Bishop says Ukraine experiencing boom in ethics and theological formation

Oct 23, 2006 / 22:00 pm

During a visit to the headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need, Auxiliary Bishop Yaroslav Pryriz of Sambir-Drohobycz in Ukraine thanked the benefactors of the organization for bringing about “an explosion” in Catholic education.

Bishop Pryriz, who is a Redemptorist, focused on the recognition of theology as an academic discipline by the state.  He said advances in theological training had made such progress possible.  “This massive explosion of theological formation is like a baby being nurtured by the benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need,” he stated.

The Bishop went on to explain that Christian ethics are now allowed to be taught in schools and universities and that much of the efforts of the Church are being focused on this task, particularly through the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.  “Other universities are now much more open to cooperation with the Catholic University since theology has been recognized as a subject, so there is a lot of interchange going on,” he said.

Bishop Pryriz noted that the Greek Catholic Church was already cooperating with the Kyivan Patriarchate Orthodox Church in Christian ethics educational programs and had a crucial role in developing ecumenical relations. “The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church can serve as a model by which Orthodox Churches in Ukraine can remain eastern and yet have full communion with Rome,” he said.