On June 19, 2024 we want to talk about the first metropolitan of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USA, Constantine Bohachevsky. This week, we celebrate two important anniversaries of his life and ministry: the 140th anniversary of his birth and the 100th anniversary of his episcopal ordination. Let's share some interesting facts from his life:
- Constantine Bohachevsky received his education in Lviv, Innsbruck, and Munich, and had a doctorate in canon law. He also had extensive experience in church administration and worked in the seminaries of the Lviv and Przemyśl eparchies.
- He was a military chaplain during World War I.
- Due to his ministry among Ukrainians in Przemyśl, he was imprisoned for eight months.
- Bishop Constantine headed the Ukrainian Exarchate and later the Philadelphia Metropolia for 37 years, during which he faithfully and courageously built our Church in America.
He structurally united the scattered faithful and parishes in America, which had been without the protection of their bishop for eight years and suffered from divisions and apostasy.
- Bohachevsky founded two seminaries in the United States to train priests for the Church in America. Many graduates of these seminaries contributed to the development of our Church in other countries and the restoration of the Church in Ukraine in the early 1990s.
- Bishop Constantine organized a committee to help Ukrainian refugees in camps in Europe. This committee helped 40,000 people start new lives in America.
- He also took care of the education of his faithful and contributed to the development of parish schools. For this, he invited the Sisters Servants and Redemptorist Fathers to serve in the Exarchate. He also founded the congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Mother of God.
- Bohachevsky cared about the preservation and transmission of our history and traditions, so he founded a museum in Stamford, CT. In every issue of Eparchial News (a publication for priests founded by Bohachevsky in 1925), he requested that parishes send booklets and books to the Exarchate office for preservation for future generations.
- Bishop Constantine started the eparchial newspaper The Way in 1940, which has been sharing stories about the life of the Church in America for 84 years.
- He worked tirelessly, often sacrificing sleep and health to manage the numerous tasks and challenges he faced daily.
We are adding a photo of the young Bishop Constantine after he arrived in the United States, a photo from his visitation of our parishes in Brazil, and his letter to Father Stepan Bakhtalovsky, CSsR, which offers insight into the Bishop's life in the 1940s.