PART ONE - I dedicate to my maternal grandparents. They spent all their lives trying to improve the lot of the Lemkos they served.
Rev. Vasyl Smolynskyj was born in 1868 into a peasant family in the village of Korenitsya, Yaroslav district. Upon completing high school in Peremyshl, he studied theology in Lviv and Peremyshl. Being blessed with a magnificent bass-baritone voice, he was offered a full government scholarship to study singing abroad. However, he felt that his vocation lay in the priesthood and rejected this proposition.
In 1897 Vasyl married Izabella Bendzinska of Peremyshl and a year later, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop K. Chekhovych. After several years of fulfilling an assistant's duties, he was appointed parish priest of Roztoka Velyka, near Krynitsya, Noviy Sanch district. In 1917, he was transferred to the neighboring parish of Nova Ves, where he remained until his death in 1945.
Rev. Smolynskiy's wife Izabella died in 1953 after enduring the tragic death of her only son Ivan, a doctor, as a consequence of the post-war state of lawlessness.
Both Rev. Vasyl and Izabella are buried beside the Nova Ves' kostel, the tserkva having burned down due to "unknown causes".
The Smolynskiy's family numbered four children, the youngest of whom, daughter Ivanna, lives in Canada.