Cardinal
Joseph Slipyj (1892-1984)
an Imitation
of Christ
I
remember that day very clearly in my mind, the first time I met Cardinal
Josyph Slipyj. It was 1976,
and I was still a young boy at the time. No one person ever left an impression
on me as did this saintly man. There was a certain aura about him
which I never felt again since our faithful meeting that day.
I treasure the memory of meeting this martyr, who truely believed in the
Ukrainian Catholic Church and was ready to give up his life for it.
I found an article written March 1985, in a church magazine called "Aid
to the Church in Need," detailing Cardinal Josyf Slipyj's life history.
I have also included pictures taken during his visit to Montreal in 1976.
These pictures were taken by my late father Wolodymyr Golash.
I hope the informatiom below brings to light the important role that
Cardinal Slipyj our Patriarche played, in the development of the Ukrainian
Catholic Church, during it's most turbulent time. Let his belief
be a lesson to all of us. We should be so thankful about what a tremendous
time we are living in, having the right to free speech and belief, which
this holy man rarely experienced. Heading into a new Mellenium, may
this enrichen our spiritual belief in God and in the Church.
Roman
Golash
Priest and
Scholar
Your name is Roman Kobernyckyj-Dyckowskyj, commonly known as "Slipij."
You are a young boy in the town of Zazdrist in the Western Ukraine.
The year in 1897. You are teaching your little brother to read.
His name is Josyph. Your own name will be read out to the whole world nearly
a century later when that Joseph recalls your brotherly love in his Spiritual
Testament. For your brother is to become the greatest man of your
country.
He is to be a light that will shine out against the darkness of the communists'
denial of God throughout the twentieth century.
You it was, Roman, who kindled in your brother the love of learning that
ensures the continuity today of Ukrainian rite and culture in the tiny
University of St. Clement in via Boccae, in Rome, a renaissance after your
Church and nation seemed at one time to have been torn from the memory
of man.
The
things of God
Joseph
Slipyj was born on 17 February 1982 to a well-to-do, profoundly Christian
family. They raised their son in such a way that from the first he
showed a remarkable love of learning and of the things of God. He
was endowed with physical constitution of great strength and a noble mascline
beauty.
He graduated from his grammar and secondary school studies in Ternopil
when he was 19 and began the study of philosophy at the University of Lviv
while living in the dioceasan seminary.
He feared that his ambition to be a university professor would impede his
priestly vocation. But the saintly Metropolitan, Andrei Sheptytsky,
banished the young man's fears by sending him for advanced studies at Innsbruck
in Austria.
I September 1914 Czarist troops occupied Western Ukraine and arrested the
venerable Metropolitan Sheptytsky for urging his faithful to stay true
to the Pope. He remained their prisoner until March 1917 when
the Czarist government went down under the Marxist revolution.
Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church had often and jealously encroched
on the Ukraine and its Catholic Church united with Rome. They had
always resented the historic Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by which in 1596 the
Ukrainian Catholic Church had forged solemn links with the See of Peter.
On 30 September 1917 Joseph Slipij, back now from his studies, was ordained
priest. He returned to Innsbruck and took a brilliant doctorate in
1918, qualified as Professor in 1920 and went on to gain further honours
studying in Rome.
He came home in 1922 as Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Lviv seminary,
founding and editing the theological quarterly Bohoslovia. 1925 saw
him made Rector of the seminary and four years later, now 37 yeard old,
he was appointed first Rector of the Lviv Theological Academy which he
headed untill 1944. His written works during these years ranged over
theology, philosophy, liturgy, literature, history, canon law and art.
It was a period of happy fulfilment as pastor as as a scholar. It
was not to last.
Bishop and
Martyr
Beyond the quiet of the Lviv Theological Academy it had been a turbulent
period for the Ukrainian people. In the wake of the 1917 revolutions,
Ukraine had briefly regained its independence (1918-22). The political
struggle let to a rebirthof the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church which seperated
itself from the Russian Patriarchal Church. But by the early 1929's
the Bolsheviks had won control of most of Ukraine, the East and Cenetre,
and Poland took the West, including Galicia (Halychyna). The West
European powers abandoned the re-emerging nation to its fate; it became
the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
While the Bolshevils were virtually obliterating the Autocephalous Orthodox
Church the minority Ukrainian Catholic Church had survived in Galacia and
it continued under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Sheptytsky. In
November 1939 he asked Popo Pius XII to appoint Joseph Slipyj, now a Mitred
Archpriest,
as his coadjutor and successor. The Pope agreed readilyto this elevation
for "your beloved disciple whom you have so often mentioned to me and praised."
