Participants of the Colloquium of the European parishes visited historical and spiritual Univ Monastery

Univ Monastery is located near the village of Univ, about 50 kilometres from Lviv - the city that hosts the Colloquium of European parishes.

Even during Soviet occupation, Univ Lavra remained a centre of spiritual refuge for the faithful that did not recognize the decision of the sham Lviv Council in 1946 and refused to convert to the Orthodoxy faith.

On June 5, 1947, the Bolsheviks arrested Archimandrite Klymentiy Sheptytsky and sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment. The Soviet authorities closed the monastery and turned it into a shelter for the elderly, and later into a psychiatric hospital. In order to completely erase the memory of this sacred place, the Soviets renamed it Mizhhirya.

The old name was restored in 2003. Monks returned to Univ Lavra in 1991. Today, it is one of the most important pilgrimage centres in Ukraine.

Rev.Michael Dymyd spoke about the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the walls of this historic monastery.