“The future university church will be a sign of “sophistry” of UCU and the fact that here come people filled with God to teach and study,” - UGCC Head

Monday, 09 September 2013, 17:05

At the beginning of this year we mentioned the 50th anniversary of the release of Patriarch Josyf (Slipyi) from the Siberian camps. Having survived that Paschal Path, which his Church underwent, and coming to the free and eternal city of Rome, the hierarch brought with him the blessings for our whole Church and for his native people. Patriarch Josyf was blessed because he gave all of his life to the service of God and was ready to ultimately place it on God’s altar in the Siberian camps.

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So stated UGCC Head, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, during the sermon at the Pontifical Liturgy celebrating the blessing of the cornerstone for the building of Saint Sophia Church and a new academic building of the Ukrainian Catholic University on September 3, 2013.

UGCC Primate is convinced that Patriarch Josyf was also blessed in that he brought a resurrection for Ukrainian communities throughout the world. And this resurrection our Church is experiencing today in all parts of Ukraine.

Having founded the Ukrainian Catholic University of Pope St. Clement in Rome, Patriarch Josyf Slipyi according to the Grand Chancellor of UCU, His Beatitude Sviatoslav aimed to create a community of blessed and faithful people, a kind of “internet of human relations.”

UGCC Primate is convinced that UCU is a great gift for God’s Church because it testifies that in Ukraine there is a “living” community of believers who are searching not for human force and fame, but for God’s truth and teachings. Thus, in Ukraine, the Church, the Body of the Resurrected Christ, is “alive”.

As is known, on the territory of the university campus, soon the construction of the University Church of Saint Sophia will begin. It is precisely God’s Wisdom, thinks UGCC Head, which is the strength of the Christian life and only a believing person is capable of uniting God’s Wisdom with a human one, and then “to project the light of faith on the life of humans in the current world.”

“This church will always be a sign of the “sophistry” of this university and that into its heart come to teach and study people who are filled with God. Let us thank the Lord for all the blessings which our Church and our people have received through the intercession of Patriarch Josyf through UCU. May God’s Infinite Wisdom, which rests in the Virgin Mary as the Altar of Wisdom, be our leader on this road,” concluded UGCC Head.

After the Pontifical Liturgy, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, bishops and priests blessed the cornerstone for the building of the University Church of St. Sophia and the new academic building.

Concelebrants with the Church Head were bishops: Volodymr (Viytyshyn), Archbishop and Metrpolitan of Ivano-Frankivsk; Ihor (Vozniak), Archbishop and Metropolitan of Lviv; Vasyl (Semeniuk), Archbishop and Metropolitan of Ternopil – Zboriv; Borys (Gudziak), Bishop of the Eparchy of St. Volodymyr the Great in France; Yaroslav (Pryriz), Eparch of Sambir-Drohobych; Vasyl (Ivasiuk), Exarch of Odesa-Crimea; Josaphat (Hovera), Exarch of Lutsk; Hlib (Lonchyna), Bishop of the Eparchy of the Holy Family with a seat in London; Iryney (Bilyk) cannon of the Roman Papal Basilica of Maria Margore, and numerous clergy. Participating in the general prayers were also many officials, including the United States Ambassador to Ukraine.

UGCC Department of Information