UGCC celebrates the Day of God the Creator

On September 14 (1) Christians worldwide celebrated the Day of God the Creator. The initiative to protect the environment was begun in 1989 by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I. For the second time in many churches of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic various divine services in honor of the holiday, educational and practical ecological events were conducted. For the holiday, Patriarch Lubomyr, the head of the UGCC, published a special address in which he reminded faithful of their responsibility to the world created by God and called for a joint prayer and events to help protect the planet. As part of the Day of God the Creator, Bishop Joseph (Milyan), auxiliary bishop of Kyivan Archeparchy, celebrated a prayer service in the Mykolay Church on Askold’s grave, with the participation of Patriarch Lubomyr. Bishop Mykolay (Simkaylo) celebrated in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Christ in Kolomyia a solemn Hierarchal Liturgy marking the ecological holiday. In the Church of St. Andrew the First-called of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of Odesa, a testimonial Liturgy was celebrated after which representatives of the church and environmentalists met to discuss problems in protecting the environment in the Odesa region. The administrative hierarch of the Ivano-Frankivsk Eparchy Bishop Volodymyr (Viytyshyn), jointly with Bishop Mykolay (Simkaylo), administrative Hierarch of Kolomyia-Chernivtsi Eparchy, and with Father Oleksandr Levytskyj, Ph.D., celebrated the testimonial acathist to mark the Day of God the Creator in the chapel of the Spiritual Seminary of the Holy Martyr Josaphat. In addition, a conference on the theme: “The day of God the Creator is a testament to the responsibility of the Church to the environment” and the presentation of the third volume of the magazine “The Christian and the World,” which is devoted to the reporting on current ecological problems and finding Christian ways to resolve them, were held. As part of the educational event organized by the Bureau on Questions of Ecology of the UGCC, Bishop Volodymyr marked: “We must learn to see the true value of the surrounding nature and act accordingly so that future generations may experience its beauty and grandeur.”  “I sincerely hope that the Day of God the Creator will help all faithful ponder their personal responsibility to our natural environment and inspire them to behave with proper respect to the land in their daily lives,” states the patriarch in his address.

For Information Department of UGCC
Informational service on the questions of ecology UGCC