Eparchy of New Westminster

Patriarchal Commission for Priestly Formation in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Truskavets, Ukraine May 15-17, 2013: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Patriarchal Commission for priestly formation under the leadership of Most Rev. Ken Nowakowski, Bishop of New Westminster for Ukrainian Catholics in British Columbia and Yukon are holding their annual meeting in Truskavets, Ukraine. The members of the commission comprise of rectors of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from around the world. This year the spiritual directors of the seminaries were also invited to join the Commission Members for a joint session before attending a special retreat directed by Rev. Andrij Onuferko, spiritual director of Holy Spirit Seminary in Ottawa and a professor at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute for Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University also in Ottawa, Canada.

The Commission updated the Vocational Awareness Directives brochure that they had published last year, reviewed seminary programs and policies regarding married seminarians, courses on monastic and religious life, and programs for on-going formation of clergy.

Vibrant Parish meeting in Ukraine

Vibrant Parish meeting in Ukraine - May 2013

Brukhovitsi/Lviv, Ukraine, 13/14 May 2013: The Working Group for the Strategic Development of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for the period until 2020 under the leadership of Most Rev. Ken Nowakowski (Bishop of New Westminster, Canada) and Most Rev. Bohdan Dzyurakh (Secretary General of the Synod of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishops) held a working session in Brukhovitsi on 13 May. The Working group is comprised of clergy and lay-faithful from Europe, North & South America and has the responsibility to assist the Ukrainian Catholic Bishops in implementing the pastoral plan based on the Pastoral Letter of HIs Beatitude Sviatoslav, father and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church "The Vibrant Parish, the place to encounter the Living Christ!"

On May 14th the Working Group met with coordinators of each of the Archeparchies, Eparchies and Exarchates (Archdiocese, Diocese) of Ukraine to review the progress, and challenges of the last few months in Ukraine with regard to the Pastoral Plan. The coordinators were also introduced to new documents produced by the Working Group to assist parish priests with pastoral planning and the administration of the parishes.

The members of the Working group also had an opportunity to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with clergy from the Sokal-Zhokva Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy who were on their annual retreat. The Liturgy was celebrated in Blessed Nykyta Budka Chapel. Blessed Nykyta Budka was the first Ukrainian Catholic Bishop in Canada.

Bishop Ken celebrates Divine Liturgy at Sts. Peter & Paul in Lviv

Bishop Ken Nowakowski, Eparch of New Westminster for Ukrainian Catholics in British Columbia and Yukon celebrated Divine Liturgy at Saints Peter & Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Lviv, Ukraine on Sunday 12 May 2013. Fr. Stephan Susse the pastor of the parish welcomed Bishop Ken and Fr. Andrij Onuferko (Spiritual Director of Holy Spirit Seminary in Ottawa, Canada) to the parish. Bishop Ken is in Ukraine this week chairing the Ukrainian Greek Catholic's Pastoral Plan Implementation Team "The Vibrant Parish" and later the Patriarchal Commission for Priestly Formation. Saints Peter & Paul Parish had been closed for public worship since the mid 1940s by the Soviet Authorities. Two years ago the local government opened the church for public worship by Ukrainian Greek Catholics. The church is located in the centre of the City of Lviv and serves more than 2,000 faithful.

Letter from His Beatitude Sviatoslav to the Beloved Mothers of Priests serving in the Ukrainian Greek-CatholicChurch throughout the world
Лист Блаженнішого Святослава до дорогих матерів священиків, які служать в Українській Греко-Католицькій Церкві у світі

Picture: Bishop Ken, Edward & Sandra Shawchuk

Edward Shawchuk was elected the State Deputy of the British Columbia and Yukon Knights of Columbus at their 102nd Annual Convention held in Richmond, BC 26-28 April, 2013. Bishop Ken and the Clergy and Lay-Faithful of the Eparchy of New Westminster extend their congratulations and prayerful support to Edward as he assumes this very important and highest position in the Knights of Columbus in British Columbia and Yukon.

