Winnipeg
Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral
1175 Main St, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
The Full Story of the Building of the Holy Trinity Cross Cathedral
The story begins in 1948, with the initiative of Metropolit Mystyslav Skrypnyk announcing a competition for designs for the new, to-be-built cathedral for Winnipeg. Ordained by Archbishop John Theodorovich, Metropolit of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America, and Cana
da (1924-1946), Metropolit Mystyslav was Archbishop of Win
nipeg and all of Canada from 1947 to 1949.
During this time it was his paramount goal to construct a Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox cathedral in Canada, and to that end he reached out to tap the talents of architects beyond Canada’s border announcing a competition with a prize of $300 to the winner. Twenty-two designs were submitted from as far away as France, Argentina, Germany, and California in the United States.
December 1948, having made their decision, The Competition Committee, consisting of Archbishop Mystyslav, Rev Father I.H. Syrnyk and P. Krypiakevych awarded the First Prize to two winners; Yurii Kodak and Prof. Yurii Slastiyon. Yurii Kodak’s conceptual drawing is photo top left. The Competition Committee then turned their decision choices over to the Building Committee.
As described in Canadian Orthodox History Project’s electronic site. The Selection Committee of the Cathedral Building Committee chose the joint sketch of George Korbin and Alexander Powstenko, photo bottom right. Quoting from the above site:
“This “Kiev” sketch served as a model from which the present cathedral building was developed.” (Photo bottom right)
In January 1958, the Building Committee at Holy Trinity sent the design plans for the “Kiev” sketch by registered mail to G. Kodak asking for his input. Yurii reviewed the drawings and communicated back with 10 pages and 12 drawings describing changes to be made for the new Cathedral to be reflective of a traditional Ukrainian Baroque-style church – such as he had proposed in his winning sketch of 1948.
The above information was taken from the newspaper “Ukrainian Voice, Winnipeg, Manitoba, June 30th and July 28th, 1948.
In 1971, submissions for a new iconostases were solicited and in 1972 Yurii Kodak’s design for the iconostases for Holy Trinity Cathedral was accepted. See Iconostases section.
Metropolit Mystyslav Skrypnyk’s Winnipeg Cathedral design competition in 1948 established Yurii Kodak’s reputation as a preeminent architect of Ukrainian ecclesiastical designs. He received requests for church designs from various corners of the world including Lakemba, N.S.W. Australia; Paris, France; Rome, N.Y. USA; and Vernon, B.C. Canada. Over the next 40 years, in addition to his work as an architect with the Federal Department of Public Works of Canada, he designed six iconostases and over fifteen Churches.