WASHINGTON – The Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation honored the Rev. Bohdan Prach, rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, with its 2016 award for his work in documenting “the Golgotha of the Ukrainian Catholic clergy.”
Announcing the new laureate on November 22 at its annual award presentation ceremony at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, the foundation singled out the Rev. Prach’s latest accomplishment: the publication of his monumental two-volume work: “The Clergy of the Peremyshl Eparchy and the Apostolic Administration of Lemkivshchyna.”
The first volume (721 pages) presents biographical studies, with photographs, covering the period of that area’s changing Soviet, Polish and German occupations between 1939 and 1989. The second volume (851 pages) is a collection of selected documents, other materials and photographs, from 1939 through 1950.
In describing the award committee’s decision, Dr. Martha Bohachevsky Chomiak, who chairs the committee, noted that – as committee member Dr. Andrew Lewycky pointed out during their discussion – the foundation’s objectives can be described in three words: “authenticity, integrity and quality.” And the foundation searched for these principles in selecting the top candidate for this year’s award, she said.
“Today’s laureate represents these criteria completely.” The Rev. Prach searched for, gathered, organized and deciphered those valuable materials that will be useful for many scholars and writers in the future, she said. “He serves God, serves Ukrainians and all mankind.”
Accepting the award – and the $10,000 check that accompanied it – the Rev. Prach noted that the time has come when Ukrainians can now inform themselves and the world about the “hellish repressions” their country experienced under the Nazis, Poles and Soviets.
“Before, we knew generalities but lacked the details,” he said, adding that now there is hope and that he and others are now focusing on some of Ukraine’s other eparchies.
The Rev. Prach thanked the Antonovych Foundation and others for helping them in this effort, stressing that “Ukraine needs your help.”
Representing the Ukrainian Embassy at the event – with Ambassador Valery Chaly being away in Ukraine – his charge d’affaires, Counselor Oksana Shulyar, welcomed the leaders of the Antonovych Foundation and the Rev. Prach, and thanked them for their continuing work in preserving and restoring Ukraine’s cultural and historical heritages. She urged them to continue their focus on Ukraine and its people, who are still fighting for their freedom and independence.
Ms. Shulyar pointed out that, during the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, the Antonovych Foundation was honored with Ukraine’s Order of Merit (third degree) for the many years of the foundation’s work.
The foundation’s director, Dr. Ihor Voyevidka, who was there to accept that award, thanked Ukraine for the Order of Merit and the Embassy for hosting the Antonovych Award ceremonies since 2009.
As he noted, the Rev. Bohdan Prach is the 69th recipient of that award since it was initiated in 1981, with Ukrainian poet Vasyl Barka as the first laureate. Since then, the list of honorees includes many widely known scholars and writers, among them Vasyl Stus, Lina Kostenko, Ivan Dzyuba and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
A few of the Antonovych laureates were present at that evening’s presentation, Dr. Voyevidka said, pointing to Dr. Bohachevsky-Chomiak (1989), Roman Szporluk (2000), Bishop Borys Gudziak (2005), Alexandra Hnatiuk (2010), and last year’s recipient, Serhii Plokhy.
Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych established their foundation in 1980, with the goal of advancing the study of Ukrainian culture. Since then, it has donated about $3 million to help finance the development of many academic and cultural institutions and monuments in Ukraine, among them the reconstruction of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s main library, the renovation of the Vasyl Stefanyk Library and Artists Palace in Lviv, and the building of the Boykivshchyna Museum in Dolyna, western Ukraine, where Omelan Antonovych was born in 1914.
Yaro Bihun
Ukrainian Catholic University Rector the Rev. Bohdan Prach (right) receives the 2016 Antonovych Foundation award from the foundation’s president, Ihor Voyevidka (center), and board member Andriy Lewycky.
Three years ago, the foundation also provided $100,000 to help finance the building of the Ukrainian Holodomor Memorial in Washington, which was officially dedicated last year.
Omelan Antonovych spent his early adult years as a Ukrainian nationalist activist and, consequently, served time as a political prisoner in Polish and Nazi prisons. Later, he received a law degree at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague in 1943. He and Tatiana Terlecky married after the war. She was a physician and later would become a world-renowned kidney specialist.
After World War II, the Antonovyches emigrated to the United States, settling in Washington, where Dr. Antonovych worked as a scholar and taught in the capital area medical schools, while Mr. Antonovych focused on ranching and real estate.
Dr. Tatiana Antonovych passed away in 2001, and Mr. Antonovych in 2008. The following year, during the foundation’s awards ceremony at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, they were posthumously honored by the government of Ukraine with the Order of Yaroslav the Wise (fifth degree).
On the day following the Antonovych Award presentation, the Rev. Prach had his own presentation of his new two-volume book after the Sunday liturgy at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family, where the attendees could then purchase his work.