3,000 attend inauguration in Lviv of Ukrainian Catholic University (07/07/02)

3,000 attend inauguration in Lviv of Ukrainian Catholic University

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

LVIV - Toga-clad trumpeters, students, scholars and diplomats joined Lviv residents and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) to celebrate the inauguration of the first Christian university in Ukraine in the modern era when the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) was formally opened on June 29.

With a crowd of more than 3,000 Lviv residents watching on a sun-splayed Saturday afternoon, UCU Vice-Rector Myroslav Marynovych, acting as master of ceremonies, read the proclamation that announced the inauguration of the UGCC's new university in Ukraine.

Also seated on the stage erected before the famous Lviv Opera House on Lviv's Freedom Square were Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, UGCC archbishop major and the head of the Church who is also UCU chancellor; the newly appointed UCU rector, the Rev. Dr. Borys Gudziak; Archbishop Vsevolod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.; the Vatican's papal nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Mykola Eterovic; ambassadors from Great Britain, Germany and France; as well as Lviv Mayor Lubomyr Buniak and rectors of several prominent Ukrainian universities.

Cardinal Husar noted in his address that the opening ceremony was purposely conducted very publicly. "Our university, just as all universities, should not hide behind the walls of its buildings, but must be close to the society it serves," explained the primate of the UGCC, who added that "there must be a lively exchange between the university and the community, which becomes the foundation for new ideas."

Cardinal Husar emphasized the need for a Christian university in Ukraine as a center for Christian thought and of Christian values. He called this the unique aspect of the new institution's work.

"If a university is supposed to seek truth, beauty and goodness beyond the façade of the obvious, then the university that is being born today must uphold this standard as well and search for these eternal values, but in addition it must do so through the eyes of a Christian," he stated.

The head of the UGCC presented Rector Gudziak with a scholar's toga, which the late Patriarch Josyf Slipyj, the founder of St. Clement's Ukrainian Catholic University, located in Rome, had ordered made even before the doors of that institution opened. As Cardinal Husar explained, it was symbolic of the patriarch's inability to see anything but success in his endeavors.

In his remarks, the Rev. Gudziak, who had been unanimously elected to lead the new university by the St. Clement Fund that oversees the educational institution, reviewed the century-long effort to establish a Ukrainian Catholic university in Lviv, and the vision of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and determination of Patriarch Slipyj that led to its realization.

He noted that seven of the Ukrainian martyrs for the faith that Pope John Paul II beatified last year had attended the Lviv Theological Academy, the UCU's predecessor. He also underscored the leading role the UCU must play in uniting Ukrainians through knowledge, understanding and tolerance.

The inauguration finale took place with trumpeters heralding the arrival of a new Ukrainian university, while students representing the various institutions of higher learning in Ukraine held a knotted rope, each tie symbolizing their school. When two student representatives of the UCU attached the UCU's banner to the final knot, adding it to the unbroken rope that binds the universities together, a new university had been born.

The inauguration of the UCU took place over the course of several days. It was preceded by a conference on "The Identity and the Mission of the UCU," which reviewed the effort to establish a Catholic university in Ukraine, the history of the UGCC's higher educational institutions and the future of the new Lviv school.

On the day prior to the official inauguration ceremony, some of the new UCU students - now former students of the UGCC's Lviv Theological Academy, which the UCU has absorbed - twice paraded through the streets of Lviv in celebration of the opening of their new university.

During the day they presented a restored icon of the Stritennia (Presentation of Christ) to the Lviv National Museum after carrying it through the city and into the major churches located there. In the evening, the students gathered at a local park to symbolically re-enact the founding of the UCU before again taking to the streets and bearing torches in a solemn procession, led by a frisky white horse with a rider and trumpeters in medieval costumes.

The final day featured an archiepiscopal divine liturgy, followed later in the day by the blessing of a cornerstone of the first building to be erected on a 17-acre plot of land, which eventually will be the location of the UCU's theology faculty and the UGCC's seminary. The location, which was obtained from the local government, will be the site of six buildings when constructuion is completed. The project is a joint effort of the UGCC and the Lviv Eparchy, along with the Studite and Redemptorist religious orders.

The German-based foundation Aid to the Church in Need, whose mission is to help the once-persecuted Churches of Eastern Europe, will cover some 50 percent of the costs.

