McHenry’s Ukrainian church splits off from Russian Orthodox Church, finding their new way

Of the 70 or 80 people attending Sunday services at St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church in McHenry, more than half of the congregants are recent Ukrainian immigrants fleeing the war in their country, church leaders said.

Since the church was founded as a Russian Orthodox church on the Bazylyuk family’s Sun Berry Farm near Woodstock in 2020, it has always included a mix of Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian and Moldavian immigrants, as well as Americans, parishioner Mariya Nevzhyska said.

But now, St. Nicholas is no longer a Russian Orthodox Church.

The congregation petitioned the Orthodox Church in America and Archbishop Daniel (Brum) earlier this year to join the Diocese of the Midwest, according to a news release from the Orthodox Church in America.

On April 23, St. Nicholas was “received and erected as a parish in the diocese, focusing on outreach to Ukrainian Orthodox Christians in the area,” according the release.

In the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the common, liturgical prayers is for the archbishop in Russia. But, the Russian orthodox denomination’s archbishop also supports the war, Nevzhyska said.

Church leaders “don’t call it a war in Ukraine,” Nevzhyska said. Instead, the Russian church calls it “a war for the freedom of the people in Ukraine.”

It was hard to commemorate and “show respect” to the church’s leadership, Nevzhyska said. But without the church’s liturgy, they could not exist as a Russian church, she said.

"It is very seldom to meet people here in the U.S. ... who do not support Ukraine in the war.”

—  St. Nicholas Orthodox Church President Sergiy Bazylyuk

Sergiy Bazylyuk and his wife, Tetyana, of Lake Zurich, began the church on their Woodstock farm in 2020 with the members worshipping in tents there, Sergiy Bazylyuk said.

“It was very temporary” the church board president Bazylyuk said, adding they wanted to create a parish for Orthodox Christians in McHenry County as none existed here.

When it started getting too cold to continue holding services at the farm, the former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, at 3706 W. Saint Paul Ave., McHenry, also was for sale. They moved to the church in 2021.

Then, Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

“In our prayers, we prayed for the health of the local bishops” in Russia by name, Bazylyuk said. “We are Ukrainian people. It is not appropriate to pray for his health.”

The congregation asked if they could leave the archbishop’s name out of the prayer, but “that would be against the rules,” Bazylyuk said. Instead, they asked “for the blessing to let us go to another diocese.”

The Russian Orthodox Church was sad to see the split, Nevzhyska said “But [the diocese] understood that, for us, it was hard for us to respect the archbishop in Russia.”

A few church members did not agree and did split off, Bazylyuk said. Others, including ethnic Russians who do not agree with the war, did remain.

Maryna Skvortsva is one of the new immigrants. She first left Ukraine in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, and fled to Poland. She and her family eventually went back to Dnipro, Ukraine, but when Russia invaded in 2022, they left for the U.S.

Speaking through Bazylyuk as an interpreter, Skvortsva said they first went to New York, where her husband’s aunt was living. There were unable to find jobs there, and a friend then suggested Illinois.

“The first Ukrainians I met were at this church,” Skvortsva said of the move.

Kateryna Staiko, her husband and their three children arrived in Illinois in June, fleeing Ukraine via Poland, she said through an interpreter. When they first arrived, they attended services at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in Elgin, but it wasn’t the same for her.

“Here, I can feel more comfortable,” Staiko said.

On Saturday, special services were held at the church on honor of St. Nicholas. While Nicholas is typically celebrated in December, the saint is also commemorated in May.

By tradition, May 20 is when relics of Nicholas’ – traditionally his bones – arrived in Bari, Italy, in the 11th century. The relics were removed from Myra, in modern-day Turkey, to Bari, in that year.

The day ended with a lunch, where men from the church grilled shish kabob, with side courses and desserts laid out by the wives and mothers.

Offering lunches to others in the community is something Bazylyuk would like to see St. Nicholas church do more of, he said.

“In the next couple of weeks we would like to get a free lunch on a Sunday for the whole town as an appreciation of their support of Ukraine” and the war, Bazylyuk said.

He has seen overwhelming support by Americans of the Ukrainian people since the war started, Bazylyuk said.

“It is very seldom to meet people here in the U.S. ... who do not support Ukraine in the war,” Bazylyuk said. “They have common sense.”

They hear nearly daily from his wife’s brother who is fighting there, he said. Others in the church have many family members who are still there, hiding in basements for days as the war rages around them.

“Every family has someone there, protecting their family and their freedom,” Bazylyuk said.