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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

18.04.2007, [11:02] // Church-state relations //www.risu.org.ua

Uzhhorod – “I supported the PSPU [Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine] simply because no other party supported the Rusyns.” So said Fr. Dymytrii Sydor, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) who is involved in politics in southwestern Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region. ua-reporter.com posted the news on 16 April 2007.

In his commentary, Fr. Sydor explained why he supports the PSPU, with its leader Natalia Vitrenko: “I never belonged to any party and never intended ever to join one. I supported the PSPU simply because no other party supported the Rusyns. Thus, who should we Rusyns support? Yulia Tymoshenko, who opposes Rusyns and Transcarpathia, or Vitrenko, who said she supports us?! In my opinion, Vitrenko can take the place of four Yulias. However, for the time being, we are even more prone to cooperate with the Transcarpathia Regional Council (TRC), since it gave us recognition.” Fr. Sydor, a former candidate to Ukraine’s Parliament from the Natalia Vitrenko Bloc, commented on declarations included in the pre-election program of the PSPU regarding the autonomy of western Ukraine’s Halychyna regions and Transcarpathia.

Also, he noted that when Yulia Tymoshyko supports the Rusyns, a part of Rusyns will follow her. However, she has not done anything yet for them to support her.

Fr. Sydor mentioned his previous political experience: “Once I said that Ukraine will have less problems with [current Prime Minister Viktor] Yanukovych than with [current President Viktor] Yushchenko. Back then, I was called a representative of the Party of Regions, headed by Premier Yanukovych, which I never was. The Socialist faction was being formed in the TRC and they lacked one person and I was invited to join it. I agreed. And journalists immediately spread the rumor that I betrayed the Party of Regions for the Socialists, when the truth is I had no relation to any of them. Instead, I belonged to Ivan Symonenko’s party Rus. I joined Symonenko’s party, but before the elections he united with Natalia Vitrenko. This is how I appeared in the bloc with Natalia Vitrenko.”

RISU note: The Ruthenian language, also called Rusyn or Carpatho-Rusyn, is a microlanguage used in parts of Serbia, Croatia and Ukrainian Transcarpathia. In Ukraine this language is also called the language of the Carpathian Ukrainians.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

18.04.2007, [18:47] // UGCC //www.risu.org.ua

Ternopil – On 14 April 2007 in western Ukrainian Zarvanytsia, the Committee of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) on Lay Issues conducted its first extended meeting. Discussed were issues of more coordinated cooperation, exchange of experience, the organization and conduct of projects, and the missionary work of lay organizations and individual laypeople was reviewed.

During the session the committee suggested the idea of conducting the Second Lay Congress of the UGCC under the title “My Part in the Life of Parish, Church and Nation” in 2008 in two stages: general Ukrainian first and then eparchial.

Also, the participants of the meeting worked on a handbook about the organization of lay life in the parish and started to discuss and prepare the round-table discussions “The role of Christian churches in building civil society” and “Business and morals: Social stereotypes and the church’s vision,” to be held in Kyiv.

The members of the committee and the heads of eparchial committees on lay issues from the Ternopil-Zboriv, Sokal, Buchach, Kolomyia-Chernivtsi, and Lviv eparchies participated in the session.

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18.04.2007, [15:38] // UGCC //www.risu.org.ua

Lviv — The inauguration of Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph.D., for his second five-year term as rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in western Ukrainian Lviv was held on 16 April 2007. Among those participating in the festivities were Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar), head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Archbishop Ihor Vozniak of Lviv (seen in photo), and Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, assistant to the head of the UGCC, and representatives of other educational institutions and the government.

“This is a person open to new initiatives, to dialogue, to the reconciling of various traditions. For him, attention to the person is the priority.” So said Bishop Lonchyna, chair of the UCU Senate, explaining the decision to re-elect Fr. Gudziak.

Among plans for the future that Fr. Gudziak mentioned in his inaugural address are increasing the number of students over the next five years (from approximately 1200 to 2000), a new specialization in medieval studies, and the creation of a Social Sciences Faculty, to study psychology, sociology, and journalism.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

18.04.2007, [11:05] // UGCC //www.risu.org.ua

Lviv – Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar), head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), met with Joerg Lueer, secretary general of the European Justice and Peace Commissions, at St. George’s Hill in western Ukrainian Lviv on 16 April 2007. Lueer came to Ukraine on a business trip, aimed at preparing the annual congress of 29 European commissions, to be held in Kyiv.

According to ugcc.org.ua, last year at the regular congress of delegates of the European commissions in Belfast (Ireland), it was decided to conduct the next meeting in Ukraine in late September, as representatives from Western Europe are interested in the situation in Ukraine.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

18.04.2007, [11:00] // Orthodox //www.risu.org.ua

New Jersey, US-- On 14 April 2007 a powerful rain storm that swept across the entire eastern coast of the USA arrived in the area of the administrative and spiritual center of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA in South Bound Brook, New Jersey.

Due to the advance predictions of the magnitude of the storm, approximately 1,000 people visited on the traditional Easter Saturday pilgrimage this year. Only a few hundred braved the storm on Sunday. The rain began to fall at around 2 a.m. on Sunday and had not completely stopped throughout the day on Monday.

The Raritan River poured over its banks and it is not selective about where or what it invades. It slowly moved toward the Memorial Church, flooding the driveway, St. Andrew Cemetery entrance gates and surrounding the monument to St. Olha, Equal to the Apostles and Baptizer of Ukraine. Several of the homes located on center property are under water.

Fortunately, as the falling rain decreases, it appears that the flood will not equal the breadth of the 1999 experience. In that year, the waters came within ten feet of the Memorial Church. This year, they do not come near that level. The properties affected, however, lie directly in the areas that are susceptible to any overflow from the Raritan.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Secretary-General Invited Benedict XVI to the U.N.

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the statement released by the Vatican press office today, after a meeting between Benedict XVI and U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

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This afternoon, His Holiness Benedict XVI has received in audience the secretary-general of the United Nations Organization, Mr. Ban Ki-moon. The audience falls in the series of previous encounters that Popes, and particularly John Paul II, have offered to secretaries-general of the U.N., as a sign, among other things, of the appreciation which the Holy See has for the central role carried out by the organization in maintaining peace in the world and promoting the development of peoples.

Mr. Ban Ki-moon has wanted to visit the Holy Father in the course of his first trips taken to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, shortly after taking on his new post last Jan. 1, so as to officially invite him to visit the see of the United Nations.

His Holiness and Mr. Ban Ki-moon have discussed themes of common interest, for example, the restoration of trust in multilateral relations and the strengthening of dialogue between cultures, not failing to mention the international situations that merit particular attention.

It has been recalled, furthermore, the contribution that the Catholic Church and the Holy See can make -- maintaining its identity and with the means proper to it -- to the action of the United Nations in resolving current conflicts and reaching understanding between nations.

The pontifical audience was followed by a fruitful conversation between the secretary-general and the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was accompanied by the secretary of relations with states, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Code: ZE07041819

Date: 2007-04-18