A Great Christian Witness, Too Little Known in the West

The Venerable Andrey Sheptytsky, who died eighty years ago on November 1, 1944, was one of twentieth-century Catholicism’s outstanding figures, whose remarkable life and heroic ministry as leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church spanned forty-three years, two world wars, five pontificates, Stalin’s terror-famine (the “Holodomor,” in which at least six 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. Read Full Article »