Belgian Oblate crafted Cathedrals

Fr. Philip Ruh designed four elaborate Prairie cathedrals

The Immaculate Conception – December 8

- WCR photo by Ted Fitzgerald Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception at Cook's Creek, Man., was designed by Fr. Philip Ruh.

By TED FITZGERALD
Special to the WCR
Cook's Creek, Man.

Each December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception recalls the proclamation in 1854 by Pope Pius IX that Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin carried by all humans.

This dogma finds extraordinary expression in a huge domed church that dominates the rural landscape at Cook's Creek near Winnipeg.

Honouring Our Lady, this is one of the great Prairie cathedrals, the culmination of the church-building career of Father Philip Ruh, not surprisingly a member of the missionary group dedicated to this doctrine, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI).

Conception of St. Anne

Before the dogma had been announced in Rome, the feast had been observed in the Eastern Church since the sixth century under the title The Conception of St. Anne (Mary's mother) and is still identified as a solemnity on Ukrainian Catholic calendars.

In Europe, establishment of the doctrine was anticipated by French parish priest Eugene de Mazenod who, on Dec. 8, 1825, founded a missionary order dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

OMI blessings

These Oblates of Mary Immaculate successfully expanded and were contributors to the early history of Western Canada. Marseille Bishop de Mazenod was canonized in 1995 by Pope John Paul II.

An unusual member of the order was a German born in 1883 in Alsace-Lorraine who went on to be ordained as an Oblate priest in 1910. While contemplating his future and where in the world his mission would be fulfilled, he became aware that there was a serious shortage of clergy to minister to thousands of new Canadians that had left their Ukrainian homeland to settle on the Western Prairies.

Amazingly, Ruh requested and obtained permission to transfer to the Ukrainian Catholic Church, spent two years in Ukraine learning a new language and sacred rites and in 1913, ended up in Mundare.

Ministering to people over thousands of kilometres in the area east of Edmonton, he soon realized that not only were clergy in demand, but churches in many areas were non-existent or were being built by area pioneers. So added to his excessive pastoral duties, Ruh found himself following a new career as church designer and builder.

Innovative designs

More than 30 of his churches are now scattered across the Prairies through to Ontario. His often innovative techniques culminated in the construction of what have come to be called Prairie cathedrals - four elaborate structures of which only the one at Dauphin and the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Cook's Creek, dedicated to his order's patron, have survived.

Parishioners of two small churches at Cook's Creek had requested that Ruh be sent to help them build a larger replacement. Construction began in 1930 with his arrival as parish priest.

He would serve there for 30 years and oversee the painfully slow construction of the great church, entirely the labour of parishioners, always short of funds for materials during the Great Depression. Immaculate Conception was open for service in 1940 but not consecrated until 1952.

The elaborate, seven-domed structure exhibits architectural elements that the priest had encountered in his lifetime - basically a Kievan design with Romanesque and Gothic adaptations - a unique Western Canadian edifice.

Sung Divine Liturgy is celebrated here Sundays at 10:30 a.m. in English and an annual pilgrimage is held near the mid-August feast of the Assumption. The adjacent Lourdes grotto is accessible to the public on weekends and daily in July and August.

Ruh ended his remarkable life of ministry and church building on Oct. 24, 1962 and is buried with members of his beloved, adopted Ukrainian flock in the well-maintained cemetery of his Prairie cathedral - the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, Cook's Creek.

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