The Hamlin area was originally settled in 1903 by several families from the village of Ispas, in the Carpathian highlands of Bukovyna. In 1910 the pioneering farmers in the district – which was initially referred to as "north Ispas" so as to distinguish it from its counterpart on the opposite side of the North Saskatchewan River – decided to form a congregation that adopted as its feast day the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The following year, five acres of land atop a knoll, amid rolling hills, were donated by homesteader Maftey Malysh for an Orthodox church and cemetery. An impressive log structure was then built at the site using volunteer labourers working under the supervision of a congregation member, Sydorij Stefiuk. At the time of its inception, the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin had twenty-three members.
During the mid-1920s, Father Ivan Kusey provided for the spiritual needs of the community from his base at St. Peter and Paul Church in Kaleland. On 21 August 1926, Father Kusey used his wagon to convey Rev. Timotei Horbay to Hamlin, where the latter cleric was to reside permanently in a home near the church provided by G. Luchak. Father Horbay had served for six years as a Ukrainian Catholic priest, but in 1926 switched his allegiance to the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada.
At Hamlin he was paid five dollars a service by the financially pressed but extremely generous members of St. Mary's, who also took turns delivering him by wagon to the church at Downing (where he was paid an additional eight dollars for a monthly liturgy) and the railway station at Vilna. Thanks to the support of his understanding and enlightened parishioners, within a year Father Horbay was taking care of Orthodox adherents in Rafe (Glendon), Smoky Lake, Spedden, and Vilna. He later also added Flat Lake, Lessard, La Corey, Bellis, Radway and Egremont to the list of communities which he periodically visited, thereby greatly expanding the territorial reach of the UGOC within rural east central Alberta.
In the spring of 1929 Father Horbay relocated to the town of Smoky Lake, and once again the Hamlin district became dependent upon periodic pastoral visitations. Henceforth, the congregation was ministered to by priests who lived in either Smoky Lake or Willingdon.
As rural depopulation began to occur toward the end of the Depression years, membership at the Nativity of the Virgin Mary Church slowly began to decline. During the Second World War, when six liturgies were being celebrated annually at the sanctuary, the congregation numbered fifteen families, but this figure plummeted to six in 1946, and just five a year later. In 1948 only four Sunday services were held at the church, whose future viability seemed doubtful. However, the situation subsequently stabilized and the membership rebounded, so that by the early 1950s residents of Hamlin were again being allotted a half-dozen liturgies a year.
The Cemetery
Situated on the northeast corner of the church property. The earliest recorded burial is that of George Koroluk, who died in 1913.
Play Memory Eternal Chant
GPS Co-ordinates: 53.946873, -111.897907
Affiliation: Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada
