The Venerable Andrei Sheptytsky, who died eighty years ago on November 1, 1944, was one of 20th-century Catholicism’s outstanding figures, whose remarkable life and heroic ministry as leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church spanned 43 years, two world wars, five pontificates, Stalin’s terror-famine (the “Holodomor,” in which at least 6 million Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death), and a half-dozen changes of government in the territories in which he served.
Amidst that turmoil, Sheptytsky became a crucial figure in refining modern Ukraine’s national identity, while his cultural, ecumenical, interreligious, and pastoral initiatives anticipated the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the Church of the New Evangelization. So, on this eightieth anniversary of Metropolitan Andrew’s passover to his present, exalted position in the Communion of Saints, attention should be paid.
Count Roman Aleksandr Maria Szeptycki was born in 1865 in a village near L’viv in then-Austrian Galicia to a family descended from Ruthenian and Polish nobility. Over a decade and a half, his studies took him to L’viv, Kraków, and Breslau (today’s Wrocław); he also traveled to Kyiv, Moscow, and Rome, where, in 1888, he met Pope Leo XIII. A few months after that encounter, Sheptytsky, who had adopted the Ukrainian spelling of his surname, joined the Greek Catholic Basilian Order of St. Josaphat, taking the religious name Andrew–St. Peter’s brother and the great patron of Eastern Catholicism. Ordained priest in 1892, he earned a doctorate in theology and, in 1898, founded a religious community based on the rule of St. Theodore the Studite, with the aim of reforming Ukrainian Greek Catholic monasticism. A year later, he was named a bishop, and in late 1900, Leo XIII concurred in his appointment as Metropolitan of Halych, Archbishop of L’viv, and Bishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi, positions he assumed in January 1901 at age 36.
Metropolitan Andrew carried out a lengthy and vigorous episcopate under extraordinarily challenging circumstances, as Ukraine struggled to refine and defend its national identity: first, in the face of Russian and Polish pressures; then, amidst a Soviet-era genocide; and finally, during a brutal Nazi occupation. Against the opposition of the czars and often traveling in disguise, he worked to build up the Eastern Catholic Churches in the Russian Empire before 1917. Concurrently, he tried to temper Polish and Ukrainian nationalist rivalries in the turbulent latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire while invigorating the Greek Catholic Church in Emperor Franz Joseph’s domains. In all cases, and to all parties in the faction-ridden Ukrainian lands, he urged a spirit of fraternal charity and ecumenical sensitivity, as previously imperial territories like today’s Poland and Ukraine–long carved up by Russia and Austria-Hungary–struggled to establish their independence in the aftermath of World War I.
As modern Ukrainian national identity was being formed in the early twentieth century, Metropolitan Andrew built institutions of culture to shape a future Ukraine in continuity with the nation’s origins in the baptism of the eastern Slavs at Kyiv in 988 A.D.: a seminary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions, and a national museum to preserve and support Ukraine’s artistic heritage. As a pastor, he strove to deepen the faith of his people through effective catechesis, encouraged youth ministry, and made a lasting contribution to Ukraine’s religious life by supporting Studite monasticism and inviting the Byzantine-rite Redemptorists into his dioceses.
The flails of Soviet and Nazi German brutality hit Sheptytsky and his people with unmitigated fury, and while Metropolitan Andrew at first welcomed the 1941 German invasion of Ukrainian lands as a means of crushing Stalinism, he soon recognized the monstrous evils being perpetrated by the invaders, writing Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in February 1942 to protest the slaughter of Jews. In cooperation with his brother Klymentiy, a Studite monk beatified in 2001, he saved hundreds of Jewish children, hiding them in Greek Catholic institutions, while he personally gave shelter in his residence to the son of a leading L’viv rabbi. In August 1942, he wrote Pope Pius XII, describing the Nazis’ mass murders and admitting that he had originally misread Hitler’s intentions in Ukraine; three months later, he issued a pastoral letter, Thou Shalt Not Kill, publicly protesting the German reign of terror and excommunicating its perpetrators. One of those he saved, David Kahane, later became chief rabbi of the Israeli air force.
Metropolitan Andrew’s legacy–deep piety, intellectual depth, cultural sophistication, mature patriotism, ecumenical and interreligious charity–lives on in the vitality of today’s Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, led by Sheptytsky’s worthy successor, Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. As Ukraine fights for its life and the freedom of the West, we should honor the memory of this great Christian witness and pray for his intercession.