So on 22 December 1939, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception by the Julian
Calendar, Joseph Slipyj was consecrated Archbishop by the old Metropolitan.
Half
a million deported
The
new archbishop-coadjutor took as his motto the words "per aspera
ad astra", "through harsh things to the heavens" - and the sentiment was
soon a bitter reality. Only weeks earlier the Polish state had collapsed
and now the Western Ukraine was swallowed by the USSR. Harsh persecution
of the Ukrainian Catholics began at once.
Acting while he could in a time of great danger the old Metropolitan convoked
a synod in September 1939, creating three new exarchates and appointing
four new exarchs. One of these was Joseph Slipyj whom, with the approval
of Pope Pius XII, he made Exarch of Eastern Ukraine.
The Soviet onslaught on the Catholic Church was interupted by the German
invasion in June 1941 but by then the communists had already deported 250,000
people from the Archeparchy of Lviv alone and probably twice as many altogether.
Dozens of priests had been murdered, imprisoned or deported. In July
1944 the Soviets returned and on 1 November that year Metropolitan Sheptysky
died. His successor stood at the treshold of his martyrdom.
In December 1944 the new Metropolitan sent a delegation to Moscow which
sought to legalise the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The Soviets recognised
their Church with Slipyj its head but asked them to persuade Ukrainian
insurents to abandon their fight for national independence. This
was a trap into which he dared not fall and outright and terrible perecution
followed.
Already, at the moment of Bolshevik retreat before the Nazis, Archbishop
Slipyj had been put to the wall to be shot along with others but had miraculously
been freed. Now, as Metropolitan, he was to have only a few months
to exercise his ministry in freedom. On 11 April 1945 the Soviet
authorities arrested him along with other bishops. 
St. Georges's Cathedral in Lviv was searched. Imprisoned priests
were told to subit to Russian Orthodoxy or be condemed as agents of "universal
fascism."
When
all the Ukrainian hierarchy had been seized the Moscow Patriarch Alexei
directed a "pastoral letter" to the Catholic faithful telling them that
their pastors had abandoned them. Three hundred courageous priests
protested to Soviet Minister Molotov and demanded the release of their
bishops but their demands were vain. The communists took Metropolitan
Slipyj from Lviv to Kyiv, isolated him and subjected him to intensive inerrogations,
mostly in the small hours, demanding that he seperate himself from the
Pope and offering him the Metroplolitante of Kyiv in the Russian Church.
In the desert now with Jesus he steadfastly held as did all his brother
bishops.
The Soviets sentenced Metropolitan Slipyj to eight years of prison and
forced labour to be served in Maklakovo, Viatka, Novosibirsk, Boimy, Peczora,
Krasnojarsk, Kamczatka, Inta, Jenisseist, Potma Vortuka and Mordovia.
As we think of him led away to this ordeal, we can grieve for his Church.
The Russian Orthodox occupied all the Catholic parishes. Being catholic
was made a crime. All eparchies, religious houses and schools were
suppressed. Half of the clergy were impisoned and a fifth exiled.
Two
encyclicals
Pope Pius XII was tireless in his interventions on behalf of the Ukrainians
and their Metropolitan. He wrote two encyclicals in their defence,
in 1945 and 1952, in the first naming Patriarch Alexie as accomplice in
the persecution. He sent a moving letter to Metropolitan Slipyj at
Christmas 1957 marking the fortieth anniverary of his priesthood in September
that year. But this concern found little echo around the Catholic
world.
A bare recital of dates and places in Joseph Slipyj's Way of the Cross
conveys his suffering less vividly than recollections we have of that terrible
period from his own writings and from those of his contemporaries in the
camps.
In his Testament he harrowingly recalls, "I had to suffer imprisonment
by night, secret court-rooms, endless interrogations and spying upon me,
moral and physical maltreatment and humiliation, torture, and enforced
starvation. In front of the evil interrogators and judged I stood,
a helpless prisoner and silent witness of the Church who, physically and
psychologically exausted, was giving testimony to his native Church, itself
silent and doomed to die.
As a prisoner for the sake of Christ I found stength throughout my own
Way of the Cross in the realization that my spiritual flock, my own native
Ukrainian people, all the bishops, priests and faithful - fathers and mothers,
children, and dedicated youth as well as the helpless old people, were
walking beside me along the same path. I was not alone!"
