Biography of Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph. D., Rector of the UCU

A leading intellectual and historian in post-Soviet Ukraine, Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph.D., has been recognized for his scholarly and educational achievements. The Ukrainian translation of his Harvard doctoral dissertation, The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest, was recognized in an all-Ukrainian contest in the category "Historical Works" for the year 2000. Also in 2000 he received the Galician (western Ukrainian) knighthood award as the year's outstanding figure in education.

Borys A. Gudziak was born on November 24, 1960 in Syracuse, New York (USA). After completing his undergraduate studies in biology and philosophy at Syracuse University in 1980, he studied theology in Rome in the circle of Patriarch Josef Slipyj. He received a degree in theology from Rome's Urbaniana University in 1983 and then returned to America, where he earned a doctorate in Slavic and Byzantine Cultural History from Harvard University in 1992. In 1995 he received a licentiate degree in Eastern theology from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

Ukraine became independent in 1991. Having completed his doctoral studies, the future rector of the Lviv Theological Academy took up residence in Ukraine to help rebuild the recently-legalized Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) and to contribute to post-Soviet educational development and reform. In 1992 he founded Lviv's Institute of Church History, which had as its inaugural undertaking a sophisticated and innovative project to recording and analyzing the oral history of the UGCC in Soviet times.

Soon after, Dr. Borys Gudziak saw the possibility of fulfilling another of his dreams: the revival of the Lviv Theological Academy. Patriarch Josef Slipyj had been the first rector of the academy, which was closed by the Soviets in 1944. In 1963, after being released from 18 years of captivity in the GULAG, he founded the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. He passed his vision on to his students, a number of whom assisted in its post-Soviet rebirth. Thus in 1993 Dr. Gudziak became head of the Commission for the Revival of the Lviv Theological Academy. In 1994 the Academy was reestablished as a corner stone of the Ukrainian Catholic University, with Borys Gudziak serving as vice-rector for academic affairs 1995-2000.

In addition to serving as an administrator and professor at the Lviv Theological Academy, Dr. Gudziak continued his scholarly endeavors. From 1995 to 2001 he was Project Coordinator for the Ukrainian team of "Aufbruck." This project, coordinated by the Pastorales Forum (Univ. of Vienna), conducted a ten nation comparative study of the effects of totalitarianism on the Catholic Church in the societies of Central and Eastern Europe. Since 1996 he has been chairman of the Ukrainian Committee of the International Association for Comparative Church History.

Dr. Borys Gudziak is the organizer of a number of innovative international scholarly conferences, among which were the "Brest Lectures," (1994-1996). Four volumes of these lectures have been published and two more are being prepared for publication. He has taught at universities in the U.S., Canada, Ukraine, Italy and Poland and has published over thirty scholarly works. (See list below.)

In 1998 he was ordained to the priesthood and in 2000 Fr. Borys Gudziak became the second rector of the revived Lviv Theological Academy.

Selected Publications (English)

Books:

Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest. Cambridge, M. A.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998.

Co-editor of 8 other volumes in Ukrainian on Ukrainian history and editor of the journal of church history, Kovcheh ("Ark").

Articles:

"Four Publications Commemorating the Millennium of Rus'-Ukraine," Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 15, no. 1/2, 1991, pp. 177-191. (Review article)

"Union of Brest," Modern Encyclopedia of Religion in Russia and the Soviet Union. The Academic Press, 1992, vol. 4, pp. 184-93.

"How did They Drift Apart?: The Kievan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest," Logos: a Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, N.S. 31(1993), n. 1-2, pp. 41-66.

"The Union of Florence in the Kievan Metropolitanate: Did it Survive until the Times of the Union of Brest? (Some Reflections on a Recent Argument)," Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 17, no. 1/2, 1993, pp. 138-148. (Review article)

With Viktor Susak, "Becoming a Priest in the Underground: Towards an Oral History of the Clandestine Life of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church," Proceedings of a Conference on Religion and Oral History, University of Bristol, April, 1995.

"The Sixteenth-Century Muscovite Church and Patriarch Jeremiah II's Journey to Muscovy 1588-1589: Some Comments Concerning the Historiography and Sources," Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19(1995): 200-25. Festschrift for Edward L. Keenan.

"The Creation of the Moscow Patriarchate: A Prelude to Patriarchal Reforms in the Kyivan Metropolitanate Preceding the Union of Brest (1595-1596)," Logos: a Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, N.S. 37(1996): 219-71.

"Ukrainian Religious Life during the First Five Years of Independence," in Towards a New Ukraine. Vol. 1. Ukraine and the New World Order. Proceedings of a Conference held on March 21-22, 1997, at the University of Ottawa, ed. Theofilis Kis, Irena Makaryk, Roman Weretelnyk. Ottawa, 1997, pp. 49-72.

"The Kyivan Hierarchy, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and Union with Rome," in Four Hundred Years of the Union of Brest (1596-1996): A Critical Re-Evaluation. Ed. Bert Groen and Wil van den Bercken. Peeters, 1998, pp. 17-53. (Proceedings of a Conference on the Legacy of the Union of Brest, University of Nijmegen, April, 1996.)

Institute of Church History, Lviv Theological Academy. Lviv: ICH, 2001, pp.20.

Also author of articles in Ukrainian, Italian, French, Russian, German and Polish scholarly journals, as well as articles in popular journals and newspapers, commentary on political, cultural and religious affairs, position papers on academic curricula, and introductions to scholarly publications.