Mir Vam!
These were the words which His Beatitude Archbishop Major Joseph Slipyj spoke to the Ukrainian Catholics who gathered at Philadelphia International Airport to welcome him on his arrival at the territory of the Ukrainian Catholic Metropolia in the United States. His Beatitude renewed this greeting at every opportunity; during the aoilemn vespers in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, in course of the Liturgy at Fox Chase, at the welcoming banquet in Sheraton Hotel, at the meeting with laity in Nicetown. On each occasion he explained in detail the application of this slogan to the life of the Ukrainian disapora.
In his speeches and remarks during this visit His Beatitude avoided rhetorical formalism; instead he addressed sincere, fatherly words to the laity dedicated to his person and his ideals. The words flowed from the depth of his heart and were incribed into the souls of the reverent listeners, in the most understandable manner our Patriarch-equivalent First Archbishop crystalized the main issues in our common struggle to safeguard our Ukrainian Catholic Church in this crucial period which will decide whether it is “to be or not to be”. He delineated the duties of our Church hierarchy and the laity on the road to the realization of our eventual goal.
The Ukrainian Catholic Church and its distinct rites are the creation of centuries of history; they reflect the spiritual culture of our people to such an extent that now they are an integral part of our national and political identity. The strenghtening of its autonomy and its eventual fulfillment in the form of the Kievan-Galician Patriarchate are the absolute prerequisites for its very existence. Such an achievement would also form a first step toward the national rennaissance of the Ukraine into the circle of the world’s free nations.
Our faithfulness to the Apostolic See is not subject to the slightest doubt; it has been confirmed by the heroic deaths of nearly the whole of our Church hierarchy in the Ukraine and “by mountains of corpses and rivers of shed blood” there. But what is also not subject to the slightest doubt is that there are rights and duties established by the pacts of Berest and Uzhhorod which govern the relationship between the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Holy See. This net of mutual obligations was recognized as fully valid by the Second Vatican Council. It is high time that our renewed Church shine as bright and unique jewel within the world Church. Furthermore, the ideal of all-Christian union, which is so popular nowadays, can only be furthered when the Vatican rejects striving for Roman Catholic supremacy and allows our Church to become a self-governing branch that, in the future, would serve as a bridge toward the East.
Internally, we need union among our hierarchy, monastic orders and laity so that under one leadership we could undertake common action to resuscitate our threatened Church. Responsibility toward history and our own people compels us to find a way of the current tragic situation. On our ability for successful action is dependent the better future of our nation.
All of us — the Church and God’s people — are members of this same Mother Ukraine; all of us have the same blood and bones and the same culture as our brothers and sisters in our enslaved country. The people of the countries in which we live now value our spiritual heritage and encourage us to preserve and develop our culture in this free environment. Would it then be appropriate for us to neglect this priceless heritage? There is not the slightest need nor sense to do this because — as we should always remember — nobody will respect us if we do not respect ourselves.
Mir vam! — in our families, those primeval and fundamental cells of human existence of God’s earth;
Mir vam! — in our organizations and fraternities, those units of our social existence;
Mir vam! — in our society in diaspora, spiritually united with our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine;
Mir vam! — in our community united by one Ideal and one Action.
Mir vам!