Twice
near death
Twice when near death he was saved by other prisoners. Once, after
protracted hearings when his only food was one small fish a day, he collapsed.
The other inmates set up a chant, "warm water for the old man," and maintained
it for three hours. The guards relented, brought it and he was saved.
Again when Vice-President Nixon was crossing Russiaby train the Metropolitan
was among a diverted train-load of prisoners confined in a room with one
tiny window. Many died but he was pushed to the window and survived.
When he had finished his first sentence in 1953 he was taken briefly to
Moscow but was given a further five years' sentence in Siberia. Occasional
letters from him reached individuals during these years and we reproduce
oppisite an extract from his Christmas 1954 message. Some times he
is pleading to people to send no more help or letters because they increase
his difficulties.
In 1962 he recieved his final sentence and was dispatched to the very harsh
prison of Mordovvia from which "one does not come out alive" but where
one dies "a natural death."
Father Leoni, a jesuit, describing the torments of the bug-infested prison
transit camp at Kirov recollects as follows: "Meanwhile, into our
cell were thrown other political detainees. At dusk I heard an unknown
voice call me. An old man with a beard stood before me his hand,
saying, "Josyf Slipyj." It was at the same time a joy and a grief
to find myself together with my Metropolitan."
Dressed
in rags
But the most harrowing and poignant recollections are from those who saw
the Archbishop at Inta in Komi, near the Artic Polar Circle. Eye-witnesses
recall him dressed in rags held together with bandages around his ankles
and knees, his feet covered in lime, a man defenceless againt the cold,
which reached 45 dgrees below zero. Truly an Ecce Hommo. "Still
we remember him as a serene, understanding and even generous to the surveillants
and spies who were not lacking in that place of tremendous suffering."
An Austrian Professor, Grobauer recalls the arrival of the venerated pastor
in a cattle car at Inta. Made to march in deep snow at dead of night
he collapsed. A guard forced him up with a rifle butt. Again
he fell and could not rise even under the guard's brutality. Grobauer
hauled him under the arms and helped him forward, a very Simon. Arrived
at last, the Metropolitan sat exausted on his tiny case. Two youths
at once appeared, stole his case and left him bleeding from the mouth and
nose.
In 1962, the secret police made their last attempt to bribe the man of
God, offering him the Patriarchate of all Russia. He held firm, again
like his Master in the desert.
Pope John Paul XXIII was meantime urgently seeking his release. Soviet
Chairman Kruschev agrred to free the prisoner. Cardinal Slipyj later
recalled hoe he learnt of this. At the moment when he was very ill
and thought he would die, "Old man, how are you?" They brought him
soup, transferred him and gave him a bed.
He arrived in Rome on 9 February 1963, limping into the Abbey of Grotta
Ferrata, his right foot frostbitten. They gave him hot milk to drink.
Exile and
Prophet
It had never entered the heart of the great Ukrainian pastor to desert
his Church or his people. Even as the Soviets were releasing him
his question was, "Does my liberation signify the recognition of the freedom
of the Greek-Catholic Church?" But they told him only that he would
be taken to Moscow and would be able to discuss the question there.
Nevertheless he had a great crisis of conscience before leaving Siberia
for Moscow. He wished to go back to Lviv annd said, "I cannot abondon
my people. But to please the Pope and if it can be useful to my people,
then if they do not let me go back to Ukraine we shall see what will become
of my life."
In
his Testament he wrote of this juncture, "The voice of the late Pope John
XXIII called me to the Vatican Council. I regarded his voice as an
order, for in it I could sense the incomprehensible intention of God's
Work. Was this not a call to achieve what I could not achieve as
a prisoner?"
He had hoped to be allowed a swift return to Ukraine after the Council
but his release had evidently been on conditions which were to hinder his
own wishes. In conseqquence, he was deeply moved by the clarity wwith
which Minister Andreotti described his arrival in Rome, almost incognito.
"When you came to this city you were greeted by us, the Catholics of Rome,
with a peculiar silence. Ours is a strange world, a world in which
one fears that the persecutor will be driven to do even more evil than
he has done up to now. We would have wished to salute you with the
same explosive joy with which the Christians of Rome greeted St. Peter."
