Area pastor celebrates 50 years in priesthood
The Rev. Joseph Chornyak will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood on Sunday, June 8, at St. March Byzantine Catholic Church in New Salem. There will be a Divine Liturgy of Thanksgiving in the church at 4 p.m. with Rev. Chornyak as celebrant. Co-celebrants will be the Very Rev. John H. Salko of St. John the Baptist Church in Scottdale, the Rev. Jerome G. Botsko of St. Mary’s in New Salem and St. Nicholas in Brownsville; and the Very Rev. Richard Whetstone of Ss. Peter and Paul in Warren, Ohio.
Metropolitan Archbishop Basil Schott will be homilist.
Gertrude Shirilla and Anna Skovran, cantors, and congregation and guests, will give responses.
A testimonial dinner program will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the social hall. The Rev. Robert E. Halus of St. Nicholas in Perryopolis will give the invocation. John Kormanik, church officer, will give the welcome. Gertrude Shirilla, local cantor, is toastmistress.
At dinner, the Very Rev. John H. Salko, dean of Mon Valley Deanery, Rev. Botsko and Rev. Whetstone will make remarks.
Presentations will be made by Andrew Demeter, church officer; Joseph Revak, men’s 50/50 activity; Patricia Krulock and Mrs. Louis Stanislaw, bake sale ladies; Kimberly Revak and Richard Kormanik, youth activities; Anna Skovran and Elaine Milan, social activities group.
Archbishop Schott will give an address and Rev. Chornyak will have an acknowledgement. The Rev. James Popochock of St. Procopius Roman Catholic Church in New Salem will give the Benediction.
Rev. Chornyak, youngest of eight children of the late Basil and Anna (Kovacs) Chornyak, was born in Pittsburgh on March 13, 1927. He was baptized and chrismated on March 20, 1927, in St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh by the late Rev. Nestor Volensky. The late Andrew Magera and Maria Susko were his godparents. He made his first confession on June 15 and received his first Holy Communion on June 16, 1935, during the pastorate of the late Rev. Stephen Kozak, who, with the late Peter Korpos, local cantor, taught his catechism and the Rusin language. He was an active altar boy; principal participant in his church’s youth folk dance ensemble; and a member of the local church choir. At age three months, he became a member of the Greek Catholic Union of the U.S.A. and still remains a member of this Fraternal Insurance Association.
Rev. Chornyak attended Greenfield Elementary Public School and both Schenley and Taylor Alder-dice public high schools, graduating from the latter with honors. At this time, the Most Rev. Basil Takach accepted him as a candidate to prepare for the Eparchial priesthood at St. Procopius College in Lisle, Ill. He studied philosophy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from St. Procopius College in 1950. He took his first year of theology at St. Procopius Seminary and his last three years of theology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Pittsburgh.
The late Most Rev. Daniel Ivancho conferred clerical Tonsure and the Order of Lector-Cantor on Rev. Chornyak on May 21, 1950, in St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Chicago.
In the chapel of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Pittsburgh, Bishop Ivancho ordained him a subdeacon on May 11, 1952; a deacon on Feb. 2, 1953; and a priest on June 6, 1953. He celebrated his first Divine Liturgy in St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church in Rankin, on June 7, 1953; and his First Solemn Divine Liturgy in his home parish church of St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh on June 14, 1953. Monsignor John M. Bilock was his pastor and later became Most Rev. Stephen J. Kocisko’s auxiliary bishop. Bishop Kocisko became the First Metropolitan Archbishop and the eparchy became a Metropolitan Archdiocese with two suffrigan eparchies: Passaic, N.J., and Parma, Ohio.
Bishop Ivancho appointed Rev. Chornyak to two eparchial parishes: Holy Ghost Church in Charleroi and St. Nicholas Church in Perryopolis in June 1953.
