The UGCC Council entitled “Vibrant Parish as a place to meet the living Christ,” which has started its work today in Ivano-Frankivsk, has brought together 250 delegates from 57 countries. The Council is chaired by Head of the UGCC Patriarch Sviatoslav. The Council began with the Liturgy in the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv, where Patriarch SviatoslavShevchuk greeted the delegates and read the Council’s official decree. “The Council is an extremely important moment, it enables to see the unity of our Church in the fullness of its diversity, because here the fullness of the church body…
If we could imagine the instruments in a nation's diplomatic kit as a set of keys, we'd find that some, like masters, fit a range of locks, while others must be cut to order. Before determining which type a given lock requires, we need to acknowledge that a lock exists at all. When it comes to a lock at the heart of the conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine, that's yet to happen. The Ukraine crisis is a gate beyond which loom global dangers so defining, one might expect that cooperation between Russia and the West would be…
In Psalm 115:5 we read "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones." From time immemorial, Christians have prayed for their dead and elaborated their prayers with ritual. The death of a loved one is a sorrowful experience for anyone. Often it is a numbing experience as well. Survivors want to do the best they can to honor their departed. They may look around to see what friends or acquaintances have done in similar times of loss. Sometimes they accept whatever suggestions funeral directors offer. They may find themselves burdened with excessive costs or…
Two of the most frequently used prayers in our tradition are taken from the same Gospel narrative: the visit of the Holy Virgin to her older cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist (cf., Luke 1:39-56). Both the Angelic Salutation (“Hail, O Theotokos…”) and the Canticle of the Theotokos (“My soul magnifies the Lord…”) are taken from this passage. The event which it describes is generally called the Visitation. According to Luke, the angel Gabriel who told her that she would bear a son also told her that “Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age;…
The twentieth anniversary of St. Pope John Paul II apostolic letter "Orientale Lumen" is an occasion to reflect on what can be learned from Eastern Catholics by Dr. Adam A.J. Deville Catholic World Report, July 2, 2015 Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, gives the homily during a Divine Liturgy for Ukrianian expatriates at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome Feb. 19, 2015. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) Twenty years ago, in his apostolic letter Orientale Lumen (May 2, 1995), the late St. Pope John Paul II called on Roman Catholics to deepen their…
ONE OF THE EPISTLE READINGS often heard at the Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of the Council Fathers, Hebrews 13:7-16, begins with these words: “Remember those who preside over you, who have spoken the word of God to you. Follow their faith, considering the outcome of their conduct” (v.7). Clearly this passage was chosen for this day to honor the Fathers of the first six Ecumenical Councils for expressing with clarity the Orthodox faith. When this passage was written – in the first century AD – there were no ecumenical councils. The first one (Nicaea I) was called in the…
WHEN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AMERICANS think of the Vikings, they may picture seafarers from Scandinavia sailing to Iceland and Greenland or raiding the coasts of England and Ireland. We rarely think of their inland cousins, whose rule extended into what is Russia today in the ninth to fourteenth centuries. Two of the saints commemorated this week were leaders of these “inland Vikings” who changed the face of Europe. Beginning in AD 862 the Viking prince Rurik and his brothers established a network of states in the territory of today’s Romania, Ukraine and western Russia which came to be called Kievan Rus’.…
Unbelievable! It happened again! It seems to happen every time. Recently, our parish (Holy Eucharist, Winnipeg) made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Blessed Bishop Martyr Vasyl at St. Joseph Parish. After the Moleben service in the church, everyone went into the shrine to be anointed with oil that had been touched to the holy relics of the saint. I was almost the last to be anointed of the close to 75 people who had come that night. Afterwards, I stood before his holy relics and prayed. And again, like the times before, I had the sense that I was…
(May 25, 2015, Ottawa) - According to the United Nations, there are more than one million displaced people in Ukraine and another half a million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. Despite a ceasefire, daily violence remains a constant, with the death toll increasing and more families fleeing to save their lives. The fear that a major conflict will erupt at any moment is high. “We have received dramatic calls for help from the Catholic churches of Ukraine and their relief organization, Caritas, which provides care for desperate families forced to escape the conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” said…
