Redemptorist Fathers celebrate their centenary in Lviv
The monastic congregation of Redemptorist Fathers (CSSR) began celebrating its 100th anniversary. On this occasion, on November 21 in Lviv, in the Church of St. Josaphat, a solemn Pontifical Liturgy was celebrated by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk. Greek Catholic bishops, priests, monks and guests, Redemptorists from Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Canada, Russia, and the United States participated in the service.
Addressing the audience during the sermon, Patriarch Shevchuk said that the congregation of Redemptorist Fathers had not an easy, but glorious path during the hundred years. The head of the UGCC said that among Redemptorist monks were a lot of church activists, including Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky, who restored the hierarchy of the church that was destroyed by the Communists, Archbishop Volodomyr Sterniuk, who led the UGCC in the harsh conditions of the underground, and blessed martyr Bishop Mykolay Charnetsky who rests in this church.
“Today we thank God for the fact that this order, whose calling is missionary work among neglected people, for years has been converting Ukrainians to God through preaching, teaching, holy and ascetic life. We are grateful that the monks of the Redemptorist Order proclaim good teaching to all people, bringing in them the strength of God,” said the Patriarch Sviatoslav.
The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the congregation of Redemptorist Fathers will continue throughout the year and include a number of events.
“Celebrating our centenary, we plan to conduct events that will represent the fullness of the service of the Redemptorist Fathers in Ukraine and in the world,” Fr. Yaroslav Fedun, igumen of the Redemptorist monastery of St. Alphonsus in Lviv, said in a commentary for RISU.
According to the cleric, in June 2013 they will hold a congress of Archbrothers of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which will last four days. The event will be attended by Redemptorists from parishes all over Ukraine and abroad. In the summer, the monks intend to organize a youth Redemptorist forum and other events.
The Catholic missionary congregation Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris (CSSR), also known as the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists), was founded in the eighteenth century by St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori and Bishop Tommaso Falcoia to work among the rural population and poor families.
In Ukraine Redemptorist Fathers appeared in the early twentieth century thanks to Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. In May 1913 Metropolitan Sheptytsky and the General Government of Redemptorists signed an agreement establishing a monastery in Galicia, and in August of that year Fr. Joseph Schreyvers, 5 fathers and one brother came to Ukraine.
For 100 years the Lviv Province of the Most Holy Redeemer gave the church many dedicated priests. Four martyrs who Pope John Paul II beatified during his visit to Ukraine in 2001 were Ukrainian Redemptorists: Mykolay Charnetsky, Vasyl Velychkovsky, Fr. Ivan Ziatyk and Fr. Zenon Kovalyk.