Eparchy of New Westminster celebrates the 1025th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus'!

Click to view photoalbum

This year all Ukrainian Christians celebrate the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of the Kyivan Rus’ – Ukraine. In 988, during the reign of St. Volodymyr the Great, our forefathers believed in Jesus Christ and were baptized. Without fear of contradiction, it can be said that this is the most important event in the history of the Ukrainian people. That event had a profound and indelible impact on our history and culture. The values of the Gospel and of the Christian faith have permeated our way of living, our customs, our tradition. The Baptism of Kyivan Rus’ – Ukraine made us what we are – a Christian people.

The Ukrainian Catholics of the New Westminster Eparchy together with the Orthodox parishes of the Lower Mainland were the first who start to celebrate this event. The official celebration took place on Sunday, April 14, at the St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Center. At the beginning of the festivity Most Rev. Ken (Nowakowski), Bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster, together with Rev. Fr. Roman Tsaplan, the pastor of the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, greeted all the participants and reminded them that absolutely everything that is best, finest and loftiest we owe to our Christian faith, that our forefathers received 1025 years ago. The musical performance of the joint choirs of the Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral Choir, (Director Lydia Gennai), the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral Choir, (Director Willi Zwozdesky), and the Svitanok Chorus, (Director Ann K. Kozak) has created an unforgetful atmosphere of the feast. A prayer-aria “Vladyko Neba i Zemli” permormed by Rev. Fr. Edward Evanko became an “adornment” of that musical part.

In addition to the musical performance, the participants of the celebration also have heard the presentations on the various topics: the history of the Baptism of the Kyivan Rus –Ukraine (by Fr.Andrii Chornenkyi); the cultural and religious impact of the acceptance of Byzantine Christianity by St. Volodymyr on Europe and eventual the New World (by Most. Rev. Ken (Nowakowski)); the influence of Kyivan Byzantine religious practices on the Church in Canada (by Sr. Angelica (Hodowansky) (SSMI)).

The performances by the children the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox School and the Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Heritage School gave hope to all the attendants that in another 1000 years our Ukrainian Christian culture will be alive.

At the conclusion of the celebration Bishop Ken led the rite of the renewal of baptismal vows and blessed all the participants. The official part of the festivity was closed with the traditional “Mnohaya lita”.

Stake Your Claim in Faith

Pastoral Letter for the Year of Faith Bishops of British Columbia and Yukon

From Eparchial Clergy Retreat and Conference held in New Westminster. In the photograph ... the Bishop Ken and the Eparchial Clergy of New Westminster and retreat Director Fr. Fernando. Mignone, Catholic Chaplaincy at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) and the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate - New Westminster home

HIS BEATITUDE SVIATOSLAV HAS INVITED YOU TO KYIV IN 2013!

Celebration of the 1,025th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivian-Rus, Ukraine

HIs Beatitude our Patriarch Sviatoslav has invited the faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church to make a pilgrimage to Kyiv in 2013 to celebrate the 1,025th anniversary of the baptism of Kyivian-Rus, Ukraine! The major celebration will be a special Divine Liturgy on Sunday August 18 at the Holy Resurrection Sobor in Kyiv. Join Metropolitan Lawrence Huculak, OSBM of Winnipeg and Bishops David Motiuk of Edmonton, Ken Nowakowski of New Westminster and Bryan Bayda, C.Ss.R. of Saskatoon on an official pilgrimage to Ukraine 7-21 August. The Pilgrimage will begin in Western Ukraine visiting Lviv, Zarvanytsia, & Ternopil before heading out to Kyiv for the major celebrations. In the next few weeks more details will be announced as soon as the program is finalized. Solaway Travel has been commissioned to assist our Church in arranging for our travel plans and accommodations on this pilgrimage.

Myrna Arychuk
Solaway Travel
3819 Sunset Street,
Burnaby, BC V5G 1T4
myrna@solawaytravel.com
Tel: 604 430 6789 Fax: 604-430-2244
Solaway Travel

The First Biography of Bishop Budka

Bishop Budka, Fathers Jean and Bala.
Sifton, January 1913

In such a situation the responsibility before God and history is great.

