Peremyshl seat to be upgraded to archdiocese (07/28/96)

Peremyshl seat to be upgraded to archdiocese

Catholic News Service

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's new Ukrainian Catholic archbishop said raising his Church's status to a metropolitan archdiocese symbolizes its full acceptance.

"The Holy See's decision has made our Church a full entity in Poland and amplified its historic importance," said Ukrainian Archbishop Jan Martyniak, newly named to the Archdiocese of Peremyshl-Warsaw. He is to be installed on August 17.

"It means an improved pastoral service, better contacts between laity and hierarchy, more priests, parishes and possibilities," he said. "It also means the Church's legal establishment within the modern borders of the Polish state and full acknowledgement of the Ukrainian Catholic rite."

Archbishop Martyniak said priorities for the new archdiocese would include building a Ukrainian Catholic seminary and improving the living conditions of priests. He said "very great spiritual and material help" had been provided by the U.S. bishops' Office to Aid the Catholic Church in Central and Eastern Europe.

He added that 62 Ukrainian Catholic candidates for the priesthood from Poland and Ukraine are currently training at the Polish Church's Latin-rite seminary in Lublin.

However, with only eight Ukrainian-language primary and secondary schools in Poland, the Church faces "formidable pastoral and educational duties," the new archbishop said.

Other tasks would include renovating a church - personally donated for use as a Ukrainian Catholic cathedral by Pope John Paul II in 1991 - in Peremyshl, Archbishop Martyniak said.

The archbishops' appointment to head the new Ukrainian Archdiocese of Peremyshl-Warsaw was announced by the Vatican on May 31.

A separate Ukrainian Diocese of Wroclaw-Gdansk was announced at the same time, to be headed by Ukrainian Bishop Teodor Majkowicz, 64, former vicar general and chancellor of the Ukrainian Diocese of Peremyshl.

Besides its majority Latin-rite Catholic Church, Poland is home to at least 120,000 Ukrainian-rite Catholics.

Before World War II, when the country's border extended 120 miles eastward, the Ukrainian Catholic population numbered 3.5 million and had 3,000 parishes and 2,800 priests.

However, the Soviet Union's annexation of eastern Poland at the war's end removed most of the Ukrainian minority. A large proportion of Ukrainian Catholics who remained were deported westward by the Communist government, while the Church's Peremyshl Diocese was divided by the Polish-Soviet border. Most of the country's 500 Ukrainian-built churches were destroyed or taken over by Latin-rite Catholics.

A Ukrainian Church administration was rebuilt in the 1980s under supervision of the country's Latin-rite primate.

Archbishop Martyniak was named auxiliary bishop for Polish Ukrainian Catholics in 1989. The Diocese of Peremyshl was re-established in 1991.

However, the Church's revival was marred by tensions between Latin- and Ukrainian-rite Catholics in Poland.

In April 1991, when the Vatican approved a plan to hand back Peremyshl's former Ukrainian Catholic cathedral, a group of Latin-rite Catholics occupied the building in protest, forcing Bishop Martyniak's installation to be rerouted to the city's Latin-rite cathedral.

The dispute was resolved when the pope visited Peremyshl in June 1991 and personally gave Ukrainian Catholics another local church.

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