Month: July 23, 2021 2:59 am

BRUSSELS – The Council of the European Union announced on July 15 that Ukraine has been added to its list of countries it believes no longer require certain travel restrictions. Member states of the EU use those recommendations to decide whether to impose COVID-19-related travel restrictions.

LVIV – During a national pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia, Ukraine, on July 18, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) presented Mykola Kmit, senator emeritus and benefactor of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), the Church’s highest honor, the Order of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Archbishop Chrysos­tomos, primate of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, issued a statement that he will implement methods to put in place members of the Synod of the Church of Cyprus who do not agree with the decision to recognize the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that was granted by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in January 2019.

It is disheartening to hear that, despite the lengths to which Ukraine has gone to protect Europe’s eastern flank from Russian aggression, key allies in Europe are still unwilling to support even a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine.

Thirty years ago, on July 25, 1991, the last henchman of the Stalin regime – Lazar Kaganovich – died in Moscow at the age of 97. The Ukrainian Weekly’s editorial of the August 4 issue that year reminded readers that the man known as the “Iron Commissar” helped Joseph Stalin institute and maintain his reign of terror in the USSR during the 1930s and 1940s.

We always suspected it. We tried to tell reporters, politicians, RCMP investigators, even a few of those who were against us in the public arena, about what we were certain was true – but they wouldn’t believe us. I can’t blame them. There was no hard proof, not in the 1980s, to confirm Soviet agents of influence had initiated “active measures” to undermine the anti-Communist Ukrainian community in the West.

Since the remains of 215 children buried on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia were found on May 27, the issue of residential schools and the treatment of indigenous people has dominated Canadian media. More such discoveries followed, including 751 children at a former residential school in Cowessess, Saskatchewan, and another 160 at the former Kuper Island Industrial School site near Chemainus, B.C.

As improbable as it may seem to us today, the United States saved the Soviet Union twice: the first time was in 1921, during Lenin’s rule when famine struck Russia and thousands were perishing from hunger; the second time came during Stalin’s tenure, when the Soviet Union was desperate for American military assistance. Let’s look at the first instance.

KERHONKSON, N.Y. – For more than 12 months, the Soyuzivka Heritage Center in Kerhonkson, N.Y., had rested in eerie silence, and for the second straight year, odds for the Soyuzivka Cultural Festival seeing light of day appeared slim indeed. But after many grim warnings regarding COVID-19 and mandated lockdowns, the Ukrainian community was parched for an opportunity to reconnect and to celebrate the cultural ideals that bind its members together.

The Roma Pryma Bohachevsky (RPB) Dance Academy Workshop has invariably been one of the highlights of the Ukrainian Cultural Festival. The group’s exciting dance presentations are not only entertaining, but they also preserve Ukrainian heritage by illustrating steps and costumes from various regions of Ukraine.

Scheduling performers and advertising while fortifying a huge venue like the Soyuzivka Heritage Center for the influx of many hundreds of concertgoers usually requires many months of detailed work. But the Ukrainian Cultural Festival is such an important part of the mission of the Ukrainian National Foundation (UNF) that all involved rolled up their sleeves and completed the task in only three weeks (The VIP gala for donors was actually finalized with merely one week lead time).

Uniformed members of the Ukrainian American Veterans (UAV) have long comprised the honor guard carrying the flags at the main program of the Soyuzivka festivals. This non-political brotherhood of American veterans is united by shared military experience, common Ukrainian heritage and the desire to help other current or newly discharged brothers and sisters within our community. Responding to ongoing Russian invasions, they continue to raise much needed awareness and funding for wounded Ukrainian veterans.