Odesa residents remember the founder of their Greek Catholic community

On April 11, 2010, the day of honoring the Rev. Illya Klyvak, the founder of the Greek Catholic community of the city who ministered in South Palmyra in 1917-1918, was marked in Odesa. “April 10 marks 68 years since the death of Odesa’s pastor,” said the chancellor of Odesa-Crimean Exarchate the Rev. Volodymyr Zhdan. “In 1942 he died in exile, where was sent by the Soviet authority." According to Zhdan, Klyvak at first was persecuted by the Polish authority, and then and by the Soviet. "The Polish authority persecuted him for defending the rights of the Ukrainian population, for opposing the Polonization of our nation. For the Soviet authority his main fault was his ministering," remarked Zhdan. "If to judge by the letters of the holy martyr, the situation in Odesa at the beginning of the 20th century differs little from today,” says the Rev. Ihor Taras of the St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle Church of the UGCC. “All that Godlessness, all that amorality. Rather Illya called Odesa a “‘Ukrainian Babylon.’” In a telephone conversation with the parishioners of the St. Andrew Church, the granddaughter of Klyvak who lives in Lviv, thanked the residents of Odesa for keeping the memory about the devotee of Ukrainian piety, and also expressed Easter greetings.  After the Sunday Liturgy, a memorial service was held in honor of the Rev. Illya Klyvak.

www.cerkva.od.ua/index.php