Carpatho-Rusyn Society’s renovation of Munhall cultural and educational center a legacy project for its 30th anniversary

Sharon Jarrow and John Righetti have worked hard for years to bring awareness of the rich and storied history of Carpatho-Rusyns throughout Western Pennsylvania, the United States and worldwide.

The current president and co-founder, respectively, of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society, along with their board of directors, want to ensure that legacy continues as they prepare for its 30th anniversary this fall. The major goal to do so: renovate completely its Cultural and Educational Center in Munhall. That way it can house a museum with archives and more that preserves the work the society has done through its existence and will continue into the future.

It plans to raise $200,000 over three years to achieve that objective, with internal and external work on the Dickson Street building, the original location of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist that has been designated a historic landmark by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, according to the society’s website.

A July fundraising letter sent to members of the organization’s more than 1,400 members in 13 chapters explains that those funds would enable it to reopen the center as a “cultural heritage museum with permanent and rotating artifact and art exhibits, functional archives, a reading room and an inviting gathering space.”

Titus de Bobula, a Hungarian-born architect, designed the structure in 1903. He sought a “uniquely American architectural style, inspired by the Rusyn Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross located in Ungvar, Austria-Hungary, present-day Uzhhorod, Ukraine. The church’s twin towers rise 125 feet and are composed of white brick in a Greek cruciform pattern set into sandstone. The Art Nouveau architecture displays a distinctive central European appearance,” according to its website. The Byzantine Catholic cathedral moved to 210 Greentree Road, Munhall, in 1993, and church leadership dedicated it the next year.   

The anniversary celebration will begin on Friday, Oct. 25, with a welcome and cocktail hour at the center and the opening of an art exhibit. The evening will include a presentation by Nicholas Kupensky, an associate professor of Russian at the U.S. Air Force Academy, on the work of the Rev. Emil Kubek, a Byzantine priest and a significant Rusyn American writer and poet.

The next day will include bus tours of prominent Pittsburgh Rusyn sites, led by Righetti. A banquet at the current cathedral will be held that evening with a variety of Rusyn American food, entertainment by Harmonia, and presentation of the Michael Strank Award, named for a Cambria County native and U.S. Marine Corps sergeant. He and five other men raised the American flag on Iwo Jima, captured in an iconic photograph in February 1945. By the end of March 1945, three of the six men in the photograph had been killed in action, including Strank, never knowing the impact the image would have. The Strank Award recognizes Carpatho Rusyns who have made significant contributions and has been given every five years, Righetti said.

Past winners of the Strank award include Orestes Mihaly of New York, Righetti and Dr. Robert Hanich of North Carolina.

Jarrow said internal work on the center, such as painting and renovating bathrooms to accommodate attendees, and external work, such as roof repairs, will be done before October. Righetti added that the new HVAC system is being installed and flooring replaced. Renovations to the education and board rooms are complete. The rest of the work will be apportioned over the next two years. Those updates include security and remote monitoring, more electrical work, archival needs, internet updates, more painting and repairs to the downstairs area. 

The society acquired the church in 2004, and it took about two years, he said, to start using it. The society acquired it from the St. John’s European Cultural Center, working on the financial side to turn it into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit after removing property tax liens. 

Then the physical work began. First it had to fix a pigeon problem — 3 feet of dead birds and droppings that cost $9,000 to alleviate, Righetti said. The downstairs church hall was still in its 1902 original condition. Water issues abounded, as well as electrical configurations with light switches only accessible from a former church rectory connecting hallway. Later, the water problem was found not to be just from a leaky roof or groundwater. When an internal French drain was installed, contractors found a broken Munhall water pipe; installation of a false wall and other work fixed that.

With the necessary and important work completed, the society started having events — dance recitals, singing group performances, educational programming and more. The church hall does not have a working kitchen, but leaders made do with caterers. The society offered its space to other community organizations to use free of charge, too, to help them and open doors and connections to leaders and elected officials. 

Mostly the group has held events in the church body and on the stage. Righetti said board member Maria Silvestri created a portable museum on wheels for attendees to admire during the organization’s 15th anniversary.

The physical work complements the society’s overhaul of its website, which has just gone live, and a digital New Rusyn Times, which had been a print publication, will be a launched soon. Members receive ongoing communications about their organization through regular email newsletters and correspondence.

The society has managed to do all of this without incurring debt. On occasion community groups rented rooms and space in the building for events, which brought in some revenue.

“Up until this point, every penny we sank into the building came from members,” Righetti said. “We didn’t do fundraising or write grants. Now we’re at the point — once the first floor is done — that we’ve started to talk to foundations and applying for grants.”

The three-year fundraising drive has three levels. Pledges of $1,000, $500 and $250 yearly are: Oleksander Dukhnovych, named for the priest, poet, writer and social activist considered “the awakener of the Rusyns”; Gregory Zatkovich, an attorney who lived in Munhall after emigrating to the U.S. and then returned as the first governor of Subcarpathian Rus’ in April 1920; and Andy Warhol, the famous Pittsburgh native pop artist who had a Carpatho Rusyn heritage.

