In August Lviv will host the International Redemptorist Youth Congress. The organizer is the Lviv Province of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. A weekly celebration starts on August 9 and more than 500 young people from countries all across the globe are expected. The first international volunteers already arrived in Lviv to prepare the meeting together with Ukrainians.       

During the five days of the congress youth will have an excellent opportunity to share their traditions and to experience the culture and spirituality of the Byzantine Ukrainian rite. They will also have a special opportunity to discuss joint projects, to learn Ukrainian dances and songs at workshops, to pray together, and to have a good time in Lviv.

“This meeting is an excellent opportunity for communication between young people from different countries joined together with one idea – the redemptorist mission. We have the chance to present our country, our city, whose culture was formed from the intertwining of different traditions: Ukrainian, Polish, German, Austrian, Jewish, and Armenian,” said the  coordinator of the congress Fr. Roman Lahish.

International Redemptorist Youth Congresses have been held since 1987, when the General Council of the Redemptorists initiated European Youth Congresses to support and share the Redemptorist spirituality. At the last congress, held in Limerick, Ireland, Ukraine was chosen to host the next Youth Congress.

The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Latin: Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris – C.Ss.R or CSSR) is a Roman Catholic missionary congregation founded in 1732 by Saint Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, near Amalfi, Italy, for the purpose of laboring among the neglected country people in the neighborhood of Naples. The Ukrainian branch of the Redemptorists was founded in 1913.