Happy Birthday Patriarch Iosif I (Slipyj)!

This post was a bit late, for the Ukrainian Catholics celebrated his birthday 2 days ago, but as the saying goes: "better late than never".

From Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU)

Today is the 120th anniversary of Josyf Slipyj, Major Archbishop, Patriarch, Cardinal and Metropolitan (1944-84).

He was born in Zazdrist in western Ukraine on 17 February 1892, he was a churchman of three careers: scholar, confessor of the faith and an international voice for persecuted Christians. After studies in Lviv, Innsbruck (Austria), Rome and Paris, he became a professor and then Rector (1928-44) of the Lviv Seminary and Theological Academy. A prolific writer, his collected works include some twenty volumes. In 1939 he was ordained archbishop by Metropolitan Sheptytsky and succeeded him as head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church upon the latter's death on 1 November 1944.

On 11 April 11 1945 Slipij was arrested by the Soviet authorities and spent eighteen years in Stalinist prisons, labor camps and Siberian exile, where he earned a reputation for being an iron-willed, intrepid witness to the faith. Through the intervention of Pope John XXIII and President Kennedy he was released in 1963 to attend the Second Vatican Council.

During the following twenty-one years Slipyj energized the life of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the West, establishing the Ukrainian Catholic University and building the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Rome. His death on 7 September 1984 was followed in 1992 by the translation of his remains to Lviv, where they were interred in St. George's Cathedral with the participation of over a million faithful.



Previous Article here in Eastern Rite Catholic Filipinos about Cardinal Slipyj when he was imprisoned in the USSR and when he continued his pastoral ministry in Rome.

HIS BEATITUDE CARDINAL JOSYF SLIPYJ (1892-1984), Confessor of Faith and First Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Blessed John Paul II blessing and praying in front of the remains of his friend, Cardinal Iosif (Slipyj)

His Holiness Pope John Paul II visiting the remains of His Beatitude Cardinal Josyf Slipyj

Вічну пам'ять Блаженнійшого кардинала Йосипа Сліпого!!!!!