– Budka to Cardinal Sincero, 14 January 1928

One-hundred years ago, on Friday, 6 December 1912, Bishop Nykyta Budka arrived in Canada. He and his two priest companions, Lev Sembratovych and Yosyf Bala, had boarded the Canadian Pacific ship Empress of Britain at Liverpool, England, on 29 November and after a rough Atlantic crossing the ship docked at the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, one week later.

Only a few months before, in August, theEmpress of Britain had been forced to return to port after colliding with a cargo vessel, and the Titanic had sunk off the coast of Newfoundland in April 1912. Budka and Bala, never before sailed on an ocean liner and became very sea-sick during the crossing. Sembratovych was the nephew of two Ukrainian Catholic archbishops, Metropolitan Yosyf (1821–1900) and Metropolitan Sylvester (1836–1898), the latter having been made a cardinal in 1895. The experienced Father Lev had been across the ocean several times, having served as a missionary in the United States and Canada since 1907. He was acting as a guide and advisor to the new bishop whereas the recently-ordained Bala had accepted Budka's invitation to be his secretary.

Sembratovych and Budka,
Kolomya 1912

On Saturday, 7 December the Empress of Britain continued on to St. John, New Brunswick, where Budka and his companions disembarked. They continued on to Montreal and celebrated their First Divine Liturgy on Canadian soil on Sunday, 8 December. Bala went on to Winnipeg to prepare for the bishop's enthronement while Budka and Sembratovych visited Canadian church and civil dignitaries in Ottawa and Toronto. They arrived in Winnipeg on 19 December, the feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker according to the Julian Calendar. Three days later, on Sunday, 22 December 1912, Bishop Budka was enthroned at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church.

After only three months in Canada, in March 1913, Budka sent Sembratovych back to Austrian Galicia (western Ukraine) to recruit priests to serve in Canada. A year later, in January 1914, Bala asked to return to his homeland in order to enter the religious life as a Redemptorist. Bishop Budka reluctantly gave Bala permission to do so on condition that he would return to Canada upon completion of his noviciate training. However, when the First World War broke out in August 1914, neither Bala nor Sembratovych were in a position to leave Austria-Hungary, let alone come to Canada, a country with which this Empire was at war. Following the War Father Sembratovych returned to serve in the United States, and Father Bala kept his promise and, returned to Canada to served in the Eastern-Rite Redemptorist missions.

After Bishop Budka's return to Ukraine in 1929 he was somewhat forgotten in Canada. Father Yosyf Bala, however, had not forgotten him. As works began to appear describing the bishop in a negative light, Canadian Ukrainian Catholics decided to tell another side of the story of their first hierarch. And who better to tell it than the only living eyewitness to the beginning of that mission, Budka's first secretary. In 1952 Bala published the first biography to be written about of Nykyta Budka entitled Перший Український Єпископ Канади Кир Никита Будка: В сороклітній ювілей оснування українсько-католицької ієрерхії вКанаді (The First Ukrainian Bishop of Canada Kyr Nykyta Budka: on the Fourtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Ukrainian-Catholic Hierarchy in Canada). This book is now availableonline. In his biography Bala described their sea crossing, their arrival in Canada, and the many challenges of their first year of missionary labour among the Ukrainian immigrants.

Until now Bala's work, a mixture of hagiography and history, had remained the only biography of Bishop Budka. In 1991 the Bishop Budka Council of the Knights of Columbus in Regina, Saskatchewan, released Bala's work in English (with other articles) in a volume entitled Pioneer Bishop: The Story of Bishop Nicetas Budka’s fifteen years in Canada.

A comprehensive historical biography is soon to be released by the Eparchy of Edmonton and Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute. It's tentative title isGod's Martyr, History's Witness: Blessed Nykyta Budka, the first Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop of Canada.

Responsabilitas coram Deo et historia est in tali situatione magna.

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