A
granite formation
Archbishop
Slipyj now began serenely but energetically to make a reality of his new
ministry in exile. He appeared on television for the first time on
17 March at the beatifacation of Elizabeth Seton. A week later preaching
at the Pontifical Greek College, he told the students, "You could easily
find youselves today in completely atheistic surroundings, in which the
overwhelming majority... comats the existence of God, negates every religion
and insults you as deceived and deceivers, idlers, enemies of the people.
Anyone who has not acquired a granite theological formation could easily
lose his his head and be swayed by the atheistic current."
He sent a beautiful and historic greeting to the failing Pope John in May,
fell grievously ill himself weeks later and the new Pope, Paul VI, came
to his bedside. He recovered, presided over the eleven-day chapter
of the Basilican nuns at the Aventine, visited Sicily and spoke at the
Second Vatican Council on 11 October 1963. Still in the year of his
release he undertook the task of all to his heart; he founded the Ukrainian
Catholic University in Rome on 8 December. This tiny centre of renaissanvce
for the Ukrainian Church is only temporarily in Rome. Whenever religious
freedom in Ukraine is regained, it will be transfered there, its true seat.
In the following year, he bought a monastery for his studite monks on Lake
Albano and had the joy of bringing the community to meet Pope Paul
on 8 January 1965.
A few weeks later, on 25 January 1965, Pope Paul named 27 new Cardinals
and Metropolitan Slipij was amongst them. First named were the Oriental
Patriarchs and next was Cardinal Slipij. Then one of the Cardinals,
Cardinal Testa, said to him "You are already a Cardinal in pectore of Pope
John!, confirming the common supposition that he had been one of three
such Cardinals appointed by Pope John in his consistory of 28 March 1960.
The new Cardinal Slipyj asked Monsignor Capovilla why he had not told him
of his appointment earlier. "Because I was not permitted to say it," he
could only reply But Cardinal Testa has benignly broken the secret.
Gentle
commands
Among
Cardinal Slipyj's great works in exile was the founding and building of
the Cathedral of Saint Sophia - this means the Holy Wisdom - in via Boccea
in Rome. It is a "Sobor" - a church to which people come for certain
feasts - and this beautiful example was built between 1967-69 according
to the Cardinal's own plans. It is intended as a replica of Saint
Sophia's in Kyiv, incorporating similar structures and features.
It was consecrated on 27 September 1969 and on the following day the Pope
solemnly brought in the relics of Pope St. Clement. The Sobor is
the spiritual centre for all the Ukrainian Catholics exiled and scattered
around the world and the Cardinal bequeathed it to them with gentle commands
in his Testament.
The Father
of his Church
There
are other straands in the story of Cardinal Slipyj's years in Rome; his
"anxious care for all the Churches" of the Ukrainian rite, his pain and
grief at the refusal to recognise the Patriarchal status of his Church,
and his tireless defence of whom the communists persecuted.
He was never permitted to return to his beloved Ukraine but was able not
without difficulties and obsticales, to go as pastor to his compatriotes
in exile all around the world.
In 1968 he visited the Ukrainians of the north and south America and Oceania.
In the next two years he went to Germany, Spain, England, France, and Austria.
At Lourdes he movingly recalled the last words of the dying in the Soviet
camps: "Mother, do you hear me?" His last great tour was in 1976,
to the USA, Canada, Holland and Germany.
The conterversy over the Patriarchate was a bitter anguish. He was
to sign his Testament "Humble Josef Patriarch and Cardinal," but on the
grounds that he thought wordly and unworthy he was never recognized as
such. In the first months of his freedom, he asked Pope Paul VI to
recognize the Patriarchate and on 11 October that year he told the Vatican
Council Fathers that this was the only means to preserve the unity, the
very existence of the Ukrainian catholic Church.
Bitter
conterversies
Pope
Paul quickly took what Ukrainians hoped was a first step towards granting
the Patriarchal status when he recognized the ancient title of the Kyiv
Metropolitans as Archbishop-Major, a designation unique in the Catholic
world. This title confers rights equal to those of the Patriarchs
of the Eastern Churches. In 1980 Pope John Paul II enlarged these
rights further and in 1982 Cardinal Slipij wrote his powerful "Pro Memoria",
a last plea for Patriarchal status. But he was to die without its
being recognized and grieved by bitter conterversies over the issue among
his scattered flocks.
What most moved the fatherly heart of the great Patriarch was the need
and suffering of his persecuted faithful at home and of all believers who
suffered under communism. He wrote to Kurt Waldheim, United Nations
Secretary General and to President Carter and he pleaded endlessly to synods
and gatherings of bishops for his people. He intervened dramatically
at the 1977 Shakharov Tribunal in Rome when 85 years old. He said
"I am present here for two reasons. Today testimony is being given
hereon religious persecution in the Soviet Union and in my homeland, Ukraine.
