Reverend Roman Rostyslav Ochrymovych

Rev. Roman "Romko" Rostyslav Okhrymovych was born in Senechil, Ukraine on March 6, 1883. He was married to Emilia "Miltsia" Jaksh. She was born in the village of Rozhanka, Skole county on November 27, 1892 and died in Sukhovil on March 5, 1966. Her father, Lev Jaksh, was partly of Czech ancestry (his father was Czech). He was a forester in Rozhanka. Her mother Olha Dubrawsky, was born in Rozhanka in 1871 and died in 1959 in Hrebeniv.

Roman and Miltsia had four children: Daria, Myroslav Lev, Markian Oleksander and Oksana.

Rev. Roman completed his high school in Lviv, and later in 1908 he finished his studies in theology. His first parish was in the village of Urych, Stryi county, and in 1924 he was transfered to the parish in Vorotsiv, near Lviv.

Roman was an ardent hunter. In Urych he had the chance to hunt for deer and boars. During the hunting season, the home was never without any wild meat, and Miltsia, an excellent cook, knew how to prepare a delicious meal. He also subscribed to various hunting magazines from Austria and Germany, and the house had a library full of German hunting literature. In Vorontsiv he hunted for, some time, for rabbits, but when he turned 50 years old, he ceased to hunt. He also enjoyed to catch trout.

During the summer there were many visitors to Urych, including students - hikers, that came to Urych to see the famous "Kamin" (Rock), and usually asked if they could spend the night on the parish grounds on the hay. And the Okhrymovych family would naturally invite them to dinner. On one such occasion ther was not enough in the house to feed them all, even though there was a full pig roast but it had soured, not fully spoiled, but not as tasty as it should have been. Miltsia had asked the students: : "I have a pig roast, but it is wild, I do not know how good it will taste?" The students ate the "wild pig" and it was so tasty that all that was left was the bone…

The other "sport" that Roman enjoyed was to play cards - preferans. Often during the winter, when the the neigbouring priest would arrive to do some eparchial paper work, and because of a snow storm he had to stay overnight, and with the addition of a third person (more often than not it was his nephew - Julian Salisnjak), then the "pulka" (card playing) could last from the time it started to get dark outside until late at night.

Roman was a very good farmer. Though the land that belonged to the parish was not that good (sand), nevertheless he still was able to get a good harvest. But mostly he was able to take advantage of the other opportunities that the parish owned, but such that could be seen. Not far from the parish courtyard was a pond. Every second year he would bring from the neighbouring village, where the landowner had a cattle pasture, 2000 pieces of "fish fry", young carp fish of a size of only several centimetres. At his pond, he would feed them with sifted wheat, potatoes that were too small to use, and lubin. Though not all the young carp fish would survive, nevertheless in two years, around Christmas (Rizdvo), Roman would be able to sell in Lviv around five hundred carp fish, that weighed at about 4 to 5 kilograms. Not a bad income, that helped send his children to Lviv to attend school and university. The home in the village of Sukhovil that his children would travel from to Lviv, was built from stone and timber from the parochial stones and forest.

But his business sense came out best when a flood one year spread over his hayfields on the parish lands (far from Vorotsiv, but close to Janiv) and covered it to such an extent, that the villagers, that would harvest it each year "for a few ricks of hay" did not want the hay. Though everyone tried to dissuade him, he neverthess hired a few to cut the wheat for money and, the hay that nobody wanted, he sold in Lviv to some Polish lancers that lived at the citadel for good money.

