1981: an overview: Church (12/27/81)

1981: an overview

Church

For Ukrainian Churches, the key word of 1981 was dialogue.

On March 23, Archbishop Stephen Sulyk, then the metropolitan-designate for Ukrainian Catholics in the United States, met with Archbishop Metropolitan Mstyslav at the Ukrainian Orthodox Center in South Bound Brook, N.J. While inside St. Andrew's Memorial Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in a spirit of Ukrainian and Christian unity, both hierarchs donned kamelaukions, the headpieces worn by Eastern-rite prelates.

On June 17, Metropolitan Mstyslav returned the visit of the Catholic Church leader when he visited now-Metropolitan Sulyk in Philadelphia.

In yet another sign of unity - something that was so lacking in other spheres of Ukrainian community life - Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic hierarchs of the United States and Canada pledged on June 27 to jointly celebrate in 1988 the millennium of the coming of Christianity to Rus'-Ukraine during the reign of St. Volodymyr the Great.

The year saw a series of consecrations and installations in the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the United States. On the basis of recommendations of the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church which met in late 1980, Pope John Paul II named a metropolitan and two bishops for U.S. Ukrainian Catholics.

Patriarch Slipyj consecrated Stephen Sulyk as archbishop and Innocent Lotocky as bishop in Rome on March 1. Archbishop Sulyk was installed as metropolitan on March 31; and Bishop Lotocky as Chicago eparch on April 2.

Then, in August, the pope named Robert Moskal titular bishop of Agathopolis and auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia. The consecration took place in Philadelphia on October 13.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church held its 10th Sobor in South Bound Brook on May 27-31. At this time, two new bishops were named - Anatole Dublenskyj for Western Europe and John Scharba for the western United States.

During 1981, the Ukrainian-Orthodox Church marked the 60th anniversary of the historic First All-Ukrainian Sobor of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church held in Ukraine, in 1921.

To better serve the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful and the entire Ukrainian community, a $2 million Home of Ukrainian Culture was built on the grounds of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Center in South Bound Brook. The building was completed in the fall.

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