Ethnic Identity A Study of Liturgical Language Use in the Ukrainian

The Ukrainians who immigrated to North America had experienced ethnic, religious, and linguistic persecution in their homeland from the 13th century onward by neighbouring empires, and in recent memory most notably by the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. As immigrants, they left their ancestral land seeking freedom to develop their own ethnic identity, and to preserve their cultural heritage. At the level of cultural politics, in Canada they encountered a situation too similar to the one they had left. While not completely oppressive, the Canadian government and religious hierarchical structures, both Catholic and Orthodox, did not allow the Ukrainians to operate as freely as they desired. Language policy in Canada has always involved the promotion of the two official languages, English and French. The support of other languages in society, especially within education, has normally been discouraged by government policy, though not forbidden.