About the Ukrainian Church and the Studite monastery in Bethlehem. The history of one unfinished project of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytskyi

Abstract

In 1906, an all-Ukrainian national pilgrimage set off from Lviv to the Holy Land, in which more than 500 people took part. This was the first official pilgrimage from Ukraine after the glorious Danylo the Pilgrim. It became possible thanks to Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytskyi. The details of this pilgrimage are described in detail in a commemorative book entitled «How Russ followed in the footsteps of Danylo», published in 1907 by the Publishing House of the Basilian Fathers in Zhovkva. However, this book does not mention anything about one of the grandiose projects of Metropolitan Andrey in the Middle East, which consisted in the creation of a Studite Monastery and a Pilgrim Center for pilgrims from Ukraine in Bethlehem. Negotiations on this matter with the Melchite Patriarch Cyril VIII were initiated by Metropolitan Andrey. The core of the project was of a Uniate character, since in the Metropolitan’s plans the Monastery with a Pilgrimage Center was to become a place of mutual knowledge and rapprochement between Orthodox and Catholics. For the realization of this aim, Metropolitan Andrey had allocated very respectable funds, and also began to train appropriate personnel from the Studite monks. But, unfortunately, due to various circumstances, mainly because of the outbreak of the First World War, this project was never implemented. In the Central State Historical Archive of Lviv there are many documents that shed light on the various stages of the implementation of the project for the construction of the Studite monastery and pilgrimage center for the Ukrainians in Bethlehem.

This article presents the entire story of the planned but unfinished project of Metropolitan Andrey. Archival documents and their translations are published for the first time.