The church of which I am Head and Father is also the victim of this persecution
and where my Church is spoken of, there I am must also be to defend it,
to protect it. The second reason is that I am the "convict", I am
the testimony of this noted Archipelago, as another "convict", Alexander
Solzhenitsyn has called it. And I carry the scars of this terror
on my body,"
Alas, the voices of such witnesses are drowned out in the West by comfortable
men, far from the Soviet camps, who, in the face of nearly seventy years'
contrary evidence and death of uncountable multitudes of believers, still
imagine that the people of God can make accomidations with the Marxist-atheists.
The Cardinal died of pneumonia, of old age really, on 7 September 1984.
Our best way to honor the memory of this Imitator of Christ is to heed
his warnings. may his great soul rest in peace of Christ, whom he
followed.
The Confessor'
last message
Extracts
from the Testament of His Beatidute Patriarch Josyf
...Whilst
leaving this world after a life of 90 years or so, "sitting on the sleigh",
as our ancestors used to say, I pry for you, my spiritual flock, and for
the whole Ukrainian nation, whose son I am which I have tried to serve
throughout all my life.
...Throughout
my entire life I have been a servant of Christ, and so I remain upon leaving
this world.
...Because
atheism is now the official doctorine in Ukraine and in all countries of
the Communist world, it is my last will that you save the Ukrainian Catholic
University, for it is the forge in which the new generations of priests
and lay apostles of Christ, the fighters for truth and for learning free
from coercion, have to study and be brought up!
...And
when you visit the Cathedral of Saint Sophia on a pilgramage as to your
own native Temple, and look upon it and offer your prayers to God inside
it, remember that I leave this Cathedral for you as a mark and symbol of
the destroyed and desecrated shrines of God in Ukraine.
...For
in a little while, the Patriarch for whom you now pray will cross the treshhold
of life on earth, and visible symbol and personification of the Patriarcheate
in his person will no longer exist. But, in your consciousness and
your vision there will remain a real and living Ukrainian Church, crowned
with the patriarchal wreath!
...On
many occassions as the Head of our Church I gave advise with firm and decisive
words whenever it was necessary to awaken the sleeping conscience and to
point out the pastoral responsibility for the spiritual flock before God
and the Church. For the Episcopate should be a model of unanimity
in the administration of the Church and an example of unity ia all aspects
of religious and national life! All that I had to suffer because
of this - the scorn, the mental wounds, in a word, all those arrows fired
at me by the evil one - are well known to you . They were by no means
easier than those in the prisons and in the deportations. I endured
them as painfully as I suffered the tortures in prison in earlier years.
But today I thank the Almighty that I was beaten both in the prisons and
in freedom! I thank Him that I was beaten and not glorified by the
slaves! I forgive them all, for they too are only instruments in
the Hands of the Almighty, who summoned me and gave me His blessing to
be a Prisoner for the sake of Christ, both in captivity and in freedom!
...My
thoughts extend to all my brothers and sisters in Ukraine and the vast
expanses of the whole Soviet Union, to those who suffer in freedom and
to those who languish in jails, prisons, hard labour camps or death camps...
In their midst I can see new ranks of fighters, scientistists, writers,
artists, farm workers, and labourers. I can see among them those
who search for truth and those who defend justice. I can hear voices
raised in defence of the basic human fights of the individual and of society.
I watch with wonder and see how they defend our native Ukrainian language,
how they enrich our native Ukrainian culture, and how with the full power
of their minds and hearts they save the Ukrainian soul. And I suffer
alongside them, for they are persecuted for this as common criminals.
...Bury
me in our Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint Sophia, and when our vision shall
rise once again in
freedom, carry the coffin in which I shall come to rest to my native land
and place it in the shrine of St. George in Lviv. If such is the
will of God and the wish of the Ukrainian people, then lay my coffin in
the vaults of the restored Cathedral of Saint Sophia. I was made
to suffer for many long years in the vaults of Kyiv prison, when I would
like to rest in peace in the underground crypt of the restored Cathedral
of saint Sophia, once my body has ceased to live!
...Sitting
on the sleigh and on my way into the far off distance..., "I say a prayer
to our heavenly Protector and Queen, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God:
Take our Ukrainian Church and our Ukrainian People under your Powerful
Protection!
...May
the Grace of Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God the Father, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all!
+Humble
Josyf
Patriarch
and Cardinal
The
Pope's Farewell
On Wedneday 17 October
1984, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica
for the repose
of the soul of Cardinal Slipyj. Here is the heart of the Pope's farewell
to his
great Ukrainian
brother.
"Come
to me al you who are weary and laden, and I will refresh you!" This
Word of Christ, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, sums up the long and
difficult life of the beloved Archbishop-Major. During his prolonged
troubles as a condemned man and then as an exile, he always found in Christ
refreshment to be a man of invincible faith, a pastor of firm courage,
a witness of heroic fidelity, an eminent personality of the Church.
"It is painful to recall the long calvary which an innocent man, a Metropolitan
Archbishop, had to bear because of his Christian faith! We know that
during those years of imprisonment and hard labour he often succeded in
secretly celebrating the Holy Eucharist, finding in Christ the stength
and the joy to suffer with Him and for Him, for the defence and preservation
of his people's faith. Finally Pope John XXIII succeeded in obtaining
his release, and on 9 February 1963 Archbishop Slipyj arrived in Rome.
Quoting the Imitation of Christ, my predecessor said to him during their
emotial first meeting. 'Happy the moment when Jesus calls from tears to
joy of the Spirit (BkII, ch.VIII)."
"During the last part of his life Cardinal Slipyj maintained his fervour
and his pastoral dynamism and from his example a message comes to us which
can serve us, still pilgrims along the ways of this world, and can also
serve the entire Church."
"Dear brothers and sisters, in offering the Holy Sacrifice for Cardinal
Slipyj, we pray to the Lord for him, meditating on his heroic faith; we
invoke the Virgin Mary for the Christians persecuted in today's society,
for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters residing in their nation or scattered
throughout the world,"
How your
giving sustains the Catacomb Church
These
are some of the ways in which you have helped the
Ukrainian
Catholic Church to survive.
1.
By supporting the construction and running of the university and seminary
which Cardinal Slipyj founded in Rome. By this you have ensured that
a minimum of free Ukrainian learning and culture may survive as a counter-weight
to the tragic situation in Ukraine.
2.
By publishing theological works in Ukrainian for use in exile, and which
we are also able to introduce into Ukraine itself.
3.
By publishing a translation of the New Testament and a pocket-size prayer
book
especially adapted to the needs of the underground or 'Catacomb' Church.
4.
By enabling us to bublish our Child's Bible in Ukrainian; it is considered
'a popular item' in Ukraine and very much in demand. We are continuing
to meet that demand slowly and cautiously.
5.
By helping to transmit religious radio broadcasts to Ukraine, by sending
parcels there, by relieving the Church in many other ways which we cannot
mention and by helping refugees.
6.
Most importantly, by extending friendship and moral support to Cardinal
Slipyj and his Church when many considered them a hinderance to ecumenical
dialogue with Russian Orthodoxy.
Fr. Werenried visited Patriarch Slipyj immediately upon his release and
from that time on was his admirer, his helper and his friend.
Since 1963, Aid to the Church in Need has been able to give nearly ten
million dollars for support of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the former
Soviet Union, and in exile.
Murders
and desecrations
We could fill many pages with accounts of recent murders, assaults, desecrations
and trickeries by the Marxist-atheists in the Ukraine. Humanly speaking
there is no end in sight to the sufferings of the Ukrainian Church.
But we should take heart from the words of another young and courageous
Josef Terelja, who has already spent 18 of his 41 years in Soviet prisons,
camps and those new antechambers of hell, their psychiatric hospitals.
In 1982, he founded the Initiative Group for the Defence of the Rights
of Believers and the Church. He is now in prison again. He
has written, "...every ordeal has its end and we are waiting for the end
of our Way of the Cross; after that - Resurrection!"
We beg you then, for the memory of Cardinal Slipyj and for the solace of
his still tormented Church, to pray, not to forget or permit to be forgotten
that the Marxist-atheist persecution of religion never relents, and to
give and to go on giving us the material means to relieve a little the
terrible suffering this oppression causes.
Links to
related sites
A
report by Cardinal Josyf Slipyj on the Ukrainian
Catholic
Church after 35 years of persecution
His
Beatitude Patriarch Josyf Cardinal Slipyj
Patriarch
Josyf Slipyj
Year
of His Beatitude Patriarch Josyf Slipyj
Lviv
Theological Academy
