Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk dead at 90, was a leader of underground Ukrainian Church (10/05/97)

Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk dead at 90, was a leader of underground Ukrainian Church

LVIV - Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk, a leading figure in the underground Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church during the Soviet era, died in his quarters at the Metropolitan's Residence at St. George's Square in Lviv on September 29. He was 90.

A former Soviet political prisoner, he was imprisoned in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the Arkhangel oblast of the Russian Soviet Federated Republic following the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in 1946 at a non-canonical convocation of the church council that declared union with the Russian Orthodox Church.

While clandestinely ministering to his faithful, the Rev. Sterniuk held jobs as a park attendant, a bookkeeper, a janitor and an assistant in an emergency ward. Later he was secretly consecrated a bishop by another underground hierarch, Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky. Archbishop Sterniuk became the locum tenens of the major archbishop (the primate) of the UGCC in Lviv in 1972.

Bishop Lubomyr Husar, plenipotentiary-auxiliary of the primate of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Patriarchal Curia in Lviv, announced that funeral arrangements were to include requiem services, scripture readings and continuous viewings so that the public could pay its last respects from September 20 through October 1. The funeral liturgy, followed by a funeral procession through Lviv's city center, and burial in the crypt of St. George Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Cathedral, were scheduled for the first days of October.

The following biographical information was provided by the press service of the Patriarchal Curia.

Archbishop Sterniuk was born on February 12, 1907, in the town of Pustomyty near Lviv. His parents were the Rev. Volodymyr Sterniuk and Eugenia (nee Konovalets). His brother, Eustache, and two uncles also were priests.

He attended primary school in Lviv and then he undertook studies at the minor seminary of the Redemptorist Fathers at Eskhen, Belgium, where he obtained his high school diploma. He entered the Redemptorist Monastery of St. Trendi in Belgium in July 1927, and took his temporary vows in 1928 and his perpetual (final) vows to adhere to the religious life in 1931.

Continuing his education in Belgium, he completed studies in philosophy and theology at both Beauplateau and Louvain. He was ordained to the priesthood by the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop of Winnipeg, Basil Ladyka, in July 1931 in Louvain. From 1932 he was a provincial consultor for the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). His ministry saw him working in the Halychyna, Volyn, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions of Ukraine.

By concealing himself in the cathedral's choir loft, the Rev. Sterniuk witnessed the liquidation of his Church during the pseudo-synod of bishops (in which not one bishop participated) in 1946. He was arrested the following year and sentenced to imprisonment in the Arkhangel province. He was released in 1952 and took up residence in Lviv, where he worked in various capacities including: park gatekeeper, assistant bookkeeper, janitor and male nurse.

In July 1967 he was secretly consecrated a bishop in Lviv by Bishop Velychkovsky (who later was released to the West and died in Winnipeg). At the time of his consecration, he was appointed to lead the Church in Ukraine by the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in exile, Cardinal Josyf Slipyj.

From 1972 until the 1991 return to Lviv of the Church's major archbishop in exile, Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky, Archbishop Sterniuk served as locum tenens (one who maintains the position) and senior bishop of the Kyiv-Halych Metropolia.

Archbishop Sterniuk was instrumental in the movement for the legalization of the Church at the close of the 1980s. On September 17, 1989, he gave his blessing and encouragement for the irreversible act of solidarity in which 250,000 persons participated in the "March for Legalization" for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. On October 27,1990, the Soviet authorities declared the legalization of the Church.

On August 19, 1990, Archbishop Sterniuk celebrated the first divine liturgy to be offered by a Greek-Catholic priest in St. George Cathedral since the Soviet liquidation of the Church in 1946. On November 1 of that year, 46 years to the day after the death of the powerful Greek-Catholic Metropolitan of Kyiv-Halych, Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky, Archbishop Sterniuk reclaimed the Metropolitan's Residence across the square from St. George Cathedral.

Cardinal Lubachivsky, the Kyiv-Halych major archbishop, or patriarch as many refer to him, returned to reclaim his see in Lviv on March 30, 1991. At this point Archbishop Sterniuk was relieved of his duties as locum tenens. Soon afterwards the archbishop traveled to the West as a goodwill ambassador and as a witness to the newfound freedom for the Church in Ukraine. He was welcomed by crowds wherever he went.

Archbishop Sterniuk lived in the Metropolitan's Residence in Lviv and up to his last days accepted guests and admirers. Towards the end of his life, the Ukrainian Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, Studite monks and clergy from St. George Cathedral saw to his needs.

When Cardinal Lubachivsky returned to Ukraine to reclaim his cathedral on March 30,1991, he addressed Archbishop Sterniuk and the Church that he held together with the following words: "At this moment with joy we express our amazement, gratitude and recognition to our locum tenens, Archbishop Volodymyr, who, together with the other bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic hierarchy courageously withstood these bitter and difficult times and now pass on the unstained patrimony of our fathers. You, dear bishops, priests, monks, sisters and all faithful - are our glory and our splendor. Together with you we may now build a better future."

At press time, the Patriarchal Curia's press service had reported that condolences on the death of Archbishop Sterniuk had been received from the Ukrainian State Committee on Religious Affairs; Archbishop-Metropolitan Jan Martyniak of the Archeparchy of Przemyszl (Peremyshl)-Warsaw and the Eparchy of Wroclaw-Gdansk, both in Poland; and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster, British Columbia, in Canada.

| Home Page |