During the 16th national Ukrainian conference “Painful traumas of the past: historic truth and imperatives of reality,” held at the Ukrainian Catholic University on 12-13 April, scholars from all over Ukraine discussed ways of settlement of historic conflicts.
In his address, Vice-Rector of UCU Myroslav Marynovych noted that Ukraine is situated in a specific land soaked with blood and is still struggling to break free from the doom of hard anniversaries. “The year 2013 will also be a year of hard jubilees including the 80th anniversary of Holodomor and 70th anniversary of the fratricidal tragedy in Volyn’. We should relive the pain of the anniversaries in order to learn the truth about history, on one hand, and experience it, on the other hand, and leave history to God keeping for ourselves the light vision of the future,” said the Vice Rector.
In his report “Servants of righteousness: Greek Catholic clergy and Poles and Jews in the years of WWII,” destinguished scholar Marko Tsarynnyk spoke about the activity of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in rescuing the Jewish community of Lviv during the German invasion in 1941.
Sofia Fedyna told the audience about the activity of Metropolitan Sheptytsky as a successful diplomat who always represented the interests of the Ukrainian nation in the world.
Another theme of the conference was the discussion of Ukrainian efforts to get rid of the monuments of the Soviet past.
In conclusion, the participants proposed to remember the English saying “forgive but not forget.” So reported the press-service of UCU.