On May 17th 1916, more than one hundred years ago, Anna Chuda and John (Ivan) Babij were married in Saint George’s Ukrainian Catholic Church on East 7th Street in New York City.
The marriage license lists both husband and wife as being from the town of Podhajce (Pidhaitsi), in the province of Galicia in Austria, now a part of the Ternopil Oblast located in Western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Anna’s parents names are listed as Paul (father) and her mother as Ksenia Lemiszka. Ivan’s father is listed as Pantelis and his mother as Maria Palycha, however because of the handwriting our interpretation of the names were initially inaccurate but then again the scribe might have been the culprit. Subsequent research in the Ukrainian State Archives in Ternopil by our guide Diana Borysenko helped clarify the both the spelling and origins of both Ivan’s and Anna’s parental given names. Maria‘s surname actually transliterates from Cyrillic as “Palychata” which means “someone with curly hair”. “Pantelis” is a latinized nick-name derived from the Greek “Panteleimon” [after a martyred Third Century Greek saint] which means “all compassionate”. The given name “Ksenia” or “Kseniya” is a Slavic rendering of the Greek name “Xenia” (we found records in those archives that referred to Anna’s mother by all three names) which means “hospitality”.
The original church [see image here and slideshow above], built in the 1840’s as a Methodist Church, known locally as the Bowery Village Church, was demolished in 1976. The former site is now a parking lot.
The photos included herein are of the “new” church built in 1977, some 60 years after their marriage.
A quick note about the photos in this blog and others on this site: to view an expanded Lightbox view of a particular photo, just click on it and it will fill your screen. To close, click the small “x” located in its upper right-hand corner. Enjoy.
You can read more about both Ivan’s and Anna’s family heritage in the septet of posts on our visits to Ukraine, beginning with The Old Country: Ternopil Oblast; and continuing with The Old Country: Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast; followed by The Old Country: Lviv; augmented by The Old Country: In Nomine Patris; appended with The Old Country: Between The Forceps And The Stone in which we document meeting actual living relatives; and subsequently 
brought up to date with The Old Country: Blue Over Gold chronicling additional meetings with extended fanily and exploring the issues confronting Ukraine in its war with the invader – neo-tsarist Russia.
And…be sure to read our most recent blog “The Old Country: Our Slavic Roots” in which we discuss some reasons why Time turns truth into legend via missing family narratives.
Слава Україні
© Kazkar Babiy ™ MMXVIII.
Based on a work at www.ruthenians.net. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.ruthenians.net.
Views: 0