37 Facts About Andrey Sheptytsky

Andrey Sheptytsky had a major role in raising Ukrainian national consciousness in modern-day western Ukraine and expanded the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Andrey Sheptytsky defended the interests of Ukrainians to the Austro-Hungarian House of Lords and Emperor Franz Joseph, established schools and a hospital society, and founded a seminary and the order of the Ukrainian Studite Monks.

Andrey Sheptytsky facilitated the appointment of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy for Ukrainian immigrants in Canada and the United States.

Andrey Sheptytsky was a member of the National Council of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, and was briefly detained after Galicia became part of Poland in the aftermath of World War I Andrey Sheptytsky defended the Ukrainian Orthodox from persecution by the Polish government.

Andrey Sheptytsky was baptized in the Roman rite at the parish church in Bruchnal.

Andrey Sheptytsky received his education first at home and then in Lviv and later in Krakow.

Andrey Sheptytsky's confessor was Jesuit Henry Nostitz-Jackowski, who was carrying out the reform of the Greek Catholic Basilian Order in Galicia.

Andrey Sheptytsky became a novice at the Basilian monastery in Dobromyl on June 2,1888.

Andrey Sheptytsky took the name, Andrew, after the younger brother of Saint Peter, Andrew the Apostle, considered the founder of the Byzantine Church and specifically of the Ukrainian Church.

Andrey Sheptytsky was made hegumen of the Monastery of St Onuphrius in Lviv in 1896.

In 1899, following the death of Cardinal Sylwester Sembratowicz, Andrey Sheptytsky was nominated by Emperor Franz Joseph to fill the vacant position of Greek Catholic Bishop of Stanyslaviv, and Pope Leo XIII concurred.

Andrey Sheptytsky became deputy speaker of the Galician Diet, a position he held until 1912.

Andrey Sheptytsky was active in promoting the revival and expansion of the Eastern Catholic Churches in the territory of Russian Empire, visiting incognito that country several times and secretly ordaining bishops and priests there.

Andrey Sheptytsky took an active part in the Velehrad congresses.

Andrey Sheptytsky strove for the revival of the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church, and to this end contacted important leaders of the movement for Belarusian nationalism, including Ivan Lutskevich.

Andrey Sheptytsky supported the Ukrainian national movement, founding a Greek Catholic seminary in Stanislaviv, supported the opening of a Ukrainian gymnasium there, and a Ukrainian university and hospital in Lviv.

Andrey Sheptytsky sponsored an exhibition of Ukrainian artists in Lviv in 1905, led a Ukrainian pilgrimage to Palestine, and led a Ukrainian delegation to Emperor Franz Joseph seeking reform of the electoral law.

Andrey Sheptytsky visited North America in 1910 where he met with Ukrainian Greek Catholic immigrant communities in the United States; attended the twenty-first International Eucharistic Congress in Montreal; toured Ukrainian communities in Canada; and invited the Redemptorist fathers ministering in the Byzantine rite to come to Ukraine.

When Russians entered Lviv Andrey Sheptytsky was arrested on September 18,1914 and sent to Kyiv.

Andrey Sheptytsky was released in 1918 and returned to Lviv from the Russian Empire.

Andrey Sheptytsky protested the atheization of youth, organized synods and secretly ordained bishops.

Andrey Sheptytsky contacted the Polish underground to ease Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Andrey Sheptytsky welcomed the Wehrmacht entering Lviv and supported the OUN-B's declaration of Ukrainian independence on June 30,1941.

Nevertheless, in the summer of 1943, Andrey Sheptytsky appointed chaplains for the forming Ukrainian SS-Galizien division.

Also in February 1942, Andrey Sheptytsky sent a letter to Heinrich Himmler protesting the Holocaust in Ukraine.

Andrey Sheptytsky collaborated in this work with the superiors of the Studite orders, Sister Josefa and his brother Klymentiy Sheptytsky.

Andrey Sheptytsky issued on November 21,1942, the pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", to protest Nazi atrocities.

Andrey Sheptytsky wrote in his confidential report to the German Foreign Office on September 19,1943, that Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky, of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, remained adamant in saying that the killing of Jews was an inadmissible act.

Andrey Sheptytsky maintained contacts with the Polish underground and tried to mediate in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict.

Andrey Sheptytsky was aware of the ongoing genocide of the Polish population organized by the forces of OUN-B and the UPA since the summer of 1943.

Andrey Sheptytsky did not condemn it outright, but in a pastoral letter of August 10,1943, he called for saving the lives of those in danger, and in another of August 31, he urged both sides to stop fighting.

Andrey Sheptytsky died in 1944 and is buried in St George's Cathedral in Lviv.

Andrey Sheptytsky strove for reconciliation between ethnic groups and wrote frequently on social issues and spirituality.

Andrey Sheptytsky founded the Studite and Ukrainian Redemptorist orders, a hospital, the National Museum, and the Theological Academy.

Andrey Sheptytsky actively supported various Ukrainian organizations such as the Prosvita and in particular, the Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, and donated a campsite in the Carpathian Mountains called Sokil and became the patron saint of the Plast fraternity Orden Khrestonostsiv.

Jews who were saved thanks to actions of Andrey Sheptytsky have lobbied Yad Vashem for years to have him named Righteous Among the Nations, just as his brother Klymentiy Sheptytsky had been, but so far Yad Vashem has not done so, mostly due to concerns with his initial belief that German invaders would be better for Ukraine than the Soviet Union had been.

The first monument to Metropolitan Andrei Andrey Sheptytsky was erected during his lifetime in 1932.