is Marc – the extent of my Rusyn. Other men joined in shortly after having made the walk up the road from the village exchanging greetings of “Slava Isusu Christu! – Slava na viki!”

As I began to drift in thought another gentleman turned to me and asked what I thought of the town, but before I could say anything, or think of something to say, he pointed to the town then to the cemetery we were standing in. The town is dead, he intimated, they all sleep here. I looked around and saw all the headstones – The statement was profound. I wondered how towns like Andriivka would fare in the future, would there even be a church here in forty or fifty years? This town, like many other small villages, on the outskirts of cities like Uzhhorod and Mukachevo are all facing the same problem. There just isn’t any work in these villages anymore, and families must commute into the city, which means more and more people are picking up and moving to the city to live.

The men having drifted further towards the entrance of the church I continued to ponder what he said. What are the implications of this? Are we witnessing the slow death of a culture? A people that withstood a thousand years of magyarization, latinization, and then suppression by the Soviets are now to be snuffed out of existence because of modernity? You can’t help but admire these people, and their sacrifices, without falling in love with them. They are hard workers and have great souls. I can’t begin to imagine what impact their vanishing would have on Carpathia, if not the world.