The European meeting of rectors of the seminaries of UGCC was held

On May 12-14, 2009, in Lviv on the premises of the international charitable fund Caritas Ukraine (Ozarkevicha St., 4), the European meeting of rectors of the seminaries of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church took place. The task of the meeting, according to the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, was to work on a document called «The program of evangelization and missionary education in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.» The meeting took place at the initiative of Bishop Ken (Nowakowski), head of the Patriarchal Commission of the UGCC for Priests’ Education in Seminaries. The rectors of eparchial and monastic seminaries and houses of formation of the UGCC which operates on the European continent took part. As reported at the office of the Major Archbishop, His Beatitude Lubomyr on the occasion of the meeting of rectors of seminaries in the name of Bishop Ken wrote a letter of greeting. In the document the Head of the UGCC expressed his gladness at seeing the active activity of the Patriarchal Commission of the UGCC for Priests’ Education in Seminaries. The quality of seminary education and formation is important for the life of the Church; in fact, according to the Head of the UGCC, the future of the Church is «in the hands of the rector of the seminary.» «The future development of our Church to a very large measure depends on the quality of our priests. For our people, in Ukraine and abroad, the priest plays a very important role. And if in some environments he loses his authority, he must with persistent work try to regain this authority, in order to bring souls to God and ensure that the Church, whose children we all are, is indeed the Church, our mother, our teacher, our Christian reality. It is therefore necessary with great attention to take care to use the period of seminary education as well as possible. To our seminaries come different people, but from our seminaries should come out real priests according to Christ,» wrote His Beatitude Lubomyr. The meeting in Lviv was a continuation of the regional meetings which are regularly conducted by the Patriarchal Commission for Priests’ Education in Seminaries. On February 4-6, 2009, a similar meeting of rectors and spiritual directors of the Ukrainian Catholic seminaries of North and South America took place in Brazil.

Information Department of the UGCC