Lviv Theological Academy: transforming dreams into reality (10/20/96)

Lviv Theological Academy: transforming dreams into reality

by Marta Baziuk
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

LVIV - With no campus, no books, no faculty and no funding, the founders of the Lviv Theological Academy had little besides their admirable goals: to re-introduce theology as a scholarly discipline in Ukraine, and to extend to religious and laity the opportunity to study philosophy and theology.

Today, just two years after its establishment, the academy boasts 300 students, and lofty goals are being transformed into reality.

What the founders never lacked was a purpose. "We knew that the academy answered the need of young Ukrainians eager to pursue both spiritual and intellectual vocations," said Borys Gudziak, vice-rector of the Lviv Theological Academy, who is responsible for academic and scholarly development.

The success of the academic program seems due in equal parts to Dr. Gudziak's practical long-term planning and his inspired vision. Jeffrey Wills, an associate professor of classics and chairman of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, remembers meeting Dr. Gudziak in 1983 when they were both graduate students at Harvard University.

"Borys had recently come from the seminary in Rome and explained that he was pursuing his Ph.D. in the belief that some day Ukraine would be free and would need an educated faculty for a seminary to teach a new generation," Prof. Wills recalled.

The academy was originally established under Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in 1928 as a first step toward creating a university that would increase opportunities for Ukrainians to receive higher education. After the Ukrainian-Catholic Church was outlawed in 1946, academy alumni formed the backbone of the ecclesiastical underground.

Today the academy educates both seminarians and laity, accepting men and women from all denominations. There are about 100 students in each entering class.

In addition to a focus on theology and philosophy, students receive intensive language training in English, Greek, Latin, Church Slavonic and Hebrew. Students are expected to develop proficiency in English by the end of their second year so that they can take advantage of courses taught by lecturers from abroad. With this in mind, the academy initiated an intensive English immersion summer camp in the Carpathian Mountains, which has attracted an increasing number of volunteer English-language instructors.

Prof. Wills, who first went to Ukraine in the summer of 1995 and returned this summer, is now director of development for the academy. He said he finds inspiration in the students' stories of how they came to study at a theological academy. "For example, one seminarian did not consider himself a Christian five years ago, and had served in the Soviet Army when he found he had a calling to the priesthood," he said.

Prof. Wills encouraged his own students from the U.S. to volunteer as instructors this summer because he thought that they not only had something to offer but also that "it would be good for them spiritually."

For Prof. Wills, a classicist, the academy's strong program in Greek and Latin is particularly exciting. With about 250 students learning Greek and Latin this fall, the academy has become one of the pre-eminent centers for study of classical languages in the world. "Sitting along the River Stryi in the Carpathians during the summer program's Greek hour, listening to Ukrainian students comfortably translate the ancient Greek of the New Testament into English, is an experience I will never forget," he said.

The academy has attracted scholars from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Poland, Belgium and Australia. "Instructors tell us that teaching at the academy is particularly satisfying because of the commitment and enthusiasm of the students and faculty," Dr. Gudziak said. With about 55 lecturers, the academy enjoys a high faculty-to-student ratio.

An emphasis on quality is the solid ground upon which the academy is built. The academy is in the process of gaining accreditation from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, which would guarantee international recognition of its degrees and allow its students to pursue education at the graduate level.

For all of its achievements, the academy still faces many challenges. For example, the heart of any academic institution is its library, and the holdings of the academy's library are inadequate, especially since it is the only theological and philosophical scholarly research library in Ukraine. Generous donations from, for example, the Pontifical Oriental and Biblical Institutes, the Sheptytsky Institute at the University of Ottawa's St. Paul College and the University of Notre Dame faculty have improved the collection, but funds are needed to purchase books ranging from basic reference materials and literature in the humanities to Byzantine studies.

There is also the problem of facilities - the building confiscated in 1944 was only this month returned and is in need of major repairs. For now, the seminary division is located inconveniently in Rudno, a suburb of Lviv.

Dr. Gudziak does not dwell on the frustrations and would rather speak about progress in reviving and recovering Ukraine's spiritual legacy. Dr. Gudziak is also director of the Institute of Church History, a research institute of the academy, that has collected more than 700 interviews with people connected to the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church; organized conferences on the Union of Brest in eight cities in Ukraine with the participation of international scholars; and is publishing seven volumes of conference proceedings on the anniversary of the union, when scholarly interest will be at its height.

"Ukraine has before it a new future, and the place of Christianity will be determined largely by the ability of institutions like the Lviv Theological Academy to express how spiritual life infuses the human drama in all its aspects, including the social, political, artistic and scholarly," Dr. Gudziak said.

Prof. Wills may be contacted at the Department of Classics, Van Hise Hall 910, University of Wisconsin, Madiaon, WI 53706.