CONVERSATIONS WITH LUBOMYR CARDINAL HUSAR UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ECUMENICAL STUDIES Antoine Arjakovsky CONVERSATIONS WITH LUBOMYR CARDINAL HUSAR Towards a Post-Confessional Christianity UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PRESS LVIV 2007 UDC 261.8 Antoine Arjakovsky. Conversations with Lubomyr Cardinal Husar: Towards a Post- Confessional Christianity / translated from French. Lviv: Ukrainian Catholic University Press 2007. 160 p., ill. ISBN 966-8197-22-4. Translations Antoine Arjakovsky, Marie-Aude Tardivo, Lida Zubytska Editors Andrew Sorokowski, Michael Petrowycz Project manager Marie-Aude Tardivo Photos Petro Didula, Yurii Helytovych, Hryhorii Prystai, Volodymyr Shchurko Pictures from childhood and youth of Cardinal Husar courtesy of Maria Rypan Сopyright © 2005 by Parole et Silence Сopyright © 2007 by Institute of Ecumenical Studies Ukrainian Catholic University All rights reserved ISBN 966-8197-22-4 UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PRESS vul. I. Sventsitskoho 17, 79011 Lviv telephone/facsimile: (032) 2409496; e-mail: [email protected] www.press.ucu.edu.ua Printing-house of the Lviv Polytechnic National University vul. F. Kolessy, 2, 79000 Lviv Printed in Ukraine Contents FOREWORD by Borys Gudziak, Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University ................................... 7 CONVERSATIONS Itinerary .........................................................................................21 The Greek-Catholic Church and the Orange revolution .............. 33 The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and the Patriarchate ...43 The Gift of Faith ............................................................................54 POSTSCRIPT A Few Words of Love by Antoine Arjakovsky ......................... 75 Holodomor to Orange Revolution ......................................... 76 Papal visit to Kyiv .................................................................... 78 “A Man of Peace” ..................................................................... 78 From the depths of modernity, the arrival of the vertical era ...................................................81 A post-confessional man ......................................................... 82 A brief historical digression .................................................... 84 For spiritual ecumenism ........................................................ 87 TEXTS BY CARDINAL HUSAR The Ecumenical Mission of the Eastern Catholic Churches in the Vision of Metropolitan Sheptytsky († 1944) ................ 93 Position between East and West............................................. 96 The experience of living in Union with Rome ...................... 98 The Union of Brest, 1596 ......................................................... 99 Sheptytsky’s evaluation of the Union of Brest ..................... 105 The Orthodox view of the Union of Brest ........................... 109 The Latin view of the Union of Brest ....................................115 What the Union should not be ..............................................118 What the Union could and should be .................................. 122 The Unique People of God Discourse of His Beatitude Lubomyr Husar, Metropolitan of Kyiv-Halych, Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, on the occasion of the beginning of the return of the Metropolitan See to Kyiv ................... 128 I. The past, which we leave to God .................................... 129 II. The present, which is our time for action ................... 130 1. From jurisdictional dependence to ecclesial particularity ............................................................. 130 2. From equalizing exclusivism to communion-based complementarity .................131 3. From subjection to the state to social ministry .... 133 4. From an “ecumenism of ultimatums” to dialogue in partnership ...................................... 135 5. From mutual denominational conflict to a primacy of love ................................................. 137 III. The future in which we would like to believe ............ 138 The Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Pastoral message ..................................................................... 139 1. Introduction ....................................................................... 139 2. Historical aspects .............................................................. 139 3. What is a patriarchate? ....................................................141 4. Who establishes patriarchates? ....................................... 143 5. Government of a patriarchal Church ............................. 143 6. Some of the criteria of the patriarchal system ............... 144 7. Does the UGCC meet the mentioned criteria? ............... 144 8. Ecumenical circumstances ...............................................146 9. Different views on the UGCC patriarchate .................... 148 10. The future tasks of the people of God of the UGCC .... 149 11. The importance of the blessing .......................................151 Address of the Synod of Bishops of the Kyiv-Halych Mеtrоpоlitаnаte tо thе сlergy, religious, аnd lаity оf the Ukrainian Grеek Catholic Church аnd tо all pеоple оf goоd will оn the occasion of the 60th annіversary оf the Lviv Psеudо-sоbоr of 1946 ........................................................... 153 APPENDIX Biography of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky .................... 159 Foreword History has known religious leaders who are remarkable for their tireless missionary activity and monumental institution building. Some great churchmen have left a legacy of voluminous theological writings. Others have inspired with a charisma and spiritual pow- er that seem super-human or defy the laws of nature. Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most of us hope for spiritual guides who can touch us personally. Patriarch Lubomyr Husar is one of those unique figures who make an immediate, warm, welcoming impression and contact people on a basic human level. This direct simplicity has been nourished by his unusually rich experience and personal trials. Lubomyr Husar’s complex life has carried him across many lands and cultures and brought him to serve the Church in a variety of contexts and ministries. Some of the complexities came with a hidden twist; most have been lived with an exemplary lightness and a singular grace. He was born in 1933 in Polish-ruled western Ukraine, in the city of Lviv, which had a multifaceted Jewish, Armenian, German-Austrian, Greek, Moldavian, Roma, as well as Ukrainian and Polish historical legacy. Lubomyr’s childhood was marked by successive Soviet and Nazi occupations and the ultimate flight of his family before the ad- vance of the Red Army. As a teenage high-school student in post-war Austria, deprived of homeland and possessions, he came to know the trials of a displaced person, the fate of countless millions of refugees in today’s world. As a young man he came by immigrant ship with his family to the United States where he pursued seminary and university studies and, after ordination in 1958, served as a seminary professor and parish pastor. In the 1950s and 60s he saw how the American middle class achieved an unprecedented prosperity and how so much of society’s traditional life was questioned and changed. He experi- enced the pulse of great financial and political centers such as New York City and Washington D. C. and the rhythms of small town and rural settings. 8 Borys Gudziak Subsequently, in Rome, Italy in the dynamic post-Vatican II years, the affable priest became a university professor after writing a ground- breaking doctoral dissertation on the ecumenism of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky (1865–1944), the outstanding Ukrainian ecclesi- astical figure of modern times. There, in 1972, after a decade and a half of serving in the diocesan clergy, he entered contemplative mo- nastic life. Since the monastery of the Studites near Rome that he was entering was not able to provide the proper formation for a novice, Father Lubomyr went through the novitiate in the Benedictine mon- astery of Metten, in German Bavaria. Soon after final vows, he was named abbot of the Studite monks and recived the monastic title of “archimandrite.” During twenty-five years of Roman residence, Father Archimandrite Lubomyr travelled widely in Europe and in North and South America, visiting the dispersed Studite monastics in his charge, giving retreats and Lenten missions, and lecturing widely to captive audiences of clergy and laity. Finally, since the mid-1990s, when he was able to return to his homeland, he has served as a singu- lar spokesman for a revival of authentic, vibrant Christian personal life and social witness in the tumultuous and traumatized world of post-Soviet Ukraine. Since 2001, Lubomyr Husar has been head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), cardinal and patriarch to his people. I had the good fortune to first see Father Lubomyr in my child- hood. He was a pastor at a summer vacation spot frequented by Ukrainian immigrants in the United States, a place called Soyuzivka, in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains. I was too young to remember well the first impressions, but as I grew up, my parents’ re- spect for Father Husar introduced me to a widely held esteem for this peace-filled pastor and spellbinding preacher. His spiritual solicitude, ability to listen and connect with people at their level and at the point of their need was known by rank-and-file faithful, community leaders, boy scouts,