Each academic year is expected to get off to a good start, with each institution of higher learning greeting its students with enthusiasm, encouraging them to plow through the academic field with a healthy zeal. September 3 saw the ceremony of opening and blessing a new building of the multifunctional Ukrainian Catholic University, a sequel to the large-scale campus development program (the grounds were blessed by Pope John Paul II when visiting Lviv in 2001).
Under the Soviets, the site was to accommodate a drama company, under the aegis of the Sub-Carpathian Military District, and a regional party committee, complete with a helipad to receive ranking party ideologues. At the time few if any could have believed that several decades later the site would accommodate a Christian higher school, considering that the Soviets were determined to destroy Christianity in the first place.
Under the Soviets, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was subject to severe persecution, yet it succeeded in keeping its centers alive outside Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Catholic University of Rome, founded by Patriarch Yosyp Slipyj in 1963. Lviv’s UCU has launched a new course that envisages festivities commemorating the 50th anniversary of the University in Rome. Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Grand Chancellor of the UCU, said the University is “a sign that there is an active community of adherents who seek not human power and glory, but truth and knowledge.”
The new academic building boasts a modern design, using innovative technologies, complete with a large refectory that can accommodate some 2,000 students during the day. It will now host the humanities faculty, the Lviv Business School (LvBS), the Institute of Leadership and Management, etc. University students have been able to enjoy the newly built Collegium – the University’s dorm meant for modern Christian youth – for the past twelve months.
The ceremony of blessing the new academic premises gathered a sizeable audience, including guests of honor, among them US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeoffrey Pyatt. During the ceremony, church decrees were declared, appointing Bishop Borys Hudziak as UCU president, and Dr. Bohdan Prakh as rector. The cornerstone was ceremoniously placed in the foundation of St. Sophia’s Church, to be erected on the campus before 2015. The master plan envisages the construction of a modern library and data processing center.
