Ukrainian Catholics mark 60th anniversary of Soviets' attempted liquidation of their Church (03/26/06)

Ukrainian Catholics mark 60th anniversary of Soviets' attempted liquidation of their Church

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - To commemorate the 60th anniversary of its attempted liquidation by Soviet Communists, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church leadership held a procession on March 11, visiting the historic places in Lviv where the repression took place.

More than 6,000 Ukrainian Catholics joined the pilgrimage throughout Lviv's narrow, winding streets dusted by a light snowfall that created a quiet atmosphere of worship and introspection.

The procession came just a week after Ukraine's State Accreditation Commission made a landmark decision on March 2 granting recognition to the Ukrainian Catholic University's theological department and all Ukrainian theological degrees.

Ever since its inception, the UCU's leaders have fought for the Ukrainian government to accredit theological studies and degrees.

Patriarch Lubomyr Husar commenced the commemorative evening's events with a panakhyda (memorial service) held at a square near St. George Cathedral.

Afterwards, he told worshippers that the procession was meant to remember those who saved the Church, supported it and brought it to where it is now.

"The procession's consummation will be a symbol of the Church's vitality," Patriarch Husar said. "Sixty years of hard trials was the road to a new life of strengthened hope. Pray for those who became victims, but also for those who withstood with patience because the strength of our Church was and is in prayer, which united its children with God and amongst each other."

Carrying red candles, the worshippers walked to seven stations throughout Lviv where Catholic bishops, clergy and worshippers were persecuted, tortured or beaten.

At each station, an elder Church leader symbolically passed a cherished Catholic relic to a leader in the younger generation. In the following order, they visited:

The former KGB and current Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) headquarters on Vitovskyi Street, where Communists planned their methods and tactics for the Church's liquidation. Elder priests passed a series of crosses to the younger priests as a symbol of the Church's resilience.
A former prison on Bandera Street (formerly Lonsky Street) where Communists interrogated, tortured and killed priests and lay Catholics. Marta Tsehelska, the wife of a priest, was interrogated there and had her children taken away. In the ceremony, she passed an embroidered ritual cloth (rushnyk) to the wife of young priest.
The former site of the Church of the Holy Spirit and Lviv Theological Academy and Seminary on Copernicus Street. German bombs destroyed the church in 1941. Father Mykola Prystai, who had been Archbishop Josyf Slipyj's private secretary when he was rector of the academy, passed on a small gospel book he had preserved from seminary days to the seminary's current rector, Father Bohdan Prakh, and Ukrainian Catholic University Rector the Rev. Dr. Borys Gudziak.
The Mother of God statue on Freedom Boulevard, where Antonina Chaika, a brave nun who helped organize the work of the underground Church, passed a Mother of God icon to a young nun.
The Taras Shevchenko statue on Freedom Boulevard, where Father Ivan Dankiv symbolically passed an "epitrakhyl," which a priest wears around his neck, to a young priest.
The Transfiguration Church, which was the first in Lviv to declare its Catholic identity in 1989. At this historic site, the pilgrims symbolically exchanged their red candles for white ones.

"The notorious event of 60 years ago that brought us here is a demonstration of human hopelessness and audacity, petulance and violence towards those who called themselves Christians," said Father Yaroslav Chukhnii, the church's current pastor.

"What happened is a result of various reasons which we cannot fully comprehend," he said. "It would be banal to pretend that the tragedy of spiritual catastrophe, which occurred as a result of the 1946 liquidation, belongs to a single person. The liquidation is a result of the decline of religion and devaluation of spiritual values."

The march then returned to St. George Cathedral, where priests led a moleben in the central square to honor the Church's martyrs.

The procession capped off a weeklong series of events in Kyiv and Lviv that commemorated the liquidation.

The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Ukrainian Catholic University held a scholarly conference in Kyiv, attended by Belarusians and Russians. It examined the liquidation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in addition to that of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, as well as the history of state- sponsored violence under Russian imperialism.

At the Lviv Opera House on the night of March 7, actors performed vignettes of life in the underground Church, as well as life stories and testimonies to the persecution of the clergy and faithful.

"Driving home, not only did the suffering affect me, but the fortitude of the human spirit leading the Church through this period of trial to reborn life," Father Gudziak said.

Patriarch Husar and 20 bishops led a divine liturgy at St. George Cathedral on March 8 in thanksgiving to God for His help in leading Ukrainian Catholics out of captivity.

Attending the liturgy were a number of priests who were ordained before 1946 and bore witness to the persecution.

"Throughout all of the celebration commemorations, there was a positive spirit of looking to the future," Father Gudziak said. "There was a gratitude to God in the face of unspeakable evil and a confidence that the Church that survived will continue to work for the people of Ukraine."

Yushchenko, Husar, Bishops' Synod issue statements on anniversary

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