Patriarch Sviatoslav at Castle Mountain Internment Camp

(UCCLA) - On Tuesday, 5 June 2012, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, accompanied by a delegation that included Bishop David (Eparchy of Edmonton) and Professor Lubomyr Luciuk, Director of Research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, hallowed the memory of the Ukrainians and other Europeans held as “enemy aliens” during the First World War.

A comprehensive briefing was made to the group by Parks Canada officials about the construction of a permanent pavilion dealing with Canada’s first national internment operations, set to open at Cave & Basin (Banff National Park) in June 2013. The Patriarch and his entourage then travelled to see the internee statue “Why?” located at the base of Castle Mountain, and visited the actual site of the internment camp, where a requiem service (panachyda) recalled all who were held behind Canadian barbed wire.

The Patriarch, who has been invited to attend the official opening of the Cave & Basin interpretive centre next year, remarked that the internment operations are “not just about Canada, but are also part of the history of Ukraine, and must be remembered.”