On Aug. 25, 1953, he assigned him as temporary administrator of St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Monessen. On Sept. 15, 1953, he became the associate pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Hazelton, with the Very Rev. Nicholas Martyak. There he founded The Knights of Christ’s Altar, a fraternity of more than 20 altar boys. Four of these became Byzantine priests: the Rev. Francis Yurek, the Rev. Eugene Fulton, the Rev. Emil Paulschock and the Rev. Myron Schott. Today, Rev. Schott is Metropolitan Archbishop: the Most Rev. Basil Schott, the fourth Metropolitan. After the Hazelton assignment, Rev. Chornyak became administrator of Holy Ghost Church in Mahwah, N.J., and an associate to Monsignor John A. Stim, eparchial consultor and pastor of St. Michael’s Church in Passaic, N.J. St. Michael’s became the Cathedral Church of the Eparchy of Passaic. This was the last appointment for Rev. Chornyak by Bishop Ivancho.
Rev. Chornyak’s first pastorate was assigned him by the Most Rev. Nicholas T. Elko to St. Mary’s (Patronage) Church in Bradenville (Snydertown) on Feb. 1, 1955. He was responsible for much renovation there and it was during his pastorate he was appointed by Westmoreland County Juvenile Court as the first temporary chairman of the Derry Area Youth commission under Judge David H. Weiss. He became a third degree Knight of Columbus in Blairsville, Council 3624, and became its chaplain.
Because of an automobile accident returning home from a funeral in Beaver Meadows, he became partially but permanently disabled. He was granted a short leave of absence for recuperation and in 1960 was relieved of his pastoral duties at St. Mary’s and helped his pastor at St. John Chrysostom Church in “Russka Dolina’ Pittsburgh.
On Feb. , 1961, he was assigned to the teaching staff at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Junior High School in Youngtown, Ohio. On Sept. 8, 1961, he was assigned to St. John’s Hungarian Church in Detroit. Here he helped organize a parish of Christ the King and St. Dymphna Shrine in Taylor, Mich. After the Detroit assignment, Bishop Elko sent Rev. Chornyak to St. Mary’s Assumption (Dormition) Church in New Salem and her mission of St. Nicholas Church in Bobtown. After extensively renovating the mission parish, he was relieved of the same on March 31, 1966, and devoted his full attention in duplicating the entire physical facilities in New Salem. His pastorate there began on Sept. 26, 1963.
Besides fulfilling his pastoral duties, he has lectured in local parochial schools, wrote for religious, fraternal and secular media. He participated in ecumenical programs, delivered meditations over WASP-Radio in Brownsville, was twice faithful Friar (1965 and 1969) of the Albert Gallatin General Assembly of the Knights of Columbus Council 1275 in Uniontown, orated in Orthodox jurisdictions, was co-director of the annual pilgrimages at Mount St. Macrina and preached in both English and Rusin languages at the pilgrimages. He was secretary of the Mon Valley Deanery, a member of the Archdiocesan Priest’s Pension Board, appointed to the seminary faculty as professor of church Slavonic and the Rusin language. This assignment came from Aug. 20, 1982, to Aug. 14, 1990.
As a deacon in 1953, he wrote “Moj Prijatel – My Friend,’ a Rusin handbook to help seminarians with their Rusin language, and in 1982 as Slavonic professor, he compiled a church Slavonic grammar for seminarians. He wrote and delivered 40 Rusin sermons via airwaves in Munich, Germany, in 1962 and 1967 for Radio Free Europe. He caused to be published a treatise, a literary work on the Diocese of Presov, where his parents were from. Today all these works have become a part of the Slav Studies collection in the Harvard University Slav Research Institute. In June 1, 1987, he was appointed as Defender of the Bond and a Notary of the Archdiocesan Marital Tribunal. On June 28, 1988, he was appointed director of the Archdiocesan Museum. Metropolitan Archbishop Stephen J. Kocisko made all of these appointments.
Metropolitan Archbishop Thomas V. Dolinay, in 1992, appointed Rev. Chornyak as a member of the board of directors of the Archdiocesan Finance Institute.
Presently, Rev. Chornyak is retired and living in Perryopolis. He retired Feb. 26, 1998. He was officially relieved of his pastorate at St. Mary’s Assumption Church in New Salem in by Metropolitan Archbishop Judson M. Procyk.