Cardinal Husar, visiting New York, urges prayer in wake of attacks on U.S. (09/30/01)

Cardinal Husar, visiting New York, urges prayer in wake of attacks on U.S.

by Zenon Zawada
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

NEW YORK - In their national crisis, Americans should take Jesus' lead in loving their neighbors and turning the other cheek, said Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

Husar was on a mostly personal visit to the United States, visiting the places where he had lived and worked, when the terrorist attacks occurred.

On the Sunday after the attack, he led liturgy and delivered a sermon at St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church in New York City, just three miles north of the former World Trade Center.

"We all come from God," Cardinal Husar said. "If we respect each other, such tragedies become impossible."

He urged the more than 500 Ukrainian Catholics present at the liturgy to pray and remember God's commandment to love thy neighbor.

He also appealed for calm and spoke against violent retaliation. Bombs and rockets will not change the hearts and minds of the United States' enemies, the primate underscored said.

St. George's was the first parish where he prayed the divine liturgy when his family arrived in the U.S. in 1949, Cardinal Husar noted.

The liturgy and a $100-a-ticket banquet afterwards capped off a week-long visit, during which Cardinal Husar attended a reunion of gymnasium students in a Salzburg, Austria, displaced persons camp, where his family lived following World War II.

Speaking with reporters before the banquet, the pope's visit this summer left a deep impression upon Ukrainians, who are "still very much involved emotionally."

The pope's visit also renewed interest in the Vatican for designating a patriach for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. "The Church is seen in a different light by those who work in Rome and accompany the holy father," he explained.

Church leaders are only beginning to fully appreciate Pope John Paul II's speeches and sermons in Ukraine because they were exhausted after all their hard work preparing for the visit, Cardinal Husar added.

As for relations with the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, they aren't any worse than they were before the pope's visit, he said. "We certainly need to work together, and it's a shame we aren't," Cardinal Husar commented. "Many Ukrainians haven't had a chance to hear about Christ."

About half of Ukrainians haven't been baptized or don't belong to a Church, largely because they haven't been exposed to Christianity. However, this atheism is passive, not active, he said.

Turning to another topic, the cardinal said the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church "has received much help" from Ukrainian-Americans since the nation's independence a decade ago.

"The Ukrainian American community is what put the country on its feet," added Bishop Basil Losten, eparch of Stamford, Conn., who attended St. Basil's College in Stamford at the same timeas the cardinal.

Cardinal Husar said he doesn't know how much money Americans gave to his Church since independence, largely because "most of the money came on a family basis." However, Bishop Losten pointed out that about $8 million in support went to Ukraine from the Stamford Eparchy, which includes New York and New England.

"I was shocked when I heard that figure," Bishop Losten said. "I had thought it was a lot less."

Although the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church has been successfully re-established in Ukraine, Ukrainian Americans' function of representing Ukraine in the United States is not over, Cardinal Husar emphasized.

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