In the stable there were milking cows, little calves were born, there were pigs, chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys. Miltsia would sell eggs, milk, butter and cream - the maid would carry the orders to the clients in the neighbouring village of Zymna Voda. From the geese they would gather the feathers for pillows, for mending for the daughters. In the winter, every Sunday, for lunch there were roasts of geese, chickens, ducks, and during Lent fish from the pond. And for Easter, in addition to the traditional Easter bread "Paska", "Babka", and torts, there were homemade ham, beef fillets, sausages "kobassa", roast veal, and by obligation a roasted piglet, fully roasted in an oven where the bread was baked. Even the drinks for Holidays were homemade - Miltsia would add alcohol to a big bottle of cherries with sugar and that is how she made a tasty cherry brandy. At the store (in Vorotsiv there was a cooperative), hardly anything was purchased, with the exception of salt, sugar (which was a Polish state monopoly, and because of this it was very expensive), petroleum oil for the lamps ( at that time not even some of the cities had electricity), matches, and, of course, tobacco. Even though the world was going through an agricultural crisis at that time, when everyone was short in funds, and especially farmers, the Okhrymovych family in Vorotsiv lived quite comfortably, and it was even possible for them to send their two oldest children to complete university, the third child theology and the youngest one to high school, even though the school tuition and the travel expenses to Lviv were quite high.

When in 1930 the Polish authorities under Pilsudski were engaged in the horrific "pacification" (he would send into the Ukrainian villages penal detachments of Polish police and cavalry, in order to frighten the Ukrainians before elections. These detachments would destroy Ukrainian community infrastructures: reading houses, cooperatives, also the parish homes of priests and nationally-conscious Ukrainians, they would beat up the priests, teachers and community activists until blood was drawn, and for some to the death), the "pacifiers" somehow, by miracle, bypassed Vorotsiv and the Okhrymovych family, though the atrocities were raging in the neigbouring towns and villages. The other frightening danger that bypassed the Okhrymovychs in 1932 was: a Ukrainian student, Hryhorij "Hryts" Kopecky, during his summer vacations taught and conducted the Vorotsiv church choir. He was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and was one among those that with Bilas and Danylyshyn took part in an unsuccesful attack on a post office in Horodkiv, but did not fall, himself, into the hands of the Polish police. Miltsia hid him for three days and nights (he was hiding in the hayloft in the barn), so that no one knew about this, only Julian Salisnjak, who would secretly bring him food to eat. Several weeks later, she received a post card from Belgium, with the inscription: "The scenery is beautiful here, the weather is marvelous, a person can breath fresh air freely - signed Hryts", to which she broke down and cried, but the tears were of joy and not sadness. The Polish police did come looking for him, but since he had completed earlier his teaching assignment with the choir, and no longer was in Vorotsiv there was no trouble.

Rev. Roman had of a calm, happy character. He read a lot, and mainly was interested with world geography. On many occasions, mainly in winter, when there were long nights to endure, together with Juilian Salisnjak thay would ask each other questions: "Which is the highest mountain in the Andes? What is the name of the largest river that flows into the Amazon?" and similar questions like that. Often they would argue, and then they would refer to the world atlas in order to decide their disagreement. One attribute that Rev. Roman possessed that almost cost his life: he was absent-minded, often he would engage in a discussion, and forget about everything else. Once, when returning home late at night by train from Lviv, he began talking a neighbour, the parish priest of Mshany, and with the train now moving slowly from Sukhovil in the direction of its next destination, he suddenly remembered that he had to get off the train. Not thinking, he jumped from the train on the left side, almost under the wheels of an oncoming train that was moving at full speed from Horodka to Lviv. Luckily, before this train could face with him ( a wave of air that was blown from the side would have sent him crashing to the ground, under the wheels of of one or the other train), he had time to throw himself into the snow in between the narrow spacing of the two rail lines. When the trains passed, each going in its own direction, he got up from the ground, in shock that he had been so close to death, but alive and in one piece. This adventure however did leave its mark for the rest of his life - he would often wake up at night with a nightmare that an oncoming train was moving straight for him, and he is chained to the track, unable to move.

Rev. Roman died in Vorotsiv on March 5, 1955 and is buried there.

Роман-Ростислав Охримович (1883—1944) висвятився на священика 1908 р., працював адміністратором у Сенечолі (1908—1910), далі парохом в Уричі (1910—1924), Вороцеві на Яворівщині (1924—1944).