Unique to Ukraine Academic Building to Open in Lviv

This is the second building complex to be opened after the Patriarch Josyf Slipyj Collegium. “With this event we begin the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Catholic University by Patriarch Josyf Slipyj in 1963 in Rome,” said the eparch of the Eparchy of Paris and rector of UCU, Bishop Borys Gudziak.

The celebration will begin on September 3 at 10:00 with a Hierarchical Liturgy, headed by Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk. At 12:00 priests will consecrate the cornerstone for the construction of the university’s St. Sophia Church, which will be followed by the dedication of the new academic building.

According to the vice rector of UCU, Fr. Dr. Bohdan Prakh, some of the UCU departments, including the Faculty of Humanities, that now operate on Stryiska Street, will be moved to the new academic building. “Some of the education processes of the LvivBusinessSchool (LvBS), Institute of Leadership and Management, and other departments will also be held in the new building. The new academic building is another step toward our goal, which we want to achieve in the first phase of construction – the creation of an open center for the city,” says the vice rector.

Participants in the new LvBS master’s level program in management technologies – MS in Technology Management will learn in the new academic building. The LvBS’s “Laboratory of Ideas” will also be located there. LvBS Director Sophia Opatska believes that the academic building will be an open space for dialogue and meetings: “Experiences, paradigms, programs, and outlooks will intersect here. Such intersections are the key to innovation, which is so lacking Ukrainian society,” she said.

According to Vice Rector Prakh, by opening a new building, the university will change its approaches to learning: “The range and geography of our lectures is expanding. This building will integrate students who will be studying in residential programs and participants of other programs. It is very important for everyone to feel the whole process of training and education, which is embodied in these two buildings: the Collegium and the new academic building. In addition, there will be an intensive academic process. We look forward to effective cooperation with the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which is located nearby.”

It is expected that in the first phase of construction, which will last until 2015, in addition to the Collegium and the multifunctional academic building, two more buildings will be constructed: the main university church along with a pastoral center and a modern library and information complex. Thus, the UkrainianCatholicUniversity campus will integrate three spiritual dynamics of university life – witness, service, and communication.

About the UCU Campus

In the place where today a new UCU campus is being built, the former Soviet government planned to build the Theater of the Pre-Carpathian Military District of the Soviet Army. This military and cultural center was to become part of an architectural ensemble of the new, Soviet center of Lviv.Nearby, premises of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, an academic center with its propaganda and ideological institutions, and even a helipad for visits of high party functionaries were being built…

Providence ordered otherwise. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the old plans were abandoned and unfinished ruins were left behind. In 1999, after the emergence of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from the catacombs and Ukraine’s newly gained independence, the Lviv Theological Academy acquired the post-Soviet “uncompleted construction project,” and in 2002 the city council secured for the Ukrainian Catholic University the territory adjacent to the building.

During his historic visit to Ukraine in June 2001, Blessed Pope John Paul II consecrated the building of UCU and the cornerstone of the campus. In 2009, Archbishop Ihor Voznyak consecrated the wooden Church of the New Martyrs of the UGCC – the first building of the new campus. And next year, Patriarch and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar together with the bishops of the UGCC Synod gave their blessings for the construction of residential and educational buildings.

On August 26, 2012, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk consecrated the Patriarch Josyf Slipyj Collegium and the Collegium officially opened its doors to students, faculty, and friends of the University. It is expected that in the first phase of construction, which will last until 2015, in addition to the Collegium and the multifunctional academic building, two more buildings will be constructed: the main university church along with a pastoral center and a modern library and information complex.

UCU Press Service