After a one-year absence, the Byzantine liturgy has returned to Northam, with plans to celebrate the Divine Liturgy there once a month.
Perth’s Ukrainian Catholic priest, Fr Wolodymyr Kalinecki, travelled to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish church to say Mass there on November 24, and will continue to do so every third Sunday of the month.
He told The Record that originally the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in Northam every Sunday, but numbers had gradually declined over the past 30 years.
“When I came to Perth the schedule was twice a month,” he said. “I then cut it down to once a month, and finally when there were only two ladies left in hospital I used to just visit them in their homes.”
When the Northam parish was established in 1975, there was a strong Ukrainian community present, but many have since passed away or relocated to Perth, Fr Kalinecki said.
“There’s only one lady, we call her the matriarch, who’s still there, the rest are the children of the pioneers,” he said.
With the church out of action for the past year, Fr Kalinecki said the parish’s future was looking uncertain.
“We were thinking of eventually, if there were no more parishioners, maybe to sell the church and build one somewhere else where there is a cluster of Ukrainians,” he said.
But the descendants of the Northam Ukrainian community recently conveyed an interest in attending a Divine Liturgy regularly at the parish, and it’s hoped that a revival of sorts may occur.
“Some of the children of the pioneers wouldn’t like to see the church closed because it’s their parents’ legacy,” Fr Kalinecki said.
The Byzantine rite liturgy will be said in English at Northam, to cater for the younger Ukrainians who reside there who have little or no knowledge of their native language.
“We’re just hoping that eventually, once a month, there will be a regular liturgy,” Fr Kalinecki said.
“If they want it more often, we might have it more often for the folks. But it depends, we’ll see if it takes off or not.”