PRESS RELEASE

The fire in the historic Boian of Canada

The Romanian Orthodox community in Canada learned with unspeakable pain about the fire that consumed the historic church of the Dormition of the Mother of God Parish in Boian (Willingdon), Alberta.

The parish church erected 120 years ago caught fire and burned to the ground in the afternoon/evening of June 6, 2023.

The Romanian pioneers who came to Canada for the first time at the end of the 19th century, took with them the holy Orthodox faith and built the house of their soul, i.e. the church. Courageously, they established their first Orthodox parish at the place baptized after the name of the locality they had left, Boian of Bucovina. On December 31, 1902, the application for land for the church was submitted to the Department of the Interior under the provisions of the Homestead Mission Land Grant of Consolidated Orders of the North-West Territories.

Forty acres of land were granted on November 14, 1903. On August 2, 1905, Saint Mary Romanian Orthodox Church was built and inaugurated. On July 5, 1936, during his visit to western Canada, His Grace Bishop Polycarp Morușca, Romanian Missionary Bishop of the Romanians in the United States and Canada consecrated the church and gave it a second dedication to Saint Demetrius the Great Martyr. In September 1974, the church was declared a historic site, and in 1977, a historical monument in Canada. The end of July marks the celebration of 125 years since the arrival of the first Romanians in Boian.

Boian of Canada is the village that lives through the church. Year after year, second or third generation Romanians come to attend the religious services at Boian, even if they are settled in Edmonton. They know and see Boian’s church as the church of their village. This is where their predecessors are buried. On the hill, at the church of Boian, on Easter the sky lights up from the light of the candles carried by the descendants of the first Romanians. The faithful of Boian go to the graves and remember their loved ones and young people get married and baptize their children in Boian in the holy faith of their ancestors.

From 1969 until today, the priest of the Romanian Orthodox parish there was Rev. Fr. Mircea Panciuk. On June 11, 2023, the retirement celebration of Fr. Mircea Panciuk, who shepherded the community of Boian for over 54 years with much love and endless sacrifice, will take place. On March 19, 2023, His Grace Ioan Casian, the first Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada, visited and blessed this community. With the same occasion Deacon Gheorghe Petrovan was elevated to the priesthood on behalf of the parish in Boian.

Like the first Romanians who left for the New World, we also pray to God with bowed knees and hope in Christ the Lord and His Mother, the protector of this historical place to give strength to everyone, to the pastor, to Fr. Mircea Panciuk and Fr. Gheorghe Petrovan, to the faithful of the historic Boian, to overcome this painful and difficult event. We thank God that there were no human victims and no loss of human life, and we hope that despite this great hardship, the flame of the Romanian Orthodox faith brought with much sacrifice from Boian of Bucovina to Boian of Canada will be preserved through the support and fraternal solidarity of those who feel and they live Romanian Orthodoxy wherever they are in the world.

May Christ the Lord and His Most Pure Mother strengthen and grant serenity and courage to this tried community, giving it the peace and tranquility necessary for the rebuilding of the Canadian Boian church, "Alberta's Mount Tabor" as Fr. Mircea Panciuk called it.

Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada