First grad of Ukrainian Catholic University defends doctorate (07/30/06)

First grad of Ukrainian Catholic University defends doctorate

by Matthew Matuszak

LVIV - Sister Paraskevia Vakula of the Sisters of the Holy Family has become the first graduate of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv to successfully defend a doctoral dissertation. Sister Vakula defended her dissertation, "Logos [Word] and Pneuma [Spirit] in the Century of the Creation of Christian Identity," at the Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome on July 13.

It was only on March 2 that the Ukrainian government recognized the bachelor's degrees in theology awarded by the UCU, and so 50 UCU graduates on July 7 were awarded state-recognized degrees in theology for the first time. In addition there were 16 graduates in the first class to receive bachelor's degrees in history, also state-recognized.

The Vatican-based Congregation for Catholic Education, however, has recognized the degrees of UCU graduates since its first graduation in 1999, when the UCU was still the Lviv Theological Academy.

Consequently, dozens of UCU graduates have been pursuing advanced degrees at Catholic and secular institutions abroad. UCU graduates have studied at numerous institutions in Rome, including the Augustinianum, as well as the Catholic University of America, the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Canada, Drew University in New Jersey and Oxford University in England.

Sister Vakula graduated from the UCU (then the Lviv Theological Academy) in 2000 and then went to Rome for further studies. "UCU provided the basics, the fundamentals for graduate studies," said Sister Vakula. "In particular it gave us the tools, like languages, Latin, Greek, English. We were very well-prepared when we came to Rome."

Sister Vakula's dissertation involved five early Christian authors, including Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. She will prepare the work for publication and is already set to return to Ukraine and start working at the UCU in the fall. There she will prepare a critical edition of the works of Ignatius of Antioch, including a translation into Ukrainian. She said that perhaps she will start teaching in the second semester.

The UCU itself started a licentiate (graduate-level) program in theology in 2001, with specializations in Eastern canon law, Church history and ecclesiology. There will be 27 students in the program when the new semester starts in the fall.

In addition to UCU graduates, including those from Holy Spirit Seminary, licentiate students come from the Drohobych seminary and the Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk eparchies of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, noted Dr. Taras Dobko, UCU's pro-rector for academic work. Advanced studies abroad will continue to be important for UCU graduates, but "It is also important to have a graduate program like this in Ukraine, which gives attention to Ukrainian church history, possibilities for learning about Ukrainian church music from other local institutions, and so on," said Dr. Dobko.

In April, UCU graduate Rev. Serhii Stesenko became the first student of the licentiate program to successfully defend his work, "An Analysis of the Activities of the Eparchial Sobors of the Kyiv-Halych Metropolitanate of the UGCC from 1998 to 2002."

"Scholarly research into the problematics of UGCC sobors [Church assemblies] is fairly weakly developed," said the Rev. Stesenko. "What we do have regards historical sobors that were held 100 or 200 years ago. We don't have really deep, scholarly analyses of the sobors that were held recently. And this is a problem, inasmuch as sobors form the directions for development of local Churches. Now our Church holds patriarchal and eparchial sobors. They all have exceptional significance in the development of Church life. They give the scholar a great field for work."

Other students of UCU's licentiate program will be defending their final works in the near future. And, more than 100 UCU graduates are pursuing advanced studies abroad, so many more will eventually be defending their doctoral dissertations. Plans for starting a doctoral program at the UCU are still on the drawing board.

Further information about the UCU in English and Ukrainian is available on the university's website at www.ucu.edu.ua. Readers may also contact the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622; phone, 773-235-8462; e-mail, [email protected]; website, www.ucef.org. The phone number of the UCEF in Canada is (416) 239-2495.

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