UGCC presents public project “Ukraine United and Kyivan Church”

On September 19, at the National Preserve “St Sofia of Kyiv” Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Svyatoslav (Shevchuk) presented a public project “Ukraine United (Soborna) and the Kyivan Church”. It was reported by the Department of Information of the UGCC.

The organizers of the presentation are the Humanities and Philosophical and Theological Faculties of the Ukrainian Catholic University.

The project “Ukraine United and Kyivan Church” involves scientific research projects, and most importantly, the publication of historical research on Kyiv Christianity.

Within the framework of the project in the series "Kyivan Christianity" already published 11 scientific studies, which were presented in St Sofia of Kyiv.

According to the Patriarch of the UGCC, during the presentation, work on the project began on September 2, 2013, ‘when a small modest meeting took place in Lviv, in the Monastery of Saint Onuphrius of the Basilian Fathers, where we gathered the scientists who could be entrusted with working to be able to be a series of fundamental research on the Kyivan Church was launched.”

“First of all,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav, “it was a study of historical sources that would help us to discover the identity of the Kyivan Church and Kyivan Christianity as such. But we quickly went beyond purely historical research, although it is also very important. We understood that it is necessary to study both theology, the Liturgy, and the Holy Scriptures, as well as church music ... For the concept of the Church of Kyiv is not limited to only historical facts, archival documents that have been preserved beyond Ukraine's borders.”

“And this project started. I feel that we have 11 positions in the series of “Kyivan Church”, which today can be put to the public level. This scientific project is becoming public today,” added the Head of the UGCC.

The primate emphasized that this scientific project is open and is not a narrowly confessional idea. Today, as never before, we understand well that the study of the Church of Kyiv means studying the common roots that unites all the Churches, the heirs of St. Volodymyr’s Baptism.

“Therefore, I want to note the interconfessional ecumenical aspect of this public project and invite our brothers from other Churches, in particular the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine, to participate in the scientific study of this topic,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

The Head of the UGCC thanked everyone who supported this project, in particular Bogdan Buts, Miron Kindiy, Mykola Kmit, Zinoviy Kozytsky, Miroslav Senyk, Ivan Torsky and Oleg Shuptar.

The First Hierarch also expressed gratitude to everyone who worked on the project, namely - to Igor Skochylas, and in his person to the Humanities Faculty of the Ukrainian Catholic University. He thanked for the participation in the project the dean of the Theological Department of UCU, Deacon Roman Zaviysky.

“I want to wish that this idea of ​​the Kyivan Church, Kyiv Christianity, which you live, would lit the human heart,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav at the end.

Background

The series "Kyivan Christianity", launched in 2013, presents the scientific results of the educational and research program of the Humanities and Philosophical and Theological Departments of the Ukrainian Catholic University “Kyivan Christianity and Union Tradition". Supported by the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, the academic initiative should strengthen the prophetic voice of the Kyivan Chruch and promote the unity of the Ukrainian Churches of St Volodymyr’s Baptism.

Since the beginning of 2015, a public segment of the program - the project “Ukraine United and the Kyivan tradition’ - has begun to work, which enables social articulation of the idea of ​​the Church of Kyiv and emphasizes the millennial connection between Ukrainian culture and Christianity.

The academic task of the program is a critical study of theological, canonical and socio-cultural sources of the transfer of the Kyivan Metropolis in the wider comparative context of the universal Christian traditions of Byzantium, the Latin West and the Eastern Orthodox communities, as well as the reception in the Slavonic lands of the union idea. The main focus of the program is on the interdisciplinary study of the Kyivan tradition, which was formed on the civilization border of the Christian East and West.

The basis of the formation of the Kyivan Christian ethos was the Slavonic-Byzantine rite (in particular, the Eastern Liturgy), the original theological thought and the local ecclesiastical law, the common canonical territory, special spirituality, common socio-cultural and religious practices, codified Church Slavonic language, and established memory of the past. Together they created the elements of the continuity of contemporary culture, and in modern times, allowed the formation of national identities and the emergence of new ecclesiastical communities in Eastern and Central-Eastern Europe