Righetti said the society and its building have three significant historic aspects: It’s the first Carpatho Rusyn cathedral in America, discussions to start Czechoslovakia started in it, and former Pennsylvania governor and the first Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge was baptized in the building. “He’s the first Slav to make it to the Cabinet in the U.S.,” Righetti said.

The other society co-founders are Jerry Jumba, Mary Ann Sivak, Lois Liberman, Christina  Duranko, Dave Felix, Keith Koshute and Rich Custer.

Jarrow lauded the board members and other volunteers who have spearheaded the work and oversee the renovation project, as she lives in Nazareth on the eastern side of the state. Righetti and Silvestri serve as contacts for the contractors working on the center, and Jarrow said a team of six people are working on the website and newsletter.

The building is important to her and the others as they consider it to be living history. “I remember when I was first in there,” Jarrow said, noting she felt a sense of spirituality. “Since then over the years when I have gone there, more and more has been done, more and more growth and change, but the spirituality has not left. It’s a very special place for all Rusyns.

“I am glad we can use it for the anniversary. We will continue to work on it.  Our final goal — turn it into a museum where we can host our archives. They are now locked away. We want to have them there, make that open to the public. We need to get it to that point, though. We want to make it a masterpiece.”

Jarrow and Righetti both said the society has a treasure trove of archives that need to be cataloged and preserved. Those items include costumes from various Carpatho Rusyn villages, baptismal papers, genealogy records, books, church records and more. Righetti said Silvestri has a degree in museum studies, which will be a huge help in that effort.

The president, who grew up in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, near Scranton, said her grandparents Mihaly Pohanics and Anna Straskulic came to the United States from Verkovina, Bystra and Lubyna, Transcarpathia, Austria-Hungary. They settled in Scranton, then Dunmore, in the early 1900s. 

She wanted to know more. So Jarrow started to question two of her aunts, who had been born in Europe, about “where we came from.” Finally one of them, Mary Skubick, gave her one of Paul Robert Magocsi’s books, “Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America,” that led her to some answers. When she found the society, Jarrow found a wealth of information about her heritage, with special assistance from Rich Custer. 

She then traveled to the homeland, led by Righetti and Dean Poloka, “a trip of a lifetime,” where she unexpectedly met family members in Kostryna, Ukraine, and had a chance encounter with someone who had been born in McKees Rocks but moved back when a family member became ill. Jarrow has traveled to Europe several times, searching for more family history amid those trips.

Jarrow, who spent 54 years as a nurse in various specialties before retiring as a nurse educator at Lehigh Carbon Community College, said as society president, she has many goals but maintaining awareness of “this beautiful Carpatho Rusyn heritage” is primary. And it’s personal to her.

“When I say I am Carpatho Rusyn, I would like positive acknowledgement of my culture. I am not Ukrainian. I am not Slovak. I am not Russian. I am not Polish. I am Rusyn,” Jarrow said. “Education is the key to understanding, and in that area the society is opening more and more doors for those who wish to learn. Who are we? Genealogy brings in another dimension, and this is an area of expansion. We hope to help others learn of their Rusyn roots.”

Righetti has immersed himself in his heritage for decades, dedicating much of his life and career to the society and other similar organizations and educational projects. He’s traveled abroad often, led trips and maintained contacts with relatives in the Carpatho-Rusyn region, including cousins in Ukraine. He has one 26-year-old cousin serving in the Ukraine military on the front lines and knows how relatives struggle with money when the price of a loaf of bread there has surged 400%.

One example: He and another person started the North American Consortium of Carpatho-Rusyn Organizations, encompassing Canada and the U.S. It met monthly and started to do a lot of work in Washington, D.C., making progress toward governments recognizing Carpatho Rusyn people in Europe. 

“It’s a really emotional thing for me,” he said, struggling to find the words to express himself. “If you think about what our people lived like here and in Europe, people actively working to eliminate us as a culture. The fact that this building is going to be here forever and ever [is amazing].” 

He said the center’s major renovation and the Cleveland chapter’s community garden project are key. The garden is set in a wooded glade sloping down to the lower boulevard and a sandstone terrace with parapets of brick and stone. The high and low levels are reminiscent of the Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe that was the homeland of many Rusyns, according to the website, with Carpathian walnut and pine trees common there. A committee erected a new bust of Dukhnovych — a name anglicized to Alexander Duchnovich — in 2011, replacing a prior one that had been lost in the 1970s. Etched on the front is his famous phrase, “I was, am and always will be a Rusyn.”  

“Long after we’re gone, they are going to be there. I want my grandchildren and your grandchildren to be taken there and learn,” Righetti said. “In 2004 we didn’t know there would light at the end of tunnel. Now there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”