Knights of Columbus expands to Ukraine and Lithuania
During the 131st Annual Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus, held here August 6-8, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson announced that the Order has established two councils in Ukraine and a round table in Lithuania. This is the Knights’ first international expansion since the Order established councils in Poland in 2006.
“Our presence in Lithuania and Ukraine, along with our growing numbers in Poland, gives us even deeper roots in Europe,” said Supreme Knight Anderson.
The origins of the Order’s expansion to Ukraine go back to 2005, when Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, now the major archbishop emeritus of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, attended the 123rd Supreme Convention in Chicago. Cardinal Husar was invited to give the homily during a concelebrated Mass at the convention.
“I wish to thank you very much for the good example you are giving,” Cardinal Husar said. “I am happy to hear that our closest neighbor, Poland, is already one step ahead of us and has invited the Knights of Columbus to be instituted in their land. I hope that this will happen also for us.”
Nearly 100 men in Ukraine joined the Knights at a series of exemplification ceremonies in 2012 and 2013. Among those who took their First and Second Degrees were Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Metropolitan Mieczysław Mokrzycki of Lviv, who was a longtime under-secretary to Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
Metropolitan Archbishop Stefan Soroka, of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, was introduced at the States’ Dinner Tuesday evening, as the representative of His Beatitude, Sviatoslav Shevchuk.
