From Publishers Weekly
This monograph primarily reviews theological historiography and provides a disappointingly scant portrait of the controversial Slipyj who, imprisoned in the Gulag in 1945, was exiled in 1963 to Rome where the Ukrainian Orthodox prelate lived until his death in 1984 at age 92. Pelikan, professor of history at Yale and author of The Christian Tradition , often relies on secondary sources and thereby leaves longstanding questions unanswered: How did the Vatican secure U.S. cooperation in negotiating Slipyj's release?; did Slipyj remain silent during exile about his imprisonment by Soviet stricture, as Pelikan suggests, or might his secrecy have been dictated by a Vatican with its own political agenda? The author supports the widely held assumption that Slipyj was arrested for refusing to vow allegiance to the Russian church (which itself had granted fealty to Stalin), a courageous albeit abortive stand for a synod of Ukrainian Bishops soon capitulated. In exile, Slipyj's position is shown to have remained anomolous, with the Latin church hierarchy as well as many Eastern Rite bishops in the diaspora challenging his ecclesiastical pronouncements. Although Slipyj ceaselessly lobbied his co-religionists around the world to some effect, about the Curia he would complain that his treatment under the Soviets paled by comparison.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Yale historian Pelikan tells the story of Josyf Slipyj, the well-known 20th-century Ukrainian cardinal. Part 1 examines the history of the Slavic Church and Slipyj's place in that tradition. Part 2 traces the amazing career of a man whose 92 years (1892-1984) embraced the Russian Revolution, the Nazi occupation, the Stalin years, and Vatican II. Slipyj's early years of teaching and church leadership were followed by 18 years as a prisoner in the gulags. Released in 1963 but exiled to Rome, he continued his lifelong efforts to preserve the unique place of Ukrainian Catholicism, using his influence to bridge the gap between East and West. In this scholarly rather than popular biography, Pelikan is both thorough and accurate; the exhaustive bibliography contains hundreds of sources in several languages. Recommended for academic libraries.
- C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
