Greek-Catholics hold Marian celebrations (09/13/98)

Greek-Catholics hold Marian celebrations

by O. Dudych
Agency of Religious Information

LVIV - Ukrainians from the region of Peremyshl in eastern Poland for centuries have held pilgrimages to the village of Kalwaria Paslawska, where a large Franciscan monastery constructed like Jerusalem's Calvary with Stations of the Cross was located. Still, the main object of their attention has always been the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Paslawska, which had been kept in the church nearby.

Since the Feast of the Holy Cross on September 15 coincides with the solemn Roman Catholic celebration of Mary's Assumption, Greek-Catholics started celebrating the Assumption according to the Gregorian calendar. Following Akcja Wisla, the deportation of Ukrainians from eastern Poland in 1947, almost no Greek-Catholics were left in the region. Poland's then Communist government deported Ukrainians to the newly acquired western territories, while the miraculous icon was taken from the church in Kalwaria Paslawska to the Franciscan church in Krakow.

For the time being, the icon is restored and kept in the Greek-Catholic Cathedral in Peremyshl. It is to be returned to the traditional place of its veneration only on Sepetember 15.

After a 40-year hiatus, pilgrimages to the icon of the Mother of God of Paslawska resumed in the 1980s. A church for the icon was built in the nearby village of Novy Sad, and traditional pilgrimages there gather both Polish Christians of the Byzantine rite and Greek-Catholics from the Eparchy of Drohobych and Sambir of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

This year on August 20, at the request of Metropolitan Ivan Martyniak of Warsaw and Peremyshl of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Auxiliary Bishop Julian Gbur, assisted by nine priests, celebrated divine liturgy in the church in Novy Sad. Pilgrims arrived by buses and other vehicles; some of them came on foot.

Solemnities started with a moleben to the Mother of God and confessions of thousands of the faithful. Afterwards, a pontifical divine liturgy was celebrated, and some 300 people received holy communion. Since the small church could not house all those attending, the religious services were held outdoors.

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