1986: A LOOK BACK: The Millennium and the Church (12/28/86)

1986: A LOOK BACK

The Millennium and the Church

During 1986 it seemed all attention was already being focused on the upcoming Millennium of the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. And there was controversy also as various parties debated who had the right to celebrate this historic act of Prince and St. Volodymyr the Great in 988. While most in the Ukrainian community seemed to agree that the Millennium could rightly be celebrated by all Ukrainian Christians, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church began proclaiming the anniversary as the Millennium of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. There was concern also that the Moscow Patriarchate and, yes, even the Soviet government would each use the Millennium for their own political purposes despite the fact that both the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches are not allowed to exist in the USSR.

That is why Ukrainians breathed a collective sigh of relief when in late November Pope John Paul II flatly ruled out visiting the Soviet Union unless General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev first invited him to visit Catholic communities in Ukraine and Lithuania. The pope was expected to visit the USSR in 1988, reciprocating for Mr. Gorbachev's visit to Vatican on January 1987. A senior official said the pope was wary of overtures from Moscow because he did not want to be used by the Soviet authorities in a "propaganda move." Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk commented that he doubts the Soviets will permit the pontiff to visit Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the National Committee to Commemorate the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine issued an appeal in January to the Ukrainian American community, requesting its cooperation in organizing Millennium observances and asking that local committees be set up to work with the national body headed by Dr. Yuriy Starosolsky. The honorary presidium of the Millennium Committee includes Archbishop-Metropolitan Sulyk of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Archbishop-Metropolitan Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Rev. Vladimir Borowsky of the Ukrainian Evangelical Alliance.

Among the committee's plans are an exhibit of Ukrainian religious icons at the Smithsonian and a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, and support for a resolution introduced by Rep. Jack Kemp calling for the erection of a monument to St. Volodymyr the Great in the nation's capital.

Local committees were indeed established throughout the country, as were local committees working toward the realization of the mammoth Harvard Project on the Millennium. The Harvard Project has four main objectives: organizing an international conference on Ukrainian Christianity; endowing a chair in the history of Ukrainian religious thought at Harvard University; publishing an encyclopedia of Ukrainian Christianity; and publishing a corpus of works documenting the growth and development of Kievan Rus' Christianity and its influence on the spiritual, cultural and political life of the Ukrainian nation.

Throughout the U.S. and Canada, various groups began observances of the Millennium with religious services, conferences and other events. Among them were the following: a conference on the Millennium was organized in June by the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences as part of the Learned Societies conference at the University of Manitoba; a Millennium shrine was dedicated in Ottawa as the cross was hoisted to the top of St. John's Ukrainian Catholic Church on September 14; the Ukraine Millennium Foundation based in Toronto completed the first half of the recording of 35 sacred choral concertos by Dmytro Bortniansky.

In August, Metropolitan Mstyslav officiated at solemnities in Philadelphia inaugurating the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's celebration of the Millennium, while Bishop Innocent Lotocky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church led over 1,000 Detroit area Ukrainians in a Rite for the Renewal of Baptismal Grace in the Ukrainian Church in preparation for the Millennium.

In other news relating to Church affairs, the Ukrainian Catholic Church observed the anniversary of the 1946 liquidation of the Church in Ukraine by means of an illegal "synod" that united the Ukrainian Catholic Church with the Russian Orthodox Church. A symposium held on May 15 in Washington by the St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics focused on this tragic 40th anniversary.

The liquidation of the Church was noted also in a U.S. State Department paper on "Soviet Repression of the Ukrainian Catholic Church" that was presented on September 28 in conjunction with the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Chicago. The paper detailed religious persecution in Ukraine and the underground activity of the Ukrainian Catholic Church which continues to exist despite Soviet repression.

Archbishop-Metropolitan Sulyk made an impassioned plea for "our silenced brothers and sisters in the Underground Church in Ukraine" to Cardinal D. Simon Lourdusamy, the new prefect of the Congregation for the oriental Churches in the Vatican when the cardinal visited the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia in September. Metropolitan Sulyk also addressed the issue of the Millennium and asked that a Ukrainian Catholic bishop be named to the See of Peremyshl, now in Poland, to serve Ukrainian Catholics in that country.

In other Church news, Bishop Neil Savaryn of the Edmonton Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy died on January 8 at the age of 81. Bishop Demetrius Greschuk, apostolic administrator of the eparchy was nominated the new Edmonton eparchy by Pope John Paul II on April 28.

And, finally, another shrine was dedicated this year. St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Silver Spring, Md., was dedicated to the victims of the Chornobyl nuclear accident when Bishop Antony blessed the church's cornerstone on December 14.

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