Progress Made on Establishing Patriarchate

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar) said this month that the cause of establishing the Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) “is alive and is not something lost, as some people think.”

 He was speaking at a press conference on July 10 at which he made public the results of the recent  session in Rome of the Permanent Synod of Bishops of the UGCC.

“It is developing further. We continue to work on it and, thank God, we see progress,” he added.

Speaking about the audience that the members of the recent synod had with Pope Benedict XVI the  patriarch said: “This is a matter which we discussed very thoroughly  and with benefit for everyone. For this not only deals with an internal matter of Ukraine, but also the universal church, ecumenism, and the role of the Eastern churches within the framework of the whole church. Therefore, we were very grateful to the Holy Father for the opportunity to communicate with him directly.

“I think it was a very useful meeting for him [Pope Benedict XVI] and us, for we want to see this matter [of the patriarchate of the UGCC] not only in the light of our  needs, but also against the background of the needs of the whole church,” he added.

According to the head of the UGCC, at the time of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj, the head of the UGCC from 1944 to 1984, there were various obstacles preventing the recognition  of the patriarchate of the UGCC both outside and inside the Church.  One such difficulty was that not all the bishops understood the need to recognize the patriarchate. “They believed that the recognition of the patriarchate of the UGCC is an obstacle in the way of the unity of the universal church,” said Patriarch Lubomyr. This previous roadblock has now been eliminated. “Today, all the members of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC are unanimously for the recognition of the patriarchal title of our church,” said Patriarch Lubomyr.

According to him, virtually all other obstacles have also been removed, but the time of the recognition of the patriarchate cannot be forecast as there are no established timelines.

Patriarch Lubomyr also noted that according the Second Vatican Council, Eastern Catholic Churches can proclaim Patriarchates, but unfortunately, no exact preconditions as to when this can be done are defined. Therefore, the UGCC is now in the vanguard in settling this question in accordance with all legal preconditions. (UGCC and Religious Information Service of Ukraine)