Press officer of Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada reflects on his front-row seat to history (05/22/05)

Press officer of Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada reflects on his front-row seat to history

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - Since his ordination to the priesthood in 1989, the Rev. Ken Nowakowski has had a front-row seat to some of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church's most historic events.

In 1991 he traveled from Rome with the late Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky, when the former major archbishop returned to Ukraine to reclaim the archeparchial see of Lviv 45 years after the Soviets sent the Church underground.

The Rev. Nowakowski was present in 1992 as about 1 million Ukrainians turned out to pay their respects when the remains of the Church's former leader, Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, were interred in the crypt of Lviv's St. George Cathedral.

In 2001 the Rev. Nowakowski witnessed crowds similar in size turn up to greet the late John Paul II when he became the first pope to "voluntarily" visit Ukraine and led the largest celebration of the Byzantine divine liturgy in the history of Christianity with over 1 million people in attendance at the service in Lviv.

(Pope St. Clement I and Pope St. Martin VI were both martyred on Ukrainian territory during the first millennium of Christianity.)

And, this month, the 47-year-old native of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and graduate of the public relations and advertising program at Edmonton's Grant MacEwan College will, in his capacity as press officer for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada, be present in Winnipeg when Cardinal Lubomyr Husar convenes the first meeting of the Church's permanent synod in Canada.

The event, which runs from May 22 to 26, will include a three-day workshop for members of the Canadian hierarchy, clergy and laity, called "Encounter 2005" - the first time such a conference has been held in Canada since 1962.

But amid overseeing media logistics and handling interview requests from journalists, the Rev. Nowakowski might also get an opportunity to revisit some of his own personal history and spend time with his former boss.

Appointed chief of staff to Cardinal Lubachivsky in 1990, the Rev. Nowakowski held the same position under Cardinal Husar when the major archbishop became the administrator of the Lviv Archeparchy in 1997 and later head of the Church in 2001.

But the two men knew each other before then.

When the Rev. Nowakowski was a seminarian at the St. Josaphat's Pontifical Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in Rome, then-Archimandrite Husar (who served as abbot of the Studite monastery) conducted the Canadian's pre-ordination spiritual retreat at the monastery outside Rome in 1989.

"I was taking myself very seriously - perhaps too seriously - keeping the four-day retreat very silent," recalled the Rev. Nowakowski, who has also served as rector of Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in Ottawa since November 2001.

"I was careful to not overeat - and I also decided during the retreat to give up espresso. "I knew that Archimandrite Lubomyr would take a coffee break in the mid-afternoon and wanted to ask him a question regarding my spirituality. I found him in the little coffee room and was about to speak with him when an elderly nun came up to me and offered me a cup of espresso," he related.

"I quickly declined her offer. But Archimandrite Lubomyr told me: 'Brother, look how she wants to serve you, let her serve you. There will be enough people who are not so generous to you in your life. When people wish to be kind to you, you should let them. 'Enjoy your espresso with humility.'

"His Beatitude has a no-nonsense way of approaching one's soul to do the right thing," the Rev. Nowakowski said.

The Rev. Nowakowski remembers Cardinal Lubachivsky, who died on December 14, 2000, at the age of 86, to have been no less direct - specifically, on one occasion.

It was August 19, 1991, and the Ukrainian-born major archbishop's presence in Lviv was in jeopardy.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had been taken into custody as part of an attempted coup staged by Communist hard-liners.

As the Soviet Union spiralled into chaos, Cardinal Lubachivsky - who less than five months before had returned to his homeland - was advised by Ukrainian national activists to leave Ukraine once again.

"We, as members of his staff, were told there was a brief window of opportunity - maybe a few hours before the tanks would roll in and surround Lviv - and Cardinal Lubachivsky and one or two key members of his staff could quickly exit by car over the border to Poland to see how things would unfold," said the Rev. Nowakowski.

"They didn't want the head of the Church to be caught in a position where he would be arrested - and maybe even murdered," he added.

It was left to the Rev. Nowakowski to deliver the somber news to the cardinal. "I told him just to take whatever he needed. A sister would be there in a moment to help him pack. He looked at me and said, 'I'm not leaving.'

"I said, 'Your Beatitude, we don't have a lot of time,' to which he said: 'I don't understand you people. This is simply the serpent's tail swinging and flailing after its head has been cut off. I don't intend to leave my people now that I'm back here again. No, I'm not going, and neither are you. We're staying here.'

"I had to go back to the staff and say, 'Well, he's decided to stay as head of the Church - so we're all staying,' " the Rev. Nowakiwski said.

By noon the next day, when Cardinal Lubachivsky gathered with his staff at lunch at his residence, they heard the news: the putsch had ended.

"He looked at us and said, 'You have no faith. God didn't lead us here just to end it all,'" recalled the Rev. Nowakowski.

"He said, 'How would it have looked if the head of the Church would have fled the country when things seemed to get rough? I'm a pastor, and my place is here with my flock.' "

"I'll remember that forever. He was there for his people," the Rev. Nowakowski stated.

A fourth-generation Ukrainian Canadian who barely spoke his ancestral language when he arrived in Ukraine 14 years ago, the Rev. Nowakowski was there to witness and experience many such historical moments.

Some were personal - such as the time a Ukrainian bishop, the late Filomen Kurchaba (the former auxiliary bishop of the Lviv Archeparchy who also served as provincial superior of the Redemptorist priests and brothers in Ukraine), who spent many years serving the underground Church, told the Rev. Nowakowski that he as a young priest had "probably celebrated and attended more liturgies in a Church" than he had.

Other moments, by their magnitude, were overwhelming.

The Rev. Nowakowski said he will never forget March 30, 1991, when Cardinal Lubachivsky set foot on Ukrainian soil after spending half a century in exile, part of which was spent in the United States.

"We were overwhelmed by the greeting of well over 800,000 people who lined the streets from the Lviv airport to St. George's Cathedral," said the Rev. Nowakowski, who also headed the Ukrainian Catholic charitable organization, Caritas Ukraine, and the Church-run Andrey Sheptytsky Hospital, during the decade he spent in Ukraine.

Originally, Cardinal Lubachivsky was scheduled to spend only 10 weeks in Ukraine in 1991 as part of a "pastoral visit" approved by Soviet authorities. But, as the weeks progressed, he realized he couldn't leave the country, the Rev. Nowakowski explained.

"There was such an outpouring of expressions of faith that Cardinal Lubachivsky made a decision to officially return as head of the Church and reside in Ukraine rather than in exile," he recalled.

"When he asked those of us who worked on his Roman staff if we would be willing to help re-establish the administrative and pastoral structures of the Church, I think I thought about it for 15 seconds and said, 'Absolutely, yes' - even though my Ukrainian was virtually non-existent," the Rev. Nowakowski said.

He underscored: "I couldn't think of a more exciting place to be as a member of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. I realized that to be there - at the rebirth of our Church and to actually be part of the rebirth of a nation - was to see history happen in front of my face."

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