24.05.2007, [11:25] // Construction // RISU.ORG.UA
Lviv— The blessing of the cross on the site of the new “student town” of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in western Ukrainian Lviv on 22 May 2007 was accompanied with very good news for the building project. Pope Benedict XVI donated 100,000 euros (US $ 130,000) for the project from money he received on the occasion of his recent 80th birthday.
The ceremony for the blessing of UCU’s new “student town,” which will include modern dormitories, a library, museum, classroom buildings, chapel, and conference center, was attended by local representatives of the church, state, and educational institutions.
“We are standing in an extraordinary place, where the new cross was just blessed,” said Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop of Lviv Ihor Vozniak in his greeting after the blessing ceremony. “In some time, buildings of the university town will stand here, where the youth of Ukraine will acquire knowledge and appropriate Christian spiritual formation.”
The archbishop said that not only the UCU community and friends should be concerned about this planned building project for an academic and spiritual center, but also the people of Lviv, for whom this educational institution “is and should be a source of modest pride,” and all Ukrainians. For, he said, “the university brings scholarly and spiritual change not only to those who study and teach at it, but to the whole society.”