What is the special feature of the current Synod of Bishops?

The special feature of the current Synod, I think, is the accent which we put on the matter of evangelization. In our synods we usually are engaged in different matters, different themes, and this year we took the theme of evangelization for the basis. And this means sharing God’s word, spreading the gift of the holy faith with all our neighbors. Because each of us needs to feel the closeness of God through evangelization, through those who already believe and live in obedience to their own faith, God’s word is supported, strengthened, perfected. For other people who may be for some reason removed from God, this can be a signal for awakening, for turning their attention, and for reconciliation with the Lord God. Other people are strangers to divine matters, because they may never have heard about God, and not certainly through their own fault. Circumstances, mainly in Ukraine, in the last decades were such that many people could not hear about Jesus Christ, about God, in a direct way, and so they live. But thanks to evangelization, this means thanks to the good example of a person, a close person, someone they know, they can turn their attention not only to something general, distant, but to something that can be extraordinarily important, decisive in their own lives. We paid special attention to this because the Church exists, above all, for the sake of this, to help people to come to know God, to encounter Him, to be close to Him. God is not only for “chosen people.” God wants to be declared to all people and we are those mediators, it is possible to say the original instruments, methods of that communication. Through us people, who already have had the opportunity to meet God, to live in a godly way, this good, important news is passed to other people. This is the main thing about the Church.

What, in on your opinion, is the essence of Church?

People have very different concepts about the Church, often very superficial: as if it were some organization, one among many others, whether for matters of culture, charitable activities, or something else. And we forget that the Church exists for the sake of bringing people closer to God. To present God to people and in such a way to give them a chance to meet Him and live in obedience with His holy will. We are instruments; we are not those on whom all depends. We have received this and we pass it to others, because the initiative is God’s. God has showed Himself, God first began to speak to us, and then, just as we received it, listened, heard, and accepted it, we passed it on to another. Why? Because we are convinced through our own lives that faith is something very valuable for us and we want other people also to benefit from this gift of God. Therefore there is such a strong accent. It may be a bit late, perhaps we should have done this a few years ago, but it is always relevant. We have come to this theme right now. This is very important, even for the better understanding of people who will hear about the Synod which took place; so we gave a certain explanation. So there was a wide explanation so that the reader who sees the word “evangelization” will have a better idea about what is going on, and what specifically the Synod said in this field. This explanation is not exhaustive; it does not say everything that was necessary to say. We will try to do this in our Church in the following years, so that people are more sensitive to this.

On September 7 during the Synod the celebration of your anniversaries took place: the 75^th anniversary of your birth and 50^th anniversary of priestly ministry. Your main word on this day was «Thank you.» Why?

My birthday is in the month of February. Already when all our bishops were gathered in Rome at the beginning of February they there, in the presence of invited Roman guests, had the first such celebration. Later in March a celebration took place in Kyiv, also with enough festivity. And then on September 7 it finally took place in Lviv; I was born in Lviv, so it fits in some way to celebrate in Lviv. I hope that this was already the final celebration, that it is already the last chord of this. You see what happened: people who knew from different sources that such an anniversary, the 75^th anniversary of my birth, the 50^th anniversary of my priestly ministry, sent greetings written or oral, assured about their prayers, gave me greater or smaller gifts, flowers and other things like that. I really do not have time to thank properly everyone as I would want, as would be necessary. Therefore I already used this last chance in Lviv and would like also to pass through the radio waves to all to whom it will reach my sincere gratitude.

First of all for prayers, for greetings, for mentions, for memory, for those different gifts which I received, my sincere thanks to all. This may be an insufficient method to express my gratitude, but at the present moment I do not have a better method, to write to all or even to meet with all, to shake their hand, to thank them personally; it is already not possible to speak to all. Consequently accept please my friends of good will this expression of my gratitude. I am very, very grateful to you for your benevolence to me and I would like to say that will ask the Lord God that your benevolence, your kindness of heart, your magnanimity in its own way be rewarded a hundredfold. Good in return for your good.

During this current Synod new members and heads of synodal committees were selected. What is the difference between committees and profile commissions which exist in the UGCC?

This is a structural and administrative issue. The Synod today consists of 48 members who are in different countries of the world and cannot know properly everything that is done in other parts of our Church. The task of the Synod’s committees is first of all at the beginning of the synod meeting to inform all present bishops about certain aspects important for the Church’s life: How does the Ukrainian family look today in Canada, or Brazil, or Australia, or Ukraine? How does the study of catechism in different parts of our Church look? And so on. Each committee, and there are 15 of them, collects during a whole year information about the Church in this area and later shortly, by points, informs the bishops of the Church gathered at the Synod about a situation: what is the situation, what was done over the last year in this area and, eventually, also certain suggestions for the best functioning. This is their task. To inform the Synod so that it can pay attention to certain things to which it could not pay any attention if it was not properly informed about them.

