The Jewish community of Ukraine in cooperation with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) established a special award – the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Medal, which will be awarded to persons who serve the cause of Ukrainian-Jewish reconciliation.
The head of the UGCC, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, announced this on November 1, the anniversary of the death of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, during a sermon at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection, the Information Department of the UGCC informs.
The Primate of the UGCC recalled that Metropolitan Andrey maintained friendly relations with people of different faiths and nationalities.
“He corresponded with thousands of people, communicating with different people in the East and the West, including Orthodox hierarchs beyond the Zbruch. And then, when the crucible of revolution and civil war drove them from their episcopal sees, his former opponents found refuge and open doors on St. George's Hill in the wards of Metropolitan Andrey. The glorious Antoniy Khrapovytsky, who never showed excessive love for the idea of a Ukrainian national church and an opponent of Metropolitan Andrey, saw a great man who opened the hospitable doors of his house,” said the hierarch.
He also recalled that Andrey Sheptytsky knew Hebrew.
According to the patriarch, today the Jewish community finds his letters and is deeply impressed that he not only wrote in the exquisite language of their community, but also used quotes of spiritual leaders and thinkers of the Jewish community at that time.
“Metropolitan Andrey was a prophet of his time, the prophet of unity between churches, between nations, between world religions. A person who managed to stay a giant spirit and on this basis to construct the new face of the church of the twentieth century, at a time when people were losing their humanity – in the crucible of World War,” said the head of the UGCC.