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WayneBenedet — Church of the Grotto
Published: 2010-09-24 14:38:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 12842; Favourites: 355; Downloads: 0
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Description
This Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception is located in Cooks Creek, Manitoba.It was designated as a heritage site on May 1, 1986 by the Honourable Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Minister of Culture, Heritage and Recreation.
The Present Owner: Immaculate Conception Church of Cooks Creek.
Construction of this church began in l930. The exterior painting and elaborate interior decoration, mainly by local amateur artists, began in l938 when the structure was completed. This work was well advanced in l952 when the church was consecrated. The design is the work of the Very Reverend Philip Ruh, O.M.I. (l883–l962). He was responsible for planning at least 30 Ukrainian Catholic churches in Canada, l3 of which survive in Manitoba. Reverend Ruh worked alongside his congregation at Cooks Creek in building this church, the largest of his remaining creations in Manitoba.
Reverend Ruh also foresaw construction of the adjoining Grotto, a representation in concrete of the Grotto at Lourdes, France. He died before its completion and is buried in the nearby cemetery.
with special thanks to DHL Photography for his rendition of this image:
GPS location 50.004156,-96.77252
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Comments: 153
Maybe mario brothers could design a game built on it !!!
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Oh WOW It's look like a huge Playmobile house 8D. Beautiful ^^!
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it does kind of look fake (like a model) doesn't it. And I suppose the raised perspective lend itself to that perspective too.
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Manitoba??!>! Haha, wouldn't have believed that this was there! But I love the colour of it! How beautiful, and such a reflection of the prairies themselves!
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lol...
me neither, and on top of that, consider that is it in a SMALL community about 30 minutes from a city , but certainly a rural area, one could not even call it a town.
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That would make a great house or castle!
But a church is good too.
Amazing shot of the architecture!
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thanks Amy,
the whole place would make a great place for location shooting. beside the church is a man made grotto, I can easily envision models in the environment and lots of glamor shots.
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perfect 5*****
a picture quality!
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is it orthodox? charming architecture
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Not really sure jackson, it was locked when we were there, but we did get to explore the grotto, the picture was taken from over the grotto, so the height was helpful in maintaining ketstone reduction. (though I still did have to adjust).
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Very impressive! The building, the colors and the sky are just beautiful! Really great capture!
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thanks.
I think it was the colour that pulled me into the shot to begin with. And the building itself is just out of sorts with the rural environment.
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Exposure well held for tricky enough conditions, ggod sense of scale with the people included otherwise it might look like a model
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the exposure was a B---h, I had to experiment, and still the clouds were blown out in one place. That then put the shadows out of spectrum, so processing became the key. Over all, the dynamic range of this image is far beyond what my camera can capture.
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That is what seperates the men from the boys Wayne
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You know Frank Loyd Wright might Almost approve on initial glance it's big and doesn't fit with environment but the shape does actually remind me of a tree line and I wondering how well the yellow blends in the fall ... It's a great image of an interesting building and house of worship 
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it really is out of place. We were camping in the area, and we went for a drive. There are two large churches within a mile of each other, and a few houses along that mile. The community is called Cooks Creek (google it) but there is no town to speak of. It kind of just amazed me that this building was there and that it could even be sustained by the community. I suppose a lot of people drive in.
beside it is a grotto, it too is an interesting man made structure, one could almost feel the pageantry.
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It is amazing how Churches like this that seem beyond the means still get built and remain standing sometimes... I guess it goes to show that their followers believe (or someone was cooking some books LOL)
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50.004156,-96.77252
I had trouble finding it, but these are the coordinates. Google only has a view with snow in it.
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wow yeah "boondocks" and then those 3 structures!!!
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it kind of makes me wonder how all of this came about. The history I have found so far is quite brief. The building has been designated an historical stite, so it will be maintained.
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Looking it up I see the Influence of the Architecture VERY Clearly Ruh Studied in the Ukraine and the style is Very much of that area. Bring Catholic also makes more sense regarding the funds for it being built especially since it was started before or during the great depression but finished after WWII Kind of Yeah we "be alright" statement if there ever was one/ Ruh's history of building churches is a bit intriguing though not very surprising given his apparent devotion to the Catholic Religion and spreading its word from Western Europe to studying eastern then moving to Canada. Thank you ... I love history and this is a great tale to study
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I have never seen a Ukrainian catholic church designed in any other style. There are a number of them in Manitoba, in part due to the large number so people who immigrated from the Ukraine, so it is no wonder the influence is there.
I will put some oif the history with the picture today. Something I usually do, but did not get to yesterday.
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Yes that's what I was catching regarding the immigration
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was the area at one point more populous???
Wondering because in this country to be Historical Site has to be something akin to 100 years or more and I have seen areas that have gone from relatively high to very low populations in boom and bust periods especially if a business or sometimes Church pr religious sect has moved into an area then left.
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I don't think so. There would have been more smaller farms, but the area is a farming area, Cooks Creek may have been a small town that has dwindled, but the area would never have been heavily populated, certainly not enough to support the church on its own. So they must have attracted people from other communities like Birds Hill and Selkirk. In my mind, it makes the whole thing even more amazing.
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Aye it is rather amazing
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i'm amazed that so many people are impressed by this building. ok, it's grand and breathtaking on first sight, but it's a HISTORICAL FALSIFICATE, a building taken from historical european context and transplanted to a new environment. I don't see how a neo-romanesque building can fit in an american landscape.
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It fits because the people who built it believe it is as it should be. They are/were most probably immigrants of a certain faith and faith knows no other location than the human heart.
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Ok, but the style is totally out-of-time, totally manirist, and examining the domes, I'd say the community that built it were some eastern-european immigrants. It's not a question of faith, but rather a question of style. i'm croatian and here in croatia, in capital of zagreb, we also have some religious buildings that were built in neo-classical styles, but were actually built or re-designed in 19th century. i'm just saying that building an object that looks like a historical building, but actually isn't one - is fake.
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i checked, the parishioners that built the church were ukrainian orthodox. good guess, drrocket
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K was impressed with the structure, not something that I am used to seeing, and especially when you consider it is in the middle of now here.
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I wonder which denomination it might be, it's sort of Russian Orthodox-ish or maybe Coptic...
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Ah, that accounts for the domes...
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yes,
I updated the comments with a bit more history. I did not have time to pull it together yesterday. If you follow the GPS link you can clearly see the church and the grotto to the north.
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Wonderful, thank you. I will definitely have a look.
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I was amazed at how easily it can bee seen.... this is a massive structure
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Google Earth doesn't have a high resolution satellite photo of it, sigh.
Good Heavens! It is massive! And, as you say, practically in the middle of nowhere...
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sighhhhhh... yes... we are so far north... must be the curvature of the earth lol.. or something like that... couldn't possibly be anything else
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I think Google Earth needs to buy a proper lens...
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it is a beautiful church, and the grotto beside is also spectacular.
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