OBITUARY: The Rev. Dr. Volodymyr Figol, pastor of underground Church (01/16/00)

OBITUARY

The Rev. Dr. Volodymyr Figol, pastor of underground Church

YONKERS, N.Y. - The Rev. Dr. Volodymyr Figol, former professor of theology at the Lviv Theological Academy, pastor in Ukraine, Lithuania and the United States, and "confessor of the faith," who spent 15 years in the gulag system of concentration camps of Siberia for his refusal to recant the Ukrainian Catholic Church, died here on December 27 at the age of 88.

Rev. Figol was born August 3, 1911 in Kolomyia, Ukraine, the son of the Rev. Dr. Ivan Figol and Stefania née Halushchynska. The Figol and Halyushchynsky families were renowned priestly families in the annals of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The Rev. Figol was ordained by Bishop Mykola Charnetsky, CSsR (who received delegation from the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv Andrey Sheptytsky) as a priest of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv on July 22, 1934, in the Holy Family Catholic Chapel in Innsbruck, Austria.

He completed his studies in theology at the Jesuit theological faculty of the University of Innsbruck as an alumnus of the Canisiamum, receiving a doctoral degree in 1936.

Upon his return to Ukraine he served as professor of patristic theology of the Eastern Churches and instructor of homiletics at the Lviv Theological Academy until July 1945 under then rector, the Rev. Dr. Josef Slipyi.

After the outbreak of World War II and the Soviet occupation of western Ukraine, the Rev. Figol was pastor in the Zboriv region of the Lviv Deanery (1940-1944). He also served as an assistant pastor of the historic Church of the Assumption in Lviv's city center in 1944-1945.

Following the arrest of all Ukrainian Catholic bishops of the Archdiocese of Lviv in April 1945 by the Soviet government of Ukraine, the Rev. Figol served as the third of the "temporary syncelli" (vicars general) of the archdiocese until his own arrest on July 28, 1945. He was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and five years of exile by Soviet courts and sent to Norilsk for his refusal to denounce his Church and to publicly join the leadership of a group leaning to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. (The pseudo-sobor of Lviv took place in the spring of 1946).

While in Siberia, the Rev. Figol ministered clandestinely to the needs of believers imprisoned under a variety of political and slanderous charges.

Not allowed to return to Ukraine after the completion of his sentence, the Rev. Figol was offered a place of refuge in Lithuania by the Rev. Jan Preiksas, a Roman Catholic priest with whom he worked together in the camps. The Rev. Preiksas was later named Archbishop of Kaunus. The Rev. Figol worked in Kaunas in 1958-1990, ministering to the Roman Catholic community which was subjected to Soviet harassment.

During this time the Rev. Figol was also a major source of clandestine support for the outlawed Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine, especially through his relationship with the archimandrites of the Studite Fathers of Ukraine - Klymentii Sheptytsky, Nikanor, and the present archimandrite, the Rev. Yulian Voronovsky.

Upon his arrival in the United States in 1990, the Rev. Figol was received by Bishop Basil Losten as a priest in the Stamford Diocese. Subsequently, the Rev. Figol served in various Ukrainian Catholic parishes in New York State, among them, Rochester, Utica, Glen Spey, Yonkers and Hunter.

A priestly parastas for the Rev. Figol was held on December 29, 1999 at St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church in Yonkers, N.Y., with the Rev. Mitred John Terlecky officiating. A funeral liturgy, with Bishop Losten officiating, was held the following day at the church, followed by interment at Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Hamptonburg, N.Y.

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