San Diego parish to honor pastor (09/01/91)

San Diego parish to honor pastor

SAN DIEGO - Our Lady of Perpetual Help Ukrainian Catholic Parish will honor its pastor, the Rev. Canon Andrew Mykyta, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday with a liturgy and luncheon at the church hall on September 8.

The Rev. Mykyta was born on September 9, 1916, in the village of Pykulychi, a few miles from the city of Peremyshl. The death of his father, when Andrew was only 3, brought early responsibility to this youngest of 10 children. He began to attend gymnasium at Peremyshl at 10 and finished his religious studies at the seminary when he was 22. Church regulations prohibited his ordination before the age of 25, so the Rev. Mykyta became secretary at the Chancery of Bishop Kocylovskyj.

With the occupation of western Ukraine by Communist forces, the Rev. Mykyta escaped to the German zone. At the onset of the German-Soviet war, he was conscripted into the German Army, where after military training, he was assigned to the engineering section of the artillery.

After the surrender of Germany on May 9, 1945, he became a prisoner of war to the British forces. Through the efforts of Archbishop Ivan Buchko he was released and went to Rome. Here he received his doctorate at the Propagation of the Faith, and an additional academic degree, master of eastern theology, at the Papal Institute of Eastern Studies. He was ordained by Archbishop Buchko on January 1, 1948.

The Rev. Mykyta began his pastoral duties in the United States on the East Coast in May 1950. He continued his work at St. Nicholas Church in Chicago. The need for a new parish in San Francisco brought him there and on June 25, 1957, the Immaculate Conception parish was started by him.

On July 28, 1963, he opened St. Vladimir's Mission in Santa Clara, Calif. The territory under his jurisdiction spanned Bakersfield to Alaska, Salt Lake City to Hawaii. Often he would travel 1,500 miles on a sick call or to administer the sacraments.

On July 1, 1973, Bishop Jaroslaw Gabro invested the Rev. Mykyta with the degree and title of very reverend canon.

In May 1482 the Rev. Mykyta assumed his duties as pastor in Phoenix, also serving the Ukrainian faithful in Tucson, Ariz. Returning for two years to San Francisco, he started St. Andrew's Mission in Sacramento.

On December 11, 1985, the Rev. Mykyta accepted the pastorate of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in San Diego. He has remained there to date, guiding the parish through its 25th anniversary and celebrating on January 3, 1988, the 40th anniversary of his own ordination.