Society-digest

  • 15 May 2012, 15:09 | Society-digest | 

    God, the Gulag and the atheist

    Myroslav Marynovych is currently vice-rector of the Catholic University of Ukraine. A former atheist, he was confined in a communist labour camp for seven years and deported to Kazakhstan

  • 2 May 2012, 15:55 | Society-digest | 

    Privatization Targets Culture

    Two years after the presidential election, it dawned on the ruling party that though it seemed everything in the country had been completely privatized, there were still two huge promising assets left. The first one is, of course, land, and the powers-that-be are already doing the groundwork to get that in their hands. The second is Ukraine’s historical-architectural gems and cultural masterpieces that span centuries. Therefore, in order to rectify this unfortunate situation, a three-pronged campaign was launched in early 2012.

  • 30 April 2012, 12:29 | Society-digest | 

    Major archbishop calls predecessor a hero during Nazi Holocaust

    The primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, described his predecessor Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky as a model of sacrificial love that every generation needs to discover.

  • 23 April 2012, 18:21 | Society-digest | 

    World Traveler: A weekend in Berdychiv. The Hassidic experience

    The first impression is difficult to forget. In the case of Berdychiv, a mid-sized city in Zhytomyr Oblast some 150 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, the first impression was about booking a local hotel. Berdychiv, as it appeared, was all about perseverance.

  • 19 April 2012, 18:01 | Society-digest | 

    Eleven wise men

    Twenty years ago, the West tried to build civil society in post-Soviet Ukraine. Now 11 Ukrainian intellectuals have taken the matter into their own hands, through the “1st December” initiative (Pershoho Hrudnya). Launched in December 2011, its name is a reference to Ukraine's 1991 referendum on independence

  • 11 April 2012, 13:18 | Society-digest | 

    Righteous Gentile Or Nazi Supporter?

    Wartime leader of Ukrainian church sheltered many Jews, but decades-long campaign has not brought Yad Vashem’s highest honor.

  • 9 April 2012, 16:40 | Society-digest | 

    Ukrainian Stereotypes in Holland’s ‘In Darkness’

    Go see Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness, both because it’s an excellent film about the Holocaust in wartime Lviv and because it demonstrates just how deeply rooted some ethnic stereotypes can be.

  • 22 March 2012, 12:17 | Society-digest | 

    US Catholics come to aid of Eastern European churches

    The Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe is one of the smaller offices at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, with only two full-time staffers. But the office may pack more punch for the dollar than many other initiatives because its work in helping to rebuild the churches in former communist countries is yielding a harvest of grace.

  • 15 March 2012, 12:43 | Society-digest | 

    Simferopol City Council refused to provide a plot of land for building a cathedral of the UOC Kyivan Patriarchate

    “The main problem of inter-confessional relations in the Crimea is the absence of state position of local government authorities in compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine and the Law on Freedom of Conscience, which guarantees equal rights to all denominations,” stressed more than 100 representatives of the Ukrainian community in the Crimea in their letter to the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.

  • 22 February 2012, 16:22 | Society-digest | 

    Spirit at work in Ukraine’s Ecumenical relations

    The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is “optimistic” about possible unity with Orthodox Christians in his country – because faithful from across the ecumenical divide are demanding it.

  • 16 February 2012, 17:09 | Society-digest | 

    Ukraine: Head of the Greek-Catholic Church praises relations with the Orthodox Church

    “Excellent” was how Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, described its relations with the Orthodox Church during a visit to the headquarters of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Relations have never been as good as today, he said. The task of maintaining these friendly and brotherly relations lay especially close to his heart, Shevchuk emphasised.

  • 16 February 2012, 15:17 | Society-digest | 

    “I don’t know what wing people refer me to. I only want to say that I am a Ukrainian man”

    Over the past few months the Ukrainian Orthodox Church attracted special attention. The Day asked Oleksandr (DRABYNKO), the secretary of Metropolitan Volodymyr, Archbishop of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytsky and Vyshnevsky, head of external church relations department of the UOC to comment on the events that now take place in the Church. We have chosen him not only because he is the “right hand” of His Beatitude Volodymyr but, primarily, because he is quite an unusual archbishop. He is a young person with modern Christian way of thinking, not dogmatic, and rather open in comparison with other bishops of this Church.

  • 10 February 2012, 17:50 | Society-digest | 

    Russian Orthodox Church Canonizes New Martyr Who Died at the Hands of the Nazis

    The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia has canonized Russian national Alexander Schmorell, a native of Orenburg, who was executed by the Nazi regime in 1943 for organizing an anti-fascist student group called the White Rose, the Church Bulletin publication reported.

  • 26 January 2012, 13:05 | Religious-digest | 

    Chicago area churches hold Prayer Vigil for Life

    January 23, 2012 marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that removed many state and federal restrictions on abortion.

  • 26 January 2012, 12:51 | Kaleidoscope-digest | 

    Holy New Martyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev (+ 1918)

    The holy Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev was the first bishop to be tortured and slain by the Communists at the time of the Russian Revolution.

  • 23 January 2012, 11:10 | Society-digest | 

    A first for Canada

    International Ukrainian Catholic bishops coming to Manitoba for synod

  • 21 January 2012, 11:26 | Society-digest | 

    Freedom House: Ukraine suffers steepest decline in democracy of any major nation in last two years

  • 16 January 2012, 15:50 | Kaleidoscope-digest | 

    A COHORT OF MARRIED ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS, AND MORE ARE ON THE WAY – NEW YORK TIMES

    The Rev. D. Paul Sullins, a sociologist at Catholic University, has interviewed over 70 married priests for a book he is writing.

  • 13 January 2012, 13:22 | Society-digest | 

    Children of Chornobyl Fund to shut down after 22 years

    Few charities exclusively helping Ukraine can boast a track record that’s longer than the former Soviet republic’s existence as a nation. One of them is the Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund, which will close its doors on Feb. 14.

  • 11 January 2012, 13:56 | Kaleidoscope-digest | 

    In Little Ukraine, Christmas Is Still Around the Corner

    At the East Village Meat Market on Second Avenue, tiny firs, pots of poinsettias and ringing bells greet customers gearing up to celebrate the birth of Christ on Jan. 7 in the Julian calendar – evidence that in the neighborhood once known as Little Ukraine, Christmas is coming.