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Latin Rite Catholics need to be more conversant with the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. As Pope St. John Paul II stated, the Church needs to breathe with both lungs.
Absolutely, Deacon. So many Catholics in the Roman Church have zero idea about the numerous Eastern sui iuris Catholic Churches, including Byzantines, Ge’ez-rite Alexandrians, and Middle-East Syro-Malankarans/Malabars and Maronites.
Zelensky is a stooge of the corrupt globalist west and its war machine. One need only look at the wreckless missile attacks of the last few days. He represents their interest alone. While they continue to hide behind the facade of Russian aggression and evil, this whole war was instigated for their selfish, Godless, evil purposes and nothing more. Why a man of Georges’s insight and character cannot see this only validates the saying, “You can fool a whole lot of people some of the time.” How much further must they go before he wakes up?
What’s instructive is how Zelensky came to power (not completely detached from how Harris became the presidential candidate for her Party).
If the missile attacks of the last few days were “wreckless,” then who could object about any wrecks? Perhaps you mean reckless. Details matter. Like Munich in 1938.
“Facade of Russian aggression “? Exactly who do you think started all this mess? All I know is that many, many people have senselessly died on both sides because of the pride and greed of a very few people. Satan and sin are in control and justice, humility and charity are scarce and hard to find. World leaders on opposing sides could probably switch places and I doubt if it would make a difference. But people like the Godly saint that George writes about DID make a difference and it is people like him we must look to and emulate rather than the worldly and godless leaders of nations. We must prayerfully read and
reread the beatitudes of the gospel until they become part of us, and we can to begin to live them out. There won’t be any winners of this war however it turns out. If it is true that 80 percent of the infrastructure has been destroyed, it will be up to the “victors “ to replace, police and feed . Is this victory? And exactly who will do it when the majority of the young men need to work are dead? Just think how much better off the world would have been if the billions of dollars spent on this war would have been used to build up rather than tearing down. “Oh what fools we mortals be “…..
Ukraine is mooching off the US dollar because he knows we have a wuss for a president until January 20th 2025. Zelensky’s constant attitude and attire of choice looking as if he just stepped off a battlefield (ie, wearing that silly military green round neck sweater) has created a cult figure to the point where numerous people and countries feel obligated and compelled to support him with unchecked vast amounts of money and precious military equipment and artillery supplies which are extremely valuable and state-of-the-art. I knew something was off about this whole war as soon as the Hollywood leftists and mainstream liberals began supporting the war and flying the Ukraine flag.
Moral-wise, I support Ukraine in this strange war with Russia. Sixth-sense-wise, we’re getting scammed by Ukraine.
I wouldn’t give a nickel to Zelensky, because his country is not a NATO member, and is just as politically and financially corrupt as Russia and Iran, possibly even more, because they are an Eastern European nation with USSR traits: ie, draining the United States out of its valuable military equipment, rendering us helpless when WW3 arrives.
I’ve ranted enough, but I just thought of two things:
(1) If Russia wins this war, there goes all our money and equipment down the toilet.
(2) If Russia gave Ukraine the choice of either giving up, being completely destroyed, or join forces together and invade the rest of Europe in return for the restoration of their country and full independence, what do you think Ukraine would choose? They already have plenty of money and military equipment, so…
It was instructive that the Biden administration, while publicly virtue-signaling about helping the Ukrainian people, simultaneously refused to give Ukraine F-16s, 2 years ago, when they were pleading for them.
And it is instructive that the Biden SECDEF Austin publicly bragged in Senate testimony (or was it House, or both?) that the Biden administration’s policy was to attrit and weaken the Russian military force, and NOT to help Ukraine win the war swiftly.
It isn’t possible to support the current political establishment elite in the USA, western Europe, the UK, and the do-called “alliance” of NATO countries.
To them, it seems to me, they may care about what wealth may be at stake in the Russia-Ukraine War, but they care ZERO about the people of Ukraine. They are expendable, as long as Western European and US energy “arrangements” remain “manageable.”
Biden and his colleagues in the Western politIcal establishments keep their green-grift-posture energy side-deals, Putin and Iran and the other oil-dictatorships around the world get richer and richer, and the people of Ukraine pay with their very lives.
Observing the above, while one might understand why people don’t believe in God, it is impossible to explain why they don’t believe in Satan.
Praise be to God for such Godly men. Christ and Church (the total Body of Christ) before carnal men and secular politics. We need more such godly examples in these dark days.