Ukrainian Catholic University Addresses Academic Community Concerning Access to the Security Service of Ukraine Archive

The office of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) informed the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University over the telephone that the head of the SBU, Valerii Khoroshkovskyi, is prepared to sign a draft agreement between the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) on extending access of the students and teachers of UCU to archive materials kept by SBU for their scholarly analysis and publication. The representatives of the office of the SBU stressed that Valerii Khoroshkovskyi would like to do it personally in the building of UCU.

This information is given in the address of the rector of UCU, Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph.D., to the scholarly community of Ukraine, published on October 7 by the press service of UCU.  The document says that in October 2009 the Institute of Ecumenical Studies of UCU began to work on formulating the draft agreement between UCU and the SBU.

According to the document, the office of the SBU has recently informed that its head is ready to sign the mentioned draft agreement. The university expressed gratitude to the head of the SBU and again confirmed its previous readiness to promote the development of a new model of relations between the SBU and universities and scholarly centers in Ukraine.

The address also contains principles which are to underlie such a model of relations. "If the current leadership of the SBU shares our conviction of the importance of the mentioned principles and is ready to extend the newly gained experience to all the universities and research centers  of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholic University, in its turn, will gladly sign the prepared agreement and will promote further mutually beneficial cooperation between the state and scholarly institutions," added Fr. Borys Gudziak in the document.

As RISU reported earlier, in the end of May of this year, the rector of UCU stated that the SBU put pressure on him. The event drew a wide response both in Ukraine and abroad. The head of the SBU personally came to UCU to apologize to the leadership of the university.