The UCU will also have two other campuses in Lviv, after all the projects on the university's drawing board are completed in several years. In addition to the current home of the Lviv Theological Academy, which the UCU will transform after the theological faculty moves into its new quarters, the university will undertake the completion and renovation of a seven-story building donated by the city at minimum cost.

The uncompleted construction, which was supposed to be the cultural center for the local Communist Party in a new city center it had began to build just before the Soviet Union disintegrated, has stood idle for more than a decade. Completion of the building, whose principal occupant will be the university's main library, could cost up to $10 million. Jeffrey Wills, a member of the UCU Senate, explained that the building symbolizes the Soviet legacy and the effort by the UGCC to undo the aftereffects of that tragic history.

"It represents the transformation we are trying to conduct in Ukraine today. We are taking something unfinished and ugly, and turning it into something beautiful and useful," explained Mr. Wills.

The establishment of the UCU in Lviv came after a century-long effort begun by Metropolitan Sheptytsky, which gained life with nurturing from Patriarch Josyf. As early as 1905 Metropolitan Sheptytsky had dreamt of building a university for the UGCC. He had obtained permission for an academy from Austro-Hungarian authorities in Vienna in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I put those plans on hold. Permission finally was granted in 1928 by Polish authorities for a theological academy, which became the Lviv Theological Academy led by the Rev. Dr. Slipyj. In 1939 Poland finally extended permission for a full-fledged university, but within weeks Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and the world was once again at war.

It was not until 1963, after Cardinal Slipyj was released from Soviet prison and exiled out of the empire to Rome that the dream of a Ukrainian Catholic university was finally realized, albeit outside of the primate's homeland.

The Rev. Ivan Muzychka, former rector of the UCU in Rome, explained during one session of the conference that preceded the inauguration of the Lviv UCU that for Patriarch Slipyj a Ukrainian Catholic university was an ardent and urgent mission after he was released.

"From his student days, the patriarch was an enthusiastic devotee and a fan of the idea of a Lviv Catholic University," explained Rev. Muzychka.

Patriarch Slipyj, however, had to settle for a Rome-based Ukrainian Catholic University, which was founded in 1969.

The Rev. Gudziak, 41, who grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., told The Weekly during an interview that St. Clement's UCU in Rome will remain directly linked to the new UCU in Lviv, in historical development and otherwise. He explained that St. Clement's will become an affiliate of the Lviv UCU and contacts between the two will remain close.

"In a global context, the affialiate can become a point of contact with Ukrainian Christian culture," said the Rev. Gudziak, who explained that the UCU in Rome could be utilized by Ukrainians visiting there and also by religion students from around the globe who come to study in Rome.

However, the Rev. Gudziak's emphasis will remain on developing the UCU in Lviv. Within three years the young rector hopes to see the humanities faculty more fully developed, with departments of social sciences, psychology, sociology, political science and perhaps a philosophy section. He also hopes that a school of social work will be functioning, as well as a catechetical-pedagogical institute, which should eventually develop into a full-fledged faculty.

The buildings of the theology faculty and seminary will be completed and ready for use in 2004, while the first stage of the seven-story library building will be completed in 2005.

The Rev. Gudziak said that expansion of the faculty will take place as needs a- rise and that the UCU intends to maintain a diversified teaching collegium. He noted that today there already are Roman Catholic, Orthodox Jewish and Orthodox Christian professors on staff - a tradition of diversity he intends to maintain.

The Rev. Gudziak echoed the sentiments expressed by Cardinal Husar, that the UCU in Lviv is a special university with a special mission - one that must be carefully crafted. He also eloquently noted the unique situation of the UGCC in European history, which bodes well for the future of his university.

"I am very enthusiastic about this mission," explained the Rev. Gudziak. "I think that the Ukrainian historical experience, the Eastern Catholic spiritual legacy, its openness to both East and West, its tradition of high level scholarship, its social involvement, which was at the root of the modern Ukrainian social awakening in the 19th century; its singular fortitude in resisting the great ideologies of the 20th century and standing up to the culture of death and negation of human dignity that was forced on the people of Ukraine, this legacy of positive, constructive proposals and strong resistance to totalitarianism with an openness to the riches of global culture - all of this is very fertile ground for developing critical and creative responses to the questions of the 21st century."

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