Commissions are something different. Commissions are the executive body. For example, the Synod makes some decision and then entrusts it to the proper commissions. There are certain commissions which are for the whole Church, they are few, three or four, the majority of them are at the level of the metropolitanate, so-called inter-eparchial, or at the level of the eparchy. And these commissions carry out the decisions of the Synod. Their purpose as such is not to inform but to work, to execute that which was decided.

At this Synod the theme and the year for conducting the next session of the Patriarchal Council were set. According to the text of decision, the theme of the 5^th session is monasticism. Was the choice of the theme caused by the summaries of the work of the Council on monasticism or were there other factors?

This circumstance and others. Over the last six years six very important meetings on monasticism [Councils on monasticism] took place in Ukraine, where various problems were considered and where, on the basis of the large work that was done, there was awareness about the needs of monasticism, and not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. And that is why the Synod, considering all this— what had been developed and those problems which were presented and the circumstance that there are also those problems in others parts of our Church — decided to conduct the next session of the Council on the theme of monasticism, and before that it designated three more years for its preparation.

Why monasticism right now? Monasticism was in the Church from the very beginnings, it is now, and it will be, like the heart of Christian life. "These are people who obligated themselves radically, very seriously, to fulfill the divine commandments and in such a way that they become the standard for others. Their dedication to God, dedication to neighbor, this is that element which makes the Church strong, spiritually strong. And that is why the Church has to pay great attention to those people whom the Lord God calls and who answer this appeal... And if there is a sufficient number of such people who accept this invitation of God and fulfill it, to that extent is the Church strong,” said the Head of the UGCC. And the strength of the Church, in his words, is in its spirituality, "not in riches, not in how much property it has, what influence it has, its political position in the country. This is not the strength of the Church. The strength of the Church is in its spirituality, as far as it lives by the Holy Spirit. And monasticism is here in the first row, this is the best realization of that Christian ideal which others take hold of and together then form a spiritually healthy Church.

In the decisions of the Synod we read about the confirmation of the Statutes of the Patriarchal Catechetical Fund under the name "Catechism of the UGCC." What is the purpose and what are the tasks of this foundation?

For a few years now we have worked on this, to present for the faithful of our Church a catechism — this means the explanation of truths of the faith, considering the faith of the Holy Church in general, but also the specifics of our own tradition. We belong to that Byzantine tradition which, beginning in Jerusalem, passing to Byzantium and, in the end, found itself in Kyiv, and our people accepted this gift of God’s holy faith. But our people accepted it in their own way, as every nation, every culture, does. In the catechism these truths of the holy faith will be properly explained so that everybody will be able to use it, not only specialists or theologians, but every believer. We are working now on this project and already much is done, so that we hope in the nearest years to be able to pass on this catechism, this explanation of the truths of our faith, in a proper printed form to our faithful.

But there are features with a financial character here — this work requires the cooperation of many people whom sometimes it is necessary to thank financially, at least for their trip, because they are people from different parts of our Church, and there is some money involved. We also have to be conscious that our Church exists in different countries, on different continents, where the faithful of our Church already are not as fluent in the Ukrainian language as, for example, we who live here in Ukraine. We want them also to pass on the treasure of our faith, explain what they believe in, because they are also members of our Church. This means that we will be forced also to translate this catechism into other languages. And in addition, not only for the sake of the members of our Church, but we also want to share with others the particularities of our reception of the holy faith and our way of life, carrying out God’s will in our nation, in our culture. This all requires some money and we established this foundation so that it could gradually collect the money necessary to be able to carry out this large project of preparing and translating into other languages.

And the last two years funds were established: whether for the support of newly created parishes, as by the Synod in 2007, or "Andrew’s pence," a fund to support faithful of the UGCC where there are no permanent structures of the Church. How effective are such decisions and what motivates them?

The Church is the original institution. A Church which did not pass through persecution, destruction, liquidation, and oppression through the course of decades, or even centuries, gathers certain means with which it can usually pay for necessities. Our Church has in this century been in a very difficult financial situation, because all the goods which Church had which had been given to the Church and from which the Church could pay for all its necessities were taken away and still have not yet been returned to us up to the present. Thus, the single source which we have is the offerings of our people, sacrifices from a good heart. They are not some percentages from some earnings, but straight offerings from the good hearts of many people. We try to cover those parish operating necessities as part of this parish or eparchy, which in general is successful. But there are some which reach beyond the limits of one parish, or eparchy or even metropolitanate. We then speak to the faithful of our Church of the whole world in order to help with offerings. With such a method we resolve the financial needs of our Church.

