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Christian Social Ethics in Ukraine: The Legacy of Andrei Sheptytsky

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It is to the detriment of modern history that ANDRII SHEPTYTS'KYI is little known in Western nations. Sheptyts'kyi stands as a collossal figure in the life of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and as a significant bridge between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. However, Andrii Krawchuk's text goes beyond the restricted readership of those interested in Church matters or Christian ethics. The text brilliantly highlights Sheptyts'kyi's struggle to combat the spread of communism and fascism during his 44 year tenure as the Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Krawchuk succinctly portrays how Sheptyts'kyi tackled the issues of nationalism, and how this could best be focussed toward the improvement of social justice within a nation, as well as how it could also lead eventually to a sense of internationalism - a respect for all nationalities. Later in the text Krawchuk describes how the Ukrainian Metropolitan sought to protect not only his own parishoners but also those Ukrainian citizens who were Orthodox and Jewish. In fact Sheptyts'kyi's resolute stance against the NAZI persecution of the Jews, saw him challenge Heinrich Himmler himself, only to be warned by the SS leader that but for Sheptyts'kyi's age he would have been executed. Details of Sheptyts'kyi's network of clergy who falsified Baptismal forms and smuggled Jewish children to monasteries, make for a better read than "Schindler's Ark". I thoroughly recommend this text to any person wishing to read a work which is uplifting - it is fundamentally a tale of one man's desire to see the message of the Gospel placed firmly here on earth; one man's odyssey against two evil regimes which traversed his beloved nation. "Christian Social Ethics in Ukraine", is in short the saga of a truly great 20th Century figure, perhaps with the hindsight of history - to be considered amongst the greatest.