“Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) – a laboratory of living theological thought…” UGCC Head

According to the Church Head, today UCU is the intellectual center of UGCC, a place of gathering of “creative minds in an atmosphere of prayer and a sense of responsibility for the fate of the Church.”  The Epistle also covers the history of the founding of UCU.  In 1963, Patriarch Josyf Slipyi, after 18 years of penal servitude in Siberia, unexpectedly appeared in Rome.  By his first decree, he founded Ukrainian Catholic University – “a forge in which there should be educated and raised new generations of priests and lay apostles, warriors for a truth and scholarship free of coercion.” (Testament)

 The significance of this university goes far beyond the borders of Ukraine.  It is expected that UCU can provide weighty statements and even redeeming Christian solutions for many contemporary problems within the context of the whole Universal Church. The UCU community chose the favorite expression of its founder, “Yearn for the Highest” as the slogan of its jubilee year.  “To recognize the signs of the times” and to find solutions for the most complicated contemporary problems – that is exactly this Highest that UCU should wish for itself.” he emphasized. No less important is a deep comprehension of the church character of its mission within the university community itself.  Of course, the “university assists the Church to discover new ways of communication with society, to understand how the world is changing  and how to better, in the contemporary and in new circumstances, to preach God’s Grace of Salvation.”  In this sense UCU is called upon to be “a laboratory of living theological thought that is born from a deeply-rooted live transmission of faith and a continual openness to the renewing acts of the Holy Spirit.”

 UCU belongs to the world network of Catholic universities who deal in the lawful sphere of Catholic education.

 “I cannot imagine UCU without UGCC nor UGCC without UCU.  May the University always remain a pulsating source from which there will flow to our Church and our people, streams of God’s Wisdom, valid scholarship, and above all – the righteousness and holiness of life,” writes His Beatitude Sviatoslav, UGCC Head, in the Epistle on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Ukrainian Catholic University.

UGCC Department of Information