Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church

In the early 1900s, the Ukrainian population in West Islip was soaring. Three men decided to build a church to accommodate the growing number of Ukrainian residents in their new community. By 1925, a Board of Trustees for the Ukrainian Catholic Church of St. Peter and Paul in West Islip was formed.

The location of the church was secured on January 20, 1925, when Capt. Roman Litwin deeded property he owned to the church, which was located at the intersection of Higbie Lane and what was Litwin Drive. Litwin was a wealthy sea captain with a successful fishing business in Babylon.

The land where the church was built, which today is 64 Higbie Lane, was part of the property where his own home was located. For unknown reasons, but possibly because of the proximity to his own home, Litwin had a clause written into the deed that any property erected on that land must be used for religious organizations only or else the property would revert back to him.

On October 18, 1925 a $2,000 loan was taken from the Bank of Babylon to start the church. The three men who signed the note-John Petrowski, Peter Podlesny and Michael Levyck-are credited as the founders of the church. Petrowski's son-in-law, Daniel Zawyrucha, gave an oral history to the West Islip Library on March 3, 1982. In that history he explained that the original church building was a transplanted ice house. Here is an excerpt of Zawyrucha's history as it pertains to the church:

"It was an ice house that was dragged over from one of the estates from the village of Babylon, and then put on a foundation and added onto. It was originally an ice house on Gilmore's Estate."

Zawyrucha's daughter, Daria Williams, has lived in West Islip since she was born (1949). This week she invited Carolyn Agenjo, president of the West Islip Historical Society, and West Islip Patch to visit the church that her family helped start.

"The Church was dedicated on Christmas Day in 1925. It was originally St. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church, but it was later renamed Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church," Williams said.

That name change appears on a deed dated June 9, 1938, when one of Litwin's heirs, Julia Litwin, allegedly signed the rights of the land over to the church, although Williams is still waiting on legal verification to see if in fact that is what transpired. After 50 years in West Islip, the church was dedicated as a landmark by the Town of Islip on April 17, 1975.

After her grandparents ran the church, Williams' parents took over that responsibility. When her mother, Jennie, passed away in 2000, the church closed for services permanently after her funeral mass.  The responsibility of the building's future is now in Williams' hands. She has rented it out for use by other churches occasionally over the last ten years, and other organizations rent out the basement on a regular basis.

"The church lost their parishioners. They died. I am the last one left," Williams said.

The inside of the church still looks exactly like a church, with all the hallmarks you would expect from one built 85 years ago: stained glass windows, painted tin panels for the walls and ceiling, crystal chandeliers, wooden chairs instead of pews facing the altar and religious paintings with captions written in Ukrainian hung on the walls. Occasionally, Williams rings the bell which is still in its tower, accessible through a door in the balcony which was where the church choir sat during services.

She still lives near the church. She was married there in 1981 and she and her husband raised two children in the community. Williams shared some stories of her own childhood growing up in West Islip.

"I was the first majorette in the first West Islip Memorial Day Parade which took place sometime in the mid 1950s. We all wore little pink outfits and marched from Secatogue School (now Paul J. Bellew Elementary School) to the split of Higbie Lane and Udall Road.," she said. "I was also in the parade for the dedication of the West Islip Library when it was moved to Union Boulevard around 1960 or 1961. We marched from the Hawley Avenue library building down Union Boulevard. I was a brownie and it rained that day. My wool Brownie beanie shrunk, my wool coat shrunk, everything shrunk and I was soaked"

The answer to last week's trivia question is: The original name of Casamento Park was Muncey Park.

This week's trivia question: How many buildings in West Islip are designated landmarks? The answer in next week's column.