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July 29, 1865

Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was born July 29, 1865. a descendent of a prominent old Ukrainian boyar family. Desiring to reverse the Polonization his ancestors had undergone, he returned to the Eastern rite, entered the Basilian order, and became appointed the bishop of Stanyslaviv in 1899. After the death of Metropolitan Yulian Sas-Kuyilovsky in May of 1890, Pope Leo XIII nominated Sheptytsky to fill the vacant position, and, on January 17, 1901, Bishop Andrey assumed the metropolitanate. He would remain at that post until his death in 1944.

The much-loved leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was responsible for enormous contributions to the expansion and reform of education and monasticism, and was a generous patron of cultural and humanitarian causes. He was a firm proponent of bringing together the Eastern Church with the Western, and held several congresses with various ecclesiastical leaders to discuss the possible union.

His restoration of the order of St. Theodore Studite according to the ancient Rule of the Kievan Cave Monastery served to renew Eastern monasticism in Ukraine. Also, it enabled hi to establish several new Eastern rite orders, such as the Order of St. Josaphat and the Studite Sisters.

With the advent of Nazi atrocities, the Jews found in Metropolitan Sheptytsky one of their most vocal and determined defenders, a man willing to risk his life and his Church in order to become directly involved with an operation directed toward their rescue.

Sheptytsky, according to Clarence Manning in "Twentieth Century Ukraine," was "in every sense a great religious and cultural leader. His benefactions were limitless; he was a wise administrator of the Church and he engaged in the most diverse religious and secular activities."

Metropolitan Sheptytsky died on November 1, 1944, and was buried in St. George's Cathedral in Lviv.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 22, 1990, No. 29, Vol. LVIII

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