UGCC announces its plans on commemorating the Year of Faith

Thursday, 03 January 2013, 21:04

The Year of Faith Organizing Committee headed by Bishop Yaroslav (Pryriz), Eparch of Sambir-Drohobych, announced its plan of events to mark the Year of Faith on an all-Church basis, approved by No. 30 resolution of the Second (33rd session) of UGCC Permanent Synod of Bishops. The Year of Faith in UGCC will carry the slogan: “One God, one faith, one Baptism.”

Let us remember that UGCC Synod of Bishops that took place on September 9-16 in Winnipeg (Canada) answered the initiative of His Holiness the Holy Father, and pronounced 2013 as the Year of Faith in UGCC and created an Organizing Committee which was charged with planning appropriate spiritual events on an all-Church basis in the context of the 1025 Jubilee Commemoration of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine, according to the Communiqué of the Synod of Bishops 2012.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), UGCC Head, during the Divine Liturgy held in St. Sophia Cathedral in Rome on October 14, 2012 officially opened the Year of Faith in UGCC.

Plans include an all-Ukrainian ecumenical conference, focusing on the 1025^th anniversary of Volodymyr’s Baptism, a series of publications dealing with the lives of saints, martyrs and faithful of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in order to make them public.

Events will take place on a regional (within Ukraine and beyond its borders, in its Metropolitanates) on an eparchial and parish level. According to the plans of marking the Year of Faith, it is recommended that UGCC clergy give sermons on topics of faith, read and study the Papal Encyclical of Benedict XVI Porta fideli [The Doors of Faith] and the Epistle of UGCC Head on the occasion of the pronouncement of the Year of Faith; spread electronic versions of the liturgy and other prayer texts.

Also it is worthwhile to organize pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Jerusalem with the specific focus of deepening one’s faith and renewing the connection to the Jerusalem Church – the Mother of all Churches – as well as to the holy places in Kyiv and the Kyiv Metropolitanate as a source of faith for UGCC; to Rome as the seat of the Bishop who has Christ’s mandate to “solidify brethren in faith.”

Representatives of the Year of Faith Organizing Committee also recommend spreading popular aspects of Christian faith in the Kyiv tradition, to initiate catechetical programs in UGCC pastoral care in order to bring new individuals to the faith, as well as to deepen the faith of existing believers.

UGCC Department of Information