20 volumes of research papers out of the “Kyivan Christianity” series were presented as part of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, which is now being held in Rome.
The event took place at the Ukrainian Collegium of Saint Jehoshaphat in Rome, the UGCC Information Department reports.
Patriarch Svyatoslav of the UGCC, who took part in the presentation, noted that the scientific research project “Kyivan Christianity” is aptly combined with the main theme of the Synod “Unity and Communion of the UGCC”.
According to him, centeredness on Kyiv is one of the markers of our identity
“It is important that today all the faithful of our Church in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, America and Ukraine were aware that they belong to the Church, the center of which is in Kyiv. We also see that a large layer of our historical memory is yet to be discovered by us,” the Head of the UGCC said.
Patriarch Sviatoslav gave this work as a gift to the Pontifical Oriental Institute. He thanked the donors who support this research. As a separate act, the head of the UGCC expressed gratitude to the donors of the scientific research series entitled “Kyivan Christianity”, in particular to Bogdan Buka, Zinoviy Kozitsky, Myroslav Senyk, Ivan Torsky and Oleg Shuptar.
Kyivan Christianity series
The publisher series “Kyivan Christianity”, launched in 2013, presents the scientific results of the educational and research program of the Department of Humanities, Philosophy and theology of the Ukrainian Catholic University “Kyivan Christianity and the Uniate tradition”. Supported by the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, the academic initiative should strengthen the prophetic voice of the Kyivan Church and promote the unity of the Ukrainian churches of St Volodymyr’s Baptism.
In 2015, the company launched a public segment of the program project “Conciliar Ukraine and Kyivan Tradition” that has enabled the public articulation of the idea of the Kyivan Church and underscored the thousand-year’ connection between Ukrainian culture and Christianity.
The academic objective of the program is a critical study of the theological, canonical and socio-cultural sources of the tradition of the Kyiv Metropolis in the broader comparative context of the universal Christian traditions of Byzantium, the Latin West and Eastern Orthodox communities, as well as the reception of the Uniate idea in the Slavic lands. The program is mainly focused on the interdisciplinary study of the existing civilizational borderland of the Christian East and West of the Kyivan tradition.
The basis for the formation of the Kyivan Christian ethos became the Slavic-Byzantine rite (in particular, the Eastern Liturgy), the original theological thought and the local Church law, the unified canonical territory, specific spirituality, socio-cultural and religious practices, codified Church Slavonic language and long memory of the past. Together, they created elements of continuity of the then culture, and in modern times it enabled the formation of national identities and the emergence of new ecclesiological communities in Eastern and Central-Eastern Europe.
In September 2017, 11 volumes of scientific research out of the “Kyivan Christianity” series were presented in St Sofia of Kyiv.
RISU, risu.org.ua
