Rome: The Ancient St. Peter's Basilica
According to tradition the first church on this site was dedicated 18 November
326 by Pope Sylvester I. Constructed by command of the Emperor Constantine the
Great, it was approximately four hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide.
St. Peter's tomb was in the center of the sanctuary and could be seen by all
the faithful. The pillars that stood in front of this shrine were incorporated
in new locations in the present structure.
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Constantinople: "The Great Church," Hagia Sophia, Cathedral of the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople
Constantine the Great ordered the construction of the first basilica on this
site. Work on the present structure began in 532 on the initiative of Emperor
Justinian the Great; it was dedicated 25 December 537 A.D. Ten thousand
labourers constructed it at a cost of 16 tons of gold. It became a mosque in
1453; today it is a museum of Byzantine architecture.
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Kyiv: The Patriarchal Sobor of the Resurrection of our Lord
The current
re-establishment of Kyiv as the cathedral city of the Greek Catholic Church is
a distinction Kyiv last held in 1633. That was the year King Wladyslaw IV of
Poland deeded St. Sophia Cathedral to the Orthodox Metropolitan Petro Mohyla.
It had been in the possession of the Greek Catholic Church since 1609 when
Metropolitan Ipatiy Potiy had received it from King Sigismund III.
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A Cross in L'viv
In March 1946,
L’viv’s St. George’s Cathedral became the site of one of the most infamous
incidents of Ukrainian history. The so-called "Synod of Lviv” attempted the
eternal destruction of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. In this sketch
the ferocious dark clouds and the angry thunderbolts raking across the sky
symbolize this event. In December 1945, Pope Pius XII, with singular aptness,
applied an Old Testament prophecy to the brutal assault upon Ukraine’s Greek
Catholic Church by atheistic Communism. This was “the day of wrath, a day of
tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and
obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds.” (Zeph.1:15 cited in
Orientales Omnes Ecclesias, 55.) In the early 1990s Communism fell, ground
into the dust by the righteous providence of the Almighty. This sketch depicts
that fall by the shackled cross, now twisted and broken, its base hidden by a
tangle of dead thorns and rusting barbed wire.
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Two Crosses
The
cross in front of L’viv’s St. George’s Cathedral represents the martyrdom of
the Greek Catholic Church in Galicia under the Soviet reign of terror. It is a
cross enslaved by a godless philosophy whose symbol is the hated hammer and
sickle, but more appropriately chains and shackles. It is not a cross of gold
or silver enriched by glowing enamels and precious gems, but rather, to use
the words of Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, "the cross of persecution," the Cross of
Calvary, a reminder of the Golgotha of the Ukrainian people. This is the cross
of the suffering and martyred church of the Ukrainian homeland, imprisoned and
tortured by a brutal regime vowed to its total destruction. By contrast, the
cross over the Patriarchal Sobor in Kyiv is a witness to the new
reality of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. Now unshackled from the
slavery of Communism, it is free to restore every aspect of its ancient
Slavic, Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox heritage.
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Pochiav: The Monastery of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God
Located in the
Lutsk district of Volynia, construction of this magnificent structure was
funded by Count Mykola Potocki following his conversion and return to the
faith. Begun in 1771 and completed in 1782, it is large enough to accommodate
6,000 worshippers. Its two greatest treasures are the wonder-working icon of
Our Lady of Pochiav and the magnificent burial shrine of St. Job Zalizo
(1551-1651).
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Top of Page
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Gallery One - A Witness to the Elect
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Gallery Two - When the Wall Opens Again - Past Tragedy - Future Glory
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Gallery Three - The Saviour and the Gospels: Christ, The Mother of God, and
the Cross
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Gallery Four - Fathers and Saints of the Universal Church
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Gallery Five - Saints and Historians of the Church of Ancient Rus'
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Gallery Six - Metropolitans, Confessors and Patriarchs of the Ukrainian and
Russian Church
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Gallery Seven - Popes and Patriarchs
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Gallery Nine - Texts
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Gallery Ten - Free Designs
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Gallery Eleven - About Us