40th ANNIVERSARY of the Imprisonment of the
Special to The New York Times
ROME, May 25 — Amid the flood of attention on the newly consecrated cardinals from New York and Boston, little limelight remained for Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivski, the third American to be elevated to the College of Cardinals today.
But the slight bearded Cardinal, who was born in Dolena, in the Ukraine, became a naturalized citizen after immigrating to the United States in 1947, and lie taught in St. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic School in Cleveland for 17 years.
Today, he stood out by the flowing red robe that set him apart from the 27 other new cardinals.
Cardinal Lubachivski has been the spiritual leader of some six million Ukrainian Catholics throughout the world since 1984, when he succeeded Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, the Archbishop Major of the Ukrainians, who spent 18 years in soviet prisons before the Vatican obtained his release. Cardinal Slipyj died in Rome last year at 93 years of age.
Studied Theology in Ukraine
Cardinal Lubachivksi, 70 years old, who studied theology with Cardinal Slipyj in the Ukrainian capital, Lvov, as a seminarian, said today that despite the integration of the Ukrainian church into Russian orthodoxy, there were 10 bishops and 400 to 500 priests in the Ukraine who worked clandestinely and remained loyal to the Ukrainian catholic church.
That body is a Uniate branch of Catholicism that returned to the authority of Rome in 1595 after many centuries under the Byzantine Eastern Orthodoxy. There are about 350,000 Ukrainian Catholics in the United States.
Speaking to reporters in the Apostolic Palace today, Cardinal Lubachivski said his message to Ukrainian Catholics in the United States was “to pray and help our people.”
He appealed to President Reagan to use his influence to help the Ukrainian church in the Soviet Union.
“His strong ways make the Russians aware that there is some other power beside themselves,” he said.
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
SUNDAY, MAY 26, 1985
