UGCC Head in Dolyna led the celebrations on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of His Beatitude Myroslav (Lubachivsky)

Sunday, 10 August 2014, 13:13

Today we are grateful to this Dolyna land for giving UGCC and the Ukrainian people such a leader as Father and Head of UGCC, Myroslav Ivan (Lubachivsky). On this day we are blessing for the first time in the history of our Church, a monument which was created to honor him. After all, the Church has the sacred duty to remember its mentors and thank God for the gift of their life and service.

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This was said by the Head and Father, His Beatitude Sviatoslav in the sermon during the Pontifical Divine Liturgy which took place in the UGCC Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Mother of God in Dolyna, in Ivano-Frankivsk region, on August 10, 2014, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of His Beatitude Myroslav Ivan Cardinal (Lubachivsky).

In continuing the sermon, the Prime Hierarch of the Church noted that many people ask themselves today how can one be a saint in a sinful world. “To live in a Christian way means to place all your hope in God. In as much as a person is united by the wreath of faith with one's Savior, to such a degree is the person capable of overcoming evil with good,” he explained.

In pondering on the life of Cardinal Myroslav Ivan, UGCC Head observed that the words “the Lord is my strength” became the guidepost of the life of his predcessor. According to the words of the preacher, when His Beatitude Myroslav Ivan left Dolyna, he delved into the turbulent life of the Stryj Gymnasium, wherein there were formed nooks of the Ukrainian liberation front. Eventually he studied at the Lviv Theological Academy. Then, during the most dangerous years in Europe, he studied in Austria and Rome. “During all of his life he walked above the turbulent ocean, totally entrusting his life to God. It was exactly him that God called to return to royal Lviv, the seat of UGCC from exile to home,” he added.

As His Beatitude Sviatoslav related, eventually “this leader of UGCC and his nation, triumphantly returned to his Motherland, which was also then akin to the turbulent ocean.” “Yet, he with the figure of a prayerful and kind elderly, holding on to Christ the Savior's hand, directed the ship of the Church,” emphasized the preacher.

At the very end, the Church Primate added that it was Cardinal Myroslav Ivan who twenty years ago raised him to a priest, and eventually directed the present UGCC Primate to study in Rome.

“The treasure of the life of His Beatitude Myroslav Ivan is important to make into a treasure of the personal life of faithful people in the contemporary world,” stated UGCC Head at the conclusion of his sermon.

The celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of His Beatitude Myroslav Ivan Cardinal (Lubachivsky) continued with the blessing of a monument in his honor. Afterwards, UGCC Head met with local mass media..

After this, His Beatitude Sviatoslav blessed the monument of the couple Omelian and Tetyana Antonovych.

Let us add, that Omelian Antonovych in his time reconstructed the corpus of the Baccalaurate Library of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, restored the building of the Lviv Vasyl Stefanyk National Library, restored a church of the 17^th century in Dolyna, the Tetyana and Omelian Antonovych Boykivshchyna Museum, and the monument of Fighters for Ukraine's Freedom.

Over fifty renowned activists in Ukrainian history, politics, and culture have been honored with the Antonovych Foundation Award. The couple established it in USA some three decades ago. Laureates of this award have been such famous literary figures as Vasyl Barka, Vasyl Stus, Ivan Dziuba, Mykola Vinhranovskyi, Ivan Drach, Yuriy Andrukhovych, and Oksana Zabuzhko. Among non-Ukrainians, this award was given to the prestigious politician Zbigniew Brzezinski for his book The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century.

UGCC Department of Information