About Us: The basis for the Utrecht Byzantine Choir lies in a group of Ukrainian seminarians with its professors who came to the Netherlands shortly after the Second World War. Born and raised in Ukrainia dr. Myroslaw Antonowycz conducted the worship services in C... moreThe basis for the Utrecht Byzantine Choir lies in a group of Ukrainian seminarians with its professors who came to the Netherlands shortly after the Second World War. Born and raised in Ukrainia dr. Myroslaw Antonowycz conducted the worship services in Culemborg for the reestablished Ukrainian seminar. After the seminarians were graduated, they swarmed out to fulfill their priestly vocation for the Ukrainians all over the world. The now outside the monastery walls well-known seminarian choir fell apart while applications for the singing of liturgies and concerts throughout the Netherlands, kept coming.
On the initiative of Msgr. AG Smith, dr. Antonowycz founded the Utrecht Byzantine Choir on February 9, 1951, consisting of only Dutch men, who specialized in singing the liturgy according to the Slavic-Byzantine rite.
In cooperation with the Apostolate of the Eastern Churches, the UBK initially only sang liturgies according to the Byzantine Rite. Hundreds of parishes in the Netherlands became familiar with the Eastern Slavic-Byzantine lung of the Catholic Mother Church.
Soon the choir added rich secular typical Ukrainian liturgical songs to its repertoire base. In countless concerts and liturgies the UBK testifies of the wealth of Ukrainian song culture, of the liturgic songs of church father John Chrysostom and of Cossack songs, classical in tone and in Ukrainian poetry.
Ukrainian communities in Germany, France and Belgium to Canada and the United States were visited during intense and colorful tours. In the grand celebration of 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine (1988), the UBK was a prominent guest at the celebration in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The singers were in 1990, and Dr. Antonowycz received grand and emotional in Ukraine shortly after it the freedom to celebrate the Byzantine liturgy was regained. They had not forgotten this in the recent visit of the UBK to Lviv (2008) where many believers and fans appreciated the chorus exuberantly both after the liturgy in the Yura Cathedral as the concerts in and outside the city. The Holy Spirit Seminary in Lviv has become a spiritual partner of the UBK.
In 1991 Dr. Antonowycz farewell as a conductor and he received the silver medal of the city of Utrecht. Then he was appointed honorary conductor of the Utrecht Byzantine Choir.
He was succeeded in 1992 by Grigori Sarolea .
Dr. M. Antonowycz died on April 11, 2006 in his hometown Vleuten - De Meern. less
Additional names: Utrechts Byzantijns Koor
Location: Labradordreef 18, 3565 AN , Utrecht, Netherlands [map]
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