Conference on 20th Anniversary of Institute of Church History Held at Ukrainian Catholic University
On 19-20 October, in the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, a two-day conference on the 20th anniversary of the foundation of its Institute of Church History “Greek Catholic Churches in the conditions of the totalitarian regimes in the Central-eastern Europe in the second half of the 20th c.: status and prospects” was held. It was attended by more than one hundred people including experts from Poland, Russia, Slovakia and various cities of Ukraine. So reported the press-service of UCU.
“It has been 20 years during which we gathered stones. The Institute’s future is to use these stones to create the mosaic of the history of UGCC which will include histories of individual people, martyrs and confessors of the faith,” said the Director of the Institute, Fr. Dr. Andrii Mykhailenko at the opening ceremony of the event.
According to him , the Institute is of the same age as Ukraine’s Independence and emergence of UGCC from the underground and the fruit of its activity is the archive including over 2 thousand audio interviews, 5 thousand photos, 5 thousand documents and approximately 700 museum exhibits to which new ones are being added.
During the opening of the conference, the speakers emphasized the role of priests and lay people thanks to whom UGCC was able to survive in the underground.
