The interior of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was gorgeous. When we went there for a wedding rehearsal last week, the presiding Father sized us up, and figuring he’d seen our types before–which he probably had—immediately confronted us.
Not welcomed, confronted.
Seeing us in casual conversation, as if standing at a bus stop, he sternly told us that we had entered into a House of God and must behave accordingly. He laid down the law, and treating us like wayward children, continued to scold us throughout the rehearsal for things like bad posture, using slang or laughing.
He was an imposing man. About 50 years old and without any evident sense of humour, he was built like a refrigerator and looked as if he could take a dozen bullets in the chest and then still strangle his enemy to death with his left hand. Behind his back, I derisively referred to him as Father Fear and Father Happiness, thinking myself pretty clever.
At the wedding reception Ukrainian dancers exploded onto the dance floor like fireworks. It was a startling and wonderful display, one that was brimming with an immense and encompassing pride that contained everybody present.
The bride and groom, tears in their eyes, watched.
Later, the dancers returned to the party, but this time in their street clothes. They were all young, barely teenagers, and the girls had tarted themselves up, trying to look older, while the boys, open collared and strutting, were trying to look confident, like they belonged in the adult world of alcohol and taxi cabs.
After a spell, they formed a big circle with the rest of the party on the dance floor, and as the polka band played, each person took to the center and performed some improvised dance. The boys were astonishing in their athleticism– leaping and kicking they were as alive in their bodies as any creature could possibly be. Beaming, the girls, spun across the dance floor, their pigtails flying in an almost impossible symmetry—their bodies practically glowing with health and optimism.
The older people, the Father amongst them, sat at their tables watching from afar, while the rest of us clapped and stomped our encouragements. Earlier in the night I had been told the Father had been a member of the Soviet Special Forces, served for years as a prison chaplain and done extensive work with child prostitutes in Russia. His adjustment to Canada had been difficult and he often found himself struggling with the life God had chosen for him and pined for home. Sitting at his table, he seemed to be looking through all the rejoicing dancers, as if focused on something else, his face expressionless and impenetrable.