We do not expect that all people will give offerings for everything. For example, there are people who themselves lived through emigration, very difficult beginnings, who may today have solved their problems and have sufficient means. They understand very well what it means to be an immigrant. Consequently they are ready to help for this purpose. Others, perhaps, feel how important it is for the Church, for the people, that there be a Christian elite. Thus, consequently, they are ready to support the Ukrainian Catholic University. And so in each necessity there are people who specially feel in their hearts a desire to help in this necessity or another, and they donate towards this.

Without a doubt it would be good if we did not have to burden our faithful. But, you see, in this way the Lord God, Who inspires people to help the Church, shows us that we are in God’s hands, that we do not live from earned incomes, that we have to do everything with hard work. Another such example is very expressive today. Here we are building the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. This is not a church only for Kyiv; this is a church as a symbol of the unity of our Church. It is pleasant that the collection for it comes from Brazil, Argentina, Western Europe. These workers who work hard in Italy, Spain, and Portugal respond and help. In a word, all people not by some enormous donations, but, actually, by minor but sincere donations together are building this church.

The Patriarchal Synod decided to publish a general schematism. What is this book and what is the importance of it?

Everybody knows that we are in Ukraine and all over the world. It is good to know where we are, what we are, where we have communities, how are we organized, how we work, what is the structure of our life. This is information, but this information is not totally administrative; it may be said this is the image of the Church. This is a very practical book, because it is possible to find everything there which is necessary for the realization of many church programs, but this is also the image of the Church, how it is developing. Because the schematism is published not once; it is published periodically, sometimes even annually. Then it is possible to see how the Church is developing, where are the weak pages of the Church, where it is losing its strength. In a word, this is the statistical, to a large measure, but also the spiritual way of life of the Church.

At the Synod Blessed Priest and Martyr Omelyan Kowcz was proclaimed the patron of pastors of the UGCC. Why was this pastor chosen? For those who know his biography, I think it is clear. But is there possibly some explanation for this? And also, what is the practical realization of this patronage?

It needs to be understood: Why are there priests? The whole Church is the people of God. In this people of God there are certain persons called by God to serve their neighbor, to minister in a very specific way, in particular to offer sacrifices to God in the name of the people of God and administer the holy sacraments to them, to teach the people God’s truths, to lead these people to God. They are chosen for this; they are chosen not to sanctify themselves, but they are chosen to minister to the community.

We are only human beings. Very often even such very holy things become mundane for us and so we need to be reminded, to give examples of people who in this priestly ministry, as we say, were outstanding. Let’s take the example of the martyr Father Omelyan Kowcz. He was pastor in Peremyshlyany not far from the city of Lviv. He, as a pastor, ministered to people in a very exemplary method; in a word, he was a good pastor. But he also found himself in very special circumstances, being at a parish, because it was then the time of the Nazi occupation, when they persecuted and exterminated Jews, and he helped them, he protected them. When by a cruel method they wanted directly to burn them in their temple, in the synagogue, he rescued those people.

And for all of this he spent part of his life in the Majdanek concentration camp, near Lublin, on the territory of modern Poland. There he did not stop ministering. And even when there was an attempt to free him from this death camp, he refused. He wanted to serve. He gave his life fully to others, looking for nothing for his own self, not a single benefit. He left his family and community; he was on a territory outside of Ukraine, but this was all totally of secondary importance for him. The most important thing for him was to be a priest, to serve his neighbor in such terrible circumstances and even with the sacrifice of his own life.

To give an example for priests, in what spirit a pastor should live, he becomes now a heavenly intercessor. Because we, as pastors, need prayer, and he, being such a prominent friend of God, already acknowledged by the Church as such, becomes also our intercessor. Not only as an example. He prays for us clergy, he helps us with his prayers, asks God for grace for us. Therefore, we considered that it is worthwhile placing such an extraordinary example of ministry for us, I will say so, for spiritual strengthening and as a model of how should we behave. We know his life, his example is very dramatic and at the same time very marvelous. Sometimes it is necessary for us to bear various difficulties, different temptations which come to us, and here we have before our eyes a human being who was able to manage all that he faced; he was able to live for God and for his neighbor, and that is why we wanted to place him as a model for our clergy.

I hope that we will soon, in some more festive method, celebrate our decision and also make pilgrimages to that former concentration camp in Majdanek, in order to give him the proper honor, and, on the other hand, to ask his intercession.

Fr. Ihor Yatsiv conducted the interview.

The Ukrainian-language interview of His Beatitude Lubomyr is available in audio format.

A excerpt of the program of Radio Resurrection

Photo by Deacon Mykola Sulyma

http://www.rr.lviv.ua/mp3/pod.factu.coment/227.mp3  (part 1)

http://www.rr.lviv.ua/mp3/pod.factu.coment/227a.mp3  (part 2)