Religious Life
Lemkos do not have their own churches in Ukraine. In addition, most of the Orthodox churches in western Ukraine have, since 1990, returned to the jurisdiction of the Byzantine Catholic Church under the Major-Archbishop of L'viv Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky. In any case, the customs of the western Ukrainian churches are very similar to those of the Lemko Region, and the services are identical. In a move to use the vernacular in liturgical services, the Byzantine Catholic Church in western Ukraine has introduced the literary Ukrainian language along with the traditional Old Church Slavonic.
On April 7, 1991 (Easter Sunday), Major-Archbishop Lubachivsky, assisted by retired L'viv Archbishop Volodymyr Sternjuk and Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk of Winnipeg, Canada blessed the foundation of a Lemko church to be constructed in "Shevchenko Haj," the outdoor museum of Folk Architecture and Culture in L'viv.177
[continue on]
or